Two Sydney childcare centres were caught this week employing workers who have been banned from working with children, as regulators crack down on the sector.
New rules requiring early learning services to undertake strict screening checks of workers, entering their details in a new national register, are now in place as the NSW government vows to build a system where child safety and quality are non-negotiable.
The crackdown comes after a series of high-profile incidents at childcare centres have put safety in the spotlight and forced governments to intervene.
Among the most notorious cases was one of Australia’s worst childcare paedophiles, Ashley Paul Griffith, who escaped detection for years despite multiple incidents and complaints, due to childcare centres not keeping records for why they no longer employed him, and failures to seek referee reports from previous places of work.
Griffith has pleaded guilty to more than 300 offences in Australia and abroad, including in early learning settings. He is known to have worked across multiple services and across states, remaining undetected for some years.
During a compliance blitz this week, the NSW Early Learning Commission and the Victorian Early Childhood Regulatory Authority visited more than 500 centres.
Officers checked whether approved providers had implemented the mandatory National Early Childhood Worker Register, a platform developed to ensure greater visibility of people working in the sector.
During the blitz, one south-western Sydney provider was fined $20,000 for hiring someone who had been prohibited from working with children after they used “inappropriate discipline” on a child.
[Ed: Man or woman? Carefully worded. I just hope hapless women in the sector aren’t now paying for the sins of depraved males.]
Source: Sydney childcare centres caught employing banned workers in national safety blitz