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‘Emergency closure’ order issued for Little Blessings Child Care in Bainbridge over alleged child abuse
The childcare facility has “48 hours in which to appeal this decision before an administrative law judge with the Office of State Administrative Hearings”
Jamiya Coleman | Aug. 22, 2025 | 1:55 PM EDT. . . On Aug. 13, court documents say that “Bright from the Start was notified that a staff member at Little Blessings Child Care assaulted a one-year-old child that was in its care.”
As a result, Bright from the Start began an investigation and determined that during the morning hours two days before, two staff members were supervising 11 one-year-old children, the documents indicated.
While one of the staff members walked out of the classroom, the second staff member, who court papers identified as Thurston, “forcefully pushed a table into a child and the child fell.” The 54-year-old “failed to check on the child and did not help him up,” the records read.
Moments later, Thurston allegedly forcefully “picked the child up by his face using her hands, which held each side of his face,” just before sitting him down and forcefully pushing the child up to the table and beginning to serve the other children their lunch, according to the court papers. However, court documents revealed that “the injured child was never fed lunch.”
Shortly after, the staff member, who initially walked out of the classroom, returned to the room after the encounter between the 1-year-old and Thurston.
The 54-year-old suspect subsequently took the injured child into the hallway, where the two were “gone for no more than one minute,” according to the court documents.
Thurston then returned to the classroom with the 1-year-old, “holding him in her arms and put his head in her chest to what appears to prevent” the staff member from seeing the child’s face, records say. Moments later, Thurston allegedly put the young boy on the floor and “kept holding and pushing him down on the mat when he would try to get up.”
The court papers went on to mention a camera that showed Thurston wiping the child’s face. However, due to the camera’s view, it could not be determined what the 54-year-old was wiping.
The staff member said Thurston initially stated that the 1-year-old was scratched by another child. However, after nap time, court records say “they observed that the child’s eye was swollen shut and the child had a black eye in addition to the scratches.”
Thurston claimed that the other child “scratched the injured child in the face and hit him in the face with a toy phone,” according to the documents. But the other staff member said she never saw the two children around each other.
The 54-year-old told the staff member, “Well I guess this is his initiation to daycare,” just before taking the child to the front office, the court papers read.
Shortly after, another staff member at the learning center gave Thurston an ice pack to put on the 1-year-old’s eye and called the child’s parents. However, court records revealed that Thurston did not place the ice pack on the child’s eye.
The child’s parent arrived at the learning center about an hour later due to working in Florida.
Upon arrival, the parent initially accepted what Thurston said about another child injuring their child, per the documents. However, the parent said “it did not sit right” because the child’s eye was getting worse and turning purple,” and requested to see the video about 30 minutes later, according to the records.
A staff member began to show the parent the video, but when they did not see anything, the parent then called the police.
Meanwhile, Thurston, who court records say usually leaves work at 6 p.m., had left work nearly 30 minutes early “due to a lower number of children in care.”
Police then arrived on the scene and called Thurston to come back, where they arrested her after reviewing the video and observing what happened.
The 54-year-old daycare worker “stuck to her story about the injured child being hit and scratched by another child,” per the court papers. . . .
https://www.wctv.tv/2025/08/22/emergency-closure-order-issued-little-blessings-child-care-bainbridge-after-alleged-child-abuse/
