Wake up call for parents and the government to the lacking Childcare system
The shock of the childcare worker in Melbourne who abused 8 children at a childcare centre under two many being babies, charged with 70 offences, has been so great a crime against the children and parents including the children having to be tested for stds is so bad, it has become a wake up call to the childcare centres, the parents and the government who glibly hands out funding for more and more childcare centres, yet not checking properly on workers with police checks being inadequate. While now it has been revealed the workers are not even fully trained for childcare whereas normally and in NSW they have to do two years uni or two years tafe to become one. It appears that in Victoria they just do the few months of Certificate 3 and they are in with the job as the centres are so desperate for workers and the money they make from this multi-billion dollar business of looking after children! One of the articles on this case noted that children are at their most vulnerable being pre-verbal, which is an interesting term as children like my son who were born without ability for speech are call nonverbal and are just as vulnerable even as an older child, young person or adult. The childcare industry then has become just like disabilities where no qualifications are expected of workers who look after disability children and persons who may be young or older and cannot speak or look after themselves. Parents are suffering in Melbourne now not knowing what has happened to their children living in fear over it how awful and traumatic for them.
The Minister for education Jason Clare has made a lot of vows to change things now federally and Mr Albanese now has joined with him about it. Good job – but we need this for all vulnerable children who are receiving regular care or respite and being looked after by workers – there needs to be priority of safety and protection ahead of profits also in disabilities.
https://aapnews.aap.com.au/.../my-child-in-his-hands-fear
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Yes, the childcare sector failed to do the one thing right – put the children and their safety first before the millions of dollars. Melbourne appears to be a money driven state all about success but what use is success and making money if your child is harmed and not cared for properly? All the money in the world cannot take childhood harm and trauma out of a child – yet people act as if that’s all they need for a happy family. Jobs and lots and lots of money. Apparently not also a wake up call for parents who trust the childcare sector. Many parents in Melbourne now finding otherwise. You cannot trust anyone with your children who is being paid to look after them. They will never care for them the way a mother and father do or be as careful unless they are well trained and of good character which none of this appears to be happening or made to happen the childcare industry has taken anyone to to work in their centres.
How naïve to think that untrained, not properly checked childcare workers would be able to care for children properly. Half of the workers are like children and have never had children and if they are not fully educated or trained they wont know what to do. This time however politicians’ children are also at these childcare centres where the abuse took place and are also in anguish so this should make a difference. We hope. It is a wake-up call for the State governments and the Federal to do something about childcare centres rather than just throw money at them actually put the children’s safety and care first.
Victoria has become more decisive those as the spokesman Jason Clare revealed his friend’s children were in those centres too and was in shock. What does it take. The Victorian ministers noted there has been royal commission recommendations that have not been listened to 8 years ago. Maybe they will listen now. They said that the police check system is the worst in the state of Victoria and you will have nothing show up against you unless you have been charged with a crime. What kind of safety check is that? Also if you get in trouble one state with childcare crimes you can go to another state and no one would ever know. The ministers and premier now call for it to become a national streamlined check.
I watched with fascination as a blonde woman on the ABC news came on screen to comfort parents over the Melbourne incident of abuse and infectious disease their little children have to be tested for. She looked like a computer generated version of the Trump front woman speaker. Oh she said her face filling the whole tv screen ‘we know there are many many hundreds of wonderful very good childcare centres who look after children so well but just in case when you go into enrol your child or to drop them off – listen to your gut feeling…and if you feel uneasy maybe don’t leave them there” !??
Well that’s great advice I said to myself what mothers who are rushing to get to work on time are listening to their gut feelings? They have probably suppressed their gut feeling for years (of not wanting to leave their child with strangers but having to in order to work) so that they cant hear their gut feeling any more. What an airy fairy wishy washy idiot piece of advice that was! It was with regard to the Melbourne abuse in case it put parents off sending their children to childcare. It takes more than a gut feeling it takes good childcare managers who do care about the children and do put safety in place for them before profits – it takes proper checks on workers, and it takes qualified workers with good character to be checked before they work with young children. There is a need for CCTV cameras as you cannot always see a perpetrator or prove what they did. The safeguards have not been happening. Now the childcare system has been found out for what it really is a money making piece of apparatus, the government uses to keep everyone working and making money including the centres a push to make the kids better by putting them in these ‘early education’ centres but they are meant to be about care and that comes first. That’s why mothers leave them there for the care, but education makes it sound better.
I also had a parent approach me from Melbourne and say CCTV cameras wouldn’t work because they cant have them in bathrooms or change areas. She said we have to listen to our gut feeling I wondered if she was another AI generated person like the one in the news. CCTV actually does work and it is another level of protection that would be evidence for court and bring about justice as it has done time and time again. Abusers don’t necessarily do abuse only in the toilets or change rooms they could do it anywhere to little children especially if they are left alone with them. Are not the workers supposed to be 1 worker to 3 children - but even that seems not enough supervision and yet that is not happening in reality. The childcare centres are not supervising enough, and not having qualified workers, and the workers are not being checked enough on their background which now the Victorian government has vowed will have to change.
The Victorian premier and Jason Clare have vowed they are making sweeping changes to childcare law and reforms just like the ones Chris Minns is making in New South Wales. It’s a wake up call but I hope they go through with it. At the same time we still need protections for the most vulnerable in disabilities why should those with disabilities be left out of those. Children with disabilities and older ones who are non verbal need that same protection and same decent workers in care. Notice it was the very young children this childcare worker got away with abusing because they could not speak they were babies and toddlers. They needed CCTV how could they tell mummy and daddy? My own son who is nonverbal and so vulnerable and a gentle boy was hit by a worker in respite care for a day and then a year later in a day program punched in the arm by another worker – both caring women and mothers I was led to believe. No you cannot trust any workers with your children you must check everything question everything. You question everything and trust noone a detective once said and I agree.
One distraught parent said she had been told to test her sons for infectious diseases from this childcare worker who worked in the centre where her children were. She said she never met him but her husband did and said the guy seem friendly and very caring. Don’t they all? They do that as part of the act being friendly and caring you are paying for their job. Just because they act like that in front of you does not mean they are like that when you are not there and they are alone with your child.
Yes bring in the sweeping changes I say to the government but why did it take this for you to do something ? Did you really think you could be slack with care of children and nothing would happen? The wolves are out there waiting to pounce on the innocent lambs in childcare and in disabilities. I was never the same after my son was hurt by ‘caring’ workers I was angry and vowed I would never let that happen to him again, my baby my precious one. I started lobbying for cameras which many workers in disabilities, indeed managers did not want because they don’t want to be sued for what happens to our children. Jason Clare in Victoria vowed to immediately start stripping any Childcare Centres of their funding if they are not upholding safety for children. A class action by parents also would be good to teach those childcare centres and disability organizations a lesson and the same for the State governments for failing to care. An article just came through noting parents are looking at legal options yes you need to. Children’s and parents’ lives have just been damaged even psychologically if not physically and will need to be built again and their trust broken of a system that let them down badly. A system the government and childcare organizations tote as the best thing for kids, for development, school etc where there is no concrete evidence of that but a good parent whether one or two parents, if they love their child unconditionally, is like gold to a child’s future for protecting them and helping them to grow and learn there is nothing like it. It seems they push the educating of children in childcare to make it even more convincing for parents to keep paying. Even the ratios at childcare are suspect, with 1 worker to 4 or 5 toddlers seems very lacking and not enough supervision there for a start in Victorian childcare. Even a mother would have trouble looking after so many all day let alone a young inexperienced worker how could she keep eyes on them all – not really possible. Or take note what a predatory colleague is up to with a child. Yes they do need the CCTV cameras and also in disabilities care. It all needs to change.
All the best
Anndrea Wheatley
BA Psychology, PostGrad.Dip.Psychological studies, Masters Soc. Science (International Crim)
Sign my petition for cctv in disabilities to protect the children and most vulnerable.
change.org/disabilitycameras