I remember those initial heart-wrenching days and weeks leaving my daughter, aged nine months, at the nursery. She was distraught as I left, and I – like so many parents – headed off to work feeling guilty for leaving her, wondering if I was doing the right thing. Every parent does the research and nursery visits, reads the Ofsted reports and assumes that the staff in their chosen nursery will have the necessary qualifications and training to take care of their child. Obviously, there will be hiccups along the way, but never in your wildest nightmares do you think your child might be physically – or worse still, sexually – abused.
Yet the harrowing case of Vincent Chan, a former nursery worker in Camden, north London, who pleaded guilty to nine counts of sexual assault and 17 counts of taking or making indecent photos of children, hit the headlines last week, leaving parents with young children across the country feeling physically sick and asking the question: How did this happen? Tragically, this is not an isolated case.
In September, Roksana Lecka was sentenced to eight years in prison for 21 counts of child cruelty at Riverside Nursery in Twickenham Green and a nursery in Hounslow. Last year, Kate Roughley was jailed for manslaughter following neglect of baby Gigi Meehan at a nursery in Cheadle, Greater Manchester. The BBC’s Panorama investigation exposed a litany of cases of poor care and neglect in nurseries across the country.
No parent should be left worrying about the safety of their child as they head off for a day’s work. No child should be subject to abuse that could have lifelong implications. And yet, too many children have experienced abuse at the hands of those we were told to trust. How have we got here?
Expanding entitlement to “free” childcare provision to more families has, in the words of some sector leaders, led to a “race to the bottom”. These places have been consistently underfunded by government, leaving childcare providers to fill the gaps. Some told me they’re now dealing with “crowd management” – as opposed to providing quality care. Minimum wage, long hours and an under-appreciation for the role have fuelled a recruitment and retention crisis that leaves good staff burnt out. With such a high turnover, providers are then hesitant to invest in staff who may leave after only a few months.
The Department for Education’s own report on hiring incentives, published in October, noted that many candidates for early-years roles lacked relevant qualifications, provided no evidence of soft skills and demonstrated little interest in the role or a desire to work in early years. If many staff don’t care about the children they’re working with, how can we hope for them to identify concerning behaviours before it’s too late?
CCTV footage was pivotal to securing convictions in both the Cheadle and Twickenham cases. In the Camden case, it is unclear whether CCTV footage was in use at the time of Chan’s offences, but if it had been, it would have been wiped by the time his offences came to light. Now is the time to mandate the use of CCTV in nurseries, with clear guidance that the footage should be regularly reviewed by management and form part of Ofsted inspections.
Yes, of course, there are always privacy concerns, but no parent I have ever spoken to would put their baby’s privacy over their safety. Babies cannot communicate when harm is being done to them, so it is crucial we have regularly monitored CCTV to ensure neglect and abuse are not taking place. It could also provide a helpful tool for staff training.
The Australian government is now piloting CCTV in nurseries, alongside a register of early-years practitioners. A register would ensure staff qualifications, training and previous history are tracked. Shockingly, the Twickenham Green parents only discovered during the course of the trial that Lecka lacked relevant qualifications and that red flags had been raised in relation to her behaviour at a previous nursery in which she had worked.
Ensuring that Ofsted has the powers and the resources to inspect nursery chain providers is another area that government needs to focus on. While the government has made some welcome moves on this issue, including reducing the gap in inspections from six years to four years and requiring new settings to be inspected within 12 months of opening, it is yet to set out a timeframe for when these powers will come into effect. Furthermore, currently, if a setting deregisters and closes, Ofsted has no powers to investigate that setting and the staff who worked there any further.
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Every time one of these horrifying cases comes to light, we all say, “never again”. Every time a government minister speaks about these cases, they say children’s safety is of the utmost importance to government. The time for prevarication is over. Parents are demanding immediate action, and we need to work cross-party to secure change.
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