I know here in California, there are hot lines for elderly abuse & child abuse. They can be called anonomously & then they take action from there. Unfortunately, I personally found out about this when the police were called anonomously accusing me of abusing my mother (elderly abuse). The police came out immediately & were totally rude, not even willing to listen to what was happening to me & the fact that the home care RN was the one pulling ID theft at the time. It was a frightening experience being accused of something that I didn't do, but it is good to know that kind of help is available when there actually is a problem. When the RN OD'ed my mother on morphine, & my mother was taken to the hospital, I was finally able to get together with the social worker at the hospital & we both filed a report with Adult Protective Services against the RN.

The only point I feel strongly about is that it is necessary that you really should know the complete story of why the child is running around all day without supervision before ever getting the authorities involved.....I know what it was like when I was being acussed of something I didn't do....that is why I would try to find out alot more about the situation before bringing in the authorities. Things aren't always what they look like. I had a rebelious young daughter & when we on vacation in Jackson Hole Wyo in winter -40 degrees, she got mad at us & went out into the snow without any shoes or socks on.....running away. We just waited until she got cold enough to come back in, but she was so stubborn, it took her a long time to come back into our condo. My point being that since you were introduced to the child, it would be a good idea to get to know the parent (mother or father) who is caring (or who isn't caring) for the child before taking any action.

Debbie