Please help me demand the following from Hobsonville Point Primary school:

1. Ensuring that if the school is aligning itself to an out of school care provider, that it takes accountability for ensuring that it is safe, inclusive, developmentally appropriate and meets the needs of its community.

2. That where issues arise that are not dealt with effectively by the provider, the school takes a proactive approach with complaint resolution, ensuring that families are not victimised or disadvantaged for speaking up. 

3. That the school supports programmes that are developmentally appropriate for children, and are physically and emotionally safe. 

4. To conduct a confidential review around PKC as a service provider, allowing parents the opportunity to freely express their experiences with PKC including programme strengths and concerns.

5. Ensure any concerns are addressed appropriately in order to allow PKC to continue to provide services at the school.

Why am I asking for your help?

My name is Lauren, and I am a mother of a child in LC3. My son attended PKC Holiday Program at Sunderland Lounge last Easter for the first time.

At pick up I witnessed multiple safety concerns plus my son came home covered in flea bites.

1) I arrived at Sunderland Lounge. Gate and doors were wide open, no staff greeted me. Only one staff was inside who didn't notice me walk around the whole building. Anyone could enter or leave the building, child or adult. 

2) I found my son on the playground outside with one staff member and 15+ kids (should be minimum 2+ outside the building and max 10 kids). I called to my son from the roadside and he ran over to me, the staff member didn't even notice. Any child could run away from the group unnoticed. 

3) I went over to the staff member to let her know I was taking my son, she had never met me, said it was fine. Anyone can take home anyone's child unverified. 

4) On arrival back home I discovered my son was covered in flea bites (it was Dog Safety program at PKC with real dogs). I emailed the site manager to inform her.

The site manager called me (a 2 minute phone call) and said that they couldn't be flea bites. I told her they definitely were and didn't have time to argue over it. I told her I had to go but she should email all family for Health and Safety as some may be allergic to fleas. 

No email was sent. Health and Safety Standards are not being followed.

5) I sent a further email asking about the other safety concerns I had witnessed. I received an email accusing me of being "abusive" amongst other things and our family was banned from using the service. 

I was accused of screaming and shouting at staff, stopping children from being cared for by staff and calling a staff member "disgusting", none of which happened. 

The only interaction (other than pick up described above) I had with staff was via phone with the site manager. It was very brief (2 mins max) as I was holding my crying newborn, boiling fleas out of my son's clothes and making dinner. I had no energy, nor time to scream or shout and it would have been inappropriate while holding my three-week-old baby and attending to my son's flea bites on his skin. 

6) Shockingly, the program owner breached privacy laws by writing an email disclosing similar information to the above to another adult about me, making derogatory and false statements about my behaviour and character. Privacy law was not respected and false statements were written about me. 

What I have done since:

• requested help from Principal of HPPS. He has told me he cannot help as PKC is an independent service. When I said that this revolves around safety of the HPPS children, he states that he still cannot help.
• reported PKC to the relevant authorities for a number of reasons including Health and Safety concerns; supervision inadequacy - unsafe ratios, staff not effectively supervising children, not taking concerns seriously or notifying parents about fleas, breaching privacy law and sending harmful and untrue information about me to another adult connected to my child's care.

Not only has this happened, but I am now banned from the service for raising valid concerns, leaving me unable to access suitable before and after care arrangements, so I am unable to seek employment after parental leave ends, putting my family in a tough financial position. 

While the school is not responsible for the actions of PKC, by choosing them as their sole out of school care provider, and allowing them to undertake business on their premises, they are indicating that PKC is safe and trustworthy. 

This has not been my experience and I am aware of a number of other parents/ caregivers who have been unhappy with emotional and physical safety provisions, choices of activities provided to children, and not having their complaints navigated appropriately. 

These parents/ caregivers have been too scared to go any further because they are worried that they will have the same outcome as I have. 

I believe it is imperative for HPPS to take a proactive approach to ensure safety and accountability of providers operating on school premises.

I need your help to make this happen. Please sign below and share if you agree with my demands of HPPS.

Thank you for your time.