WA ECEC service Kidz Galore makes vaccination compulsory for its educators

All 120 employees of West Australian early childhood education and care (ECEC) service provider, Kidz Galore, have been given until the end of October to be vaccinated against COVID-19, local news source The West Australian has reported. 

The vaccine mandate applies to all current and future staff, and Kidz Galore has indicated that it will not hire staff in the future unless they are fully vaccinated. The move mirrors decision making in the eastern states, with NSW mandating vaccination for educators in certain areas as the state continues to grapple with COVID-19. 

Speaking with the paper, Kidz Galore Director Sue Turner said staff reaction has been “phenomenal,” indicating that some staff had been “sitting back and procrastinating; they didn’t have the urgency to get vaccinated…But we’ve spoken about it and made sure that they felt supported to get the jab (and) there’s now a real buzz about it.”

Despite WA being relatively stable throughout the pandemic, in terms of community transmission, Ms Turner believes the Delta strain of the virus will eventually make its way to WA, saying that the service’s decision to mandate the vaccine has been spurred by a want to “do our bit to protect the community”. 

“Until we all get vaccinated, nothing will be normal,” she said. “We’re not frontline workers but every time there’s a shutdown we have to work, so that makes it all the more important.”

The service held its own on-site vaccination clinic last week and will hold another in three weeks’ time to make sure all staff receive their second dose.

To access the original coverage of this story, please see here.