Unattended Children Policy
Revised: 5 Mar 2012
Purpose:
The purpose of this policy is to support the Mission of the Ohio County Public Library. Briefly, the Mission of OCPL is to provide information services to its community.
While all members of our community are welcome to use the library facility, OCPL Staff and Board of Trustees cannot be held as responsible or appropriate supervision for its unattended, younger patrons.
Definition:
An unattended child is any person under the age of 14 not accompanied by parent, legal guardian or their appointed sitter. For the terms of this policy, "parent" will refer to actual parents, legal guardian, appointed sitter or grandparent in charge of the child that day. A "child" is anyone under the age of 14. Patrons aged 14 and older are generally considered responsible for themselves.
Guidelines:
All children under the age of 14 must be accompanied by their parent.
Any child attending a library-sponsored event must be accompanied by their parent, unless the child is attending as class or school field trip when they will be accompanied by their teacher.
Parents of pre-school age children participating in library programming (i.e. story time) must be in the same room with their child during the event.
Parents of elementary school children must accompany their child to a library-sponsored event. The parent is to remain in the library facility during the events. Parents may or may not be required to attend these events, depending on the nature of the program.
Children who use disruptive behavior (excessively loud voices, negative comments to another patron, play-ground actions, etc) while in the Library facility or while attending a Library program will be asked to leave with their parent.
If a child has been left unattended at OCPL and the Library needs to close for the day, the child may use the Library's phone to call a parent before the Library closes. OCPL Staff are not required to wait for parents to pick up their child. If the child has not been picked up by closing time, OCPL will call the Police to retrieve the unattended child.
