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Parenting Instructor Arrested
May 10, 2006 permalink
Do you need to take parenting classes? In this Kentucky case, an instructor sets an example for her students by leaving a child unattended. Also take note of her (criminal) resumé.
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Child is left alone inside car
Home of Innocents worker is charged
A woman who taught child-care skills to parents of children at Home of the Innocents was arrested on Derby Day and accused of leaving an 18-month-old girl in a car for at least 15 minutes at an off-track-betting facility.
The child was sweating because there was no shade in the car but was otherwise OK, authorities said.
Barbara A. Calloway, 57, of the 3900 block of Vermont Avenue, was charged with felony criminal abuse. She was released from Louisville Metro Corrections Sunday, according to jail records.
Calloway, a child-care worker for about four years, was supposed to be taking the child and the child's mother to buy groceries, said Gordon Brown, president and CEO of the home. The mother, who had been let off at the grocery, was not charged.
"This is … totally the antithesis of what Home of the Innocents stands for," Brown said. "We are all shocked."
Calloway declined to comment last night.
Sgt. Robert Huff of the Jefferson County sheriff's office noticed the child about 3 p.m. strapped into a child-safety seat in the locked car, which had its windows rolled most of the way down. The car was parked at Trackside OTB, 4520 Poplar Level Road.
Sheriff's deputies estimated that the child had been in the car 15 to 20 minutes before they found her, said Lt. Col. Carl Yates, head of community service for the sheriff's office. "I'm just glad we found the baby before she got dehydrated," he said.
He said they traced the car to Home of the Innocents, which cares for children who are in state foster care because of abandonment, abuse or neglect. It also cares for medically fragile and autistic children, Brown said.
Deputies asked the home to send someone to get the child.
About the same time, Calloway, who also goes by the last names of Brown and Watkins, according to jail records, walked out to the car and was arrested.
Brown said Calloway was fired immediately. He said she had taught many classes that stress the dangers of leaving a child alone in a car.
The home knew that Calloway had a criminal record for writing bad checks and that she had served prison time in the late 1990s, but it was not the kind of offense that would prevent hiring her, Brown said.
The home also performed two background checks on her last year. They found only two traffic violations after she was released from prison, he said.
Source: Lousiville Courier-Journal
pointed out by a VOCA reader
