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Her son died at a Norfolk church-run day care. Now she's pushing for child care reform.

Virginian-Pilot - 5/11/2017

May 11--NORFOLK -- Betsy Cummings got the phone call at 2:10 p.m. almost exactly seven years ago.

Something had happened to her 7-week-old son, Dylan, at his church-run day care on East Little Creek Road.

"It was kind of like time slowed down," Cummings said last week. The woman on the phone said her son wasn't breathing.

"I hung up on her and ran."

The rest of that afternoon unfolded painfully slowly. Cummings remembers stopping at a red light on her way to Little Eagles Day Care and seeing a man and his child walking across the street.

"I remember thinking, 'God, I hope I still have that.' "

When she arrived and stepped inside the day care, she asked if her son was OK.

He wasn't.

Later she'd learn her son had been found unresponsive after being placed on his stomach to sleep, in a nap room converted from electrical storage, warm and stuffy without windows. Later still she'd turn her pain into advocacy for child care reform.

But that day in 2010, she had to wait for answers as detectives and paramedics swirled around her.

Screaming and crying, she fell to the floor.

"Have you heard?"

Cummings, now 29, often relives that afternoon, repeating it dozens of times in front of lawmakers.

She has been fiercely pushing for child care reform in Virginia since Dylan's tragic death in 2010.

His now-closed Little Eagles Day Care was affiliated with a church, Bethel Temple Church of Deliverance. At the time, Cummings said she thought that made it a great place to leave her child -- in the hands of God.

But after Dylan's death, she discovered religious day cares in Virginia don't have to get licensed. They can operate without regular state inspections or certain safety standards. There are 150 religious exempt child day cares in South Hampton Roads, out of almost 1,000 statewide.

"I thought it was licensed, because it was in a building, not a home. ... I never heard of religious exempt (day cares) until the day after my son's death," Cummings said. "That prompted me to start doing my own research."

At the time of Dylan's death, Cummings was 22 and serving as a boatswain's mate in the Navy.

She grew up in Culpeper about three hours northwest of Hampton Roads, and left for boot camp the summer after graduating high school.

"9/11 really struck a chord with me when I was younger and it kind of changed something in me," she said. "I would still be in the Navy right now if my son had not died."

In Norfolk, she married and had her first and only son, Dylan. The dreaded call on May 25, 2010, came just days after Cummings had gone back to work after maternity leave. Her husband was deployed.

"I dropped (Dylan) off at 6 that morning, dropped off a blanket in the cubby room. I kissed him on his head twice, one for me and one for his father, then I went to work."

After his death, when Cummings found out about the religious exemption in Virginia, she said she couldn't keep the knowledge to herself.

"I'd go around walking down the sidewalk and grocery store. I'd stop people or pregnant women and ask them, 'Have you heard about religious exempt child care facilities?'" she said. "I thought maybe I failed my son and everybody else knew about it. But 99 percent of people I talked to had never heard about it."

So she decided to spread the word.

The first time was at a 2011 summit in Washington where child care advocates and families met with federal representatives and urged them to not cut funding. From there, her work in that world grew. She has gone back to Washington several times including this year, as well as testifying before Virginia General Assembly committees and subcommittees.

"Betsy was just relentless in making sure that legislators make the connection between what happened to her" and what the laws are, said Grace Reef, a policy consultant for Child Care Aware Virginia, which advocates on child care issues. "Her story's really compelling because it did happen and it could've been prevented. There were so many mistakes made, but no laws were violated because there aren't any that apply."

"Two steps back"

Much of the time her advocacy work can be defeating.

The most recent blow came with the failure of a Virginia bill that would have added basic safety protections like safe sleep protocols -- a topic near Cummings' heart -- to the state rule book. But lawmakers changed the bill from its original form, and last week Gov. Terry McAuliffe vetoed it.

Senate Bill 1239 was introduced to add basic safety procedures across the board, regardless of a day care's exempt status.

"It's very common sense legislation," Cummings said. But after the bill cleared the Senate, Republican House members overhauled it in a way that took out many safety measures currently in state code, like required handwashing, child to staff ratios, and health and fire department inspections.

This sided with religious organizations that often argue more regulations represent government overreach.

"We take strong exception to the state licensing a ministry of a local church, including a day care," Dan Zacharias, executive director of the Old Dominion Association of Church Schools, told the Pilot earlier this year. His organization supported SB 1239 in its modified form. "We feel there's an unfair characterization of all unlicensed child care as if it were unsafe. ... Our contention is they're among the safest in the state."

Many legislators seemed to agree.

"Yes, child safety is critical," Republican Del. Bobby Orrock of Caroline County said on the House floor. "But we saw no compelling reason to separate out a religious day care facility to be held to a higher standard."

A report from Child Care Aware of Virginia called the move "one step forward, two steps back."

While the bill added requirements such as reporting of serious child injuries or deaths and CPR training of staff people, getting rid of other requirements already in place ultimately undermines child safety in Virginia, organization officials said.

The report also mentioned Dylan Cummings' story, noting he died despite known safe sleep practices.

"Betsy's story points to why protections are needed," Reef said. Cummings attended almost every related committee meeting or hearing during the most recent General Assembly session, Reef added.

"This is what I need to do"

To Cummings, her story is almost rote now. She tells it time and time again.

But the pain never goes away.

When SB 1239 failed recently, "it kind of hurt," she said. "I know this is politics and you can't get your emotions too involved, but it's kind of hard not to. ... They didn't lose their child to this system."

Advocacy "is an exhausting task. Sometimes I don't want to do it anymore. ... After it's done and I go back home, I start to feel overwhelmed and depressed and everything sets in again."

But, she says, someone has to do it. And no one else can tell her story.

She said she sees her son's death as a sign from above, leading her to make change and help other people.

"The weird thing is my son's death served to strengthen my relationship with God. ... It dawned upon me one day that this is what I need to do."

But she can't sit in a church or religious institutional space anymore.

"I either cry through most of the ceremony or I associate the people with those who were responsible for my son's death," she said.

The tragedy also led her to a new line of work as a paralegal. Now divorced, Cummings moved back to Culpeper in 2013 with a bachelor's in paralegal studies. She works at a firm in Charlottesville and will finish up an associate degree in criminal justice this week.

She dealt with criminal and civil trials against the day care's workers in the case of Dylan's death. It was confusing, and she said she wants to help others navigate the criminal justice system.

In 2012, Norfolk Judge Charles E. Poston tossed out felony charges against Little Eagles Day Care workers -- "a huge blow" for Cummings.

"While the Court is certainly sympathetic with the concerns expressed ... the remedy for this situation lies in the sound discretion of the General Assembly, not with the judiciary," Poston wrote in his opinion.

Cummings has taken that to heart. She intends to share her story with lawmakers until they approve a remedy that could've saved her son.

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(c)2017 The Virginian-Pilot (Norfolk, Va.)

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