ECEC sector responds to damning Four Corners investigation 

A number of early childhood education and care (ECEC) peak bodies and advocates have issued statements in response to a six month investigation by the ABC’s Four Corners program, which aired earlier this week.

 

National Children’s Commissioner Anne Hollonds, advocacy body The Front Project, the Independent Education Union (IEU), the United Workers Union (UWU) and Early Childhood Australia (ECA) all shared their perspectives on central themes touched on in the episode, including health and safety and the rights of children. 

 

Need for safeguarding highlighted

 

Describing the content of the episode as “devastating,” Early Childhood Australia (ECA) CEO Samantha Page said more needed to be done to enhance safeguarding within services including a national approach to Working with Children Checks, better support for educators who raise concerns, and stronger powers and resourcing for regulatory authorities. 

 

Regulatory authorities, she continued, need capacity for more frequent monitoring of services and the staffing to respond quickly to concerns raised by families or educators. Both federal and state/territory governments need more power to sanction and shut down providers who consistently fail to meet quality standards and put children at risk. 

 

“Anyone working in the early childhood sector that watched Four Corners last night was devastated,” she said, speaking on Channel 7 program Sunrise.

 

“This sort of child harm should just never occur. What we really need to do is strengthen the powers of the regulatory authorities and get a lot tougher on who is allowed to operate early childhood education and care services.”

 

Educators under pressure

 

For United Workers Union’s National President, Jo Schofield the episode was all too familiar, reflecting the challenges the Union’s members say they often face. 

 

Educators across the sector, she shared, are familiar with some of the issues that have been raised in the reporting, including understaffing due to a failure to attract and retain staff, largely because of low wages.

 

Most educators’ experience has been that educators in for-profit providers face greater pressures than their peers in not-for-profit providers, she said, which can result in higher turnover and educators being placed in situations where “it is hard, if not impossible,” to provide the quality of education and care needed by families.

 

These same educators will also see the issues reported as “a betrayal of the safety processes and considerations they embed in their daily routines to ensure children’s safety.”

 

Waiver worry

 

The reporting, Ms  Schofield, also raises questions about the leniency of a waiver system that allows high percentages of centres – almost one in five in recent years – to operate without a full complement of staff.

 

The Union has ‘repeatedly’ raised the issue of educator shortages impacting the quality of education and care children receive, the issue of for-profit centres putting profits before children, and high levels of staffing waivers across the sector, acknowledging that the Federal Government’s move to stabilise the sector through the Worker Retention Payment was welcomed in shoring up this space. 

 

Highly qualified staff are crucial, IEU spokesperson NSW/ACT Branch Secretary Carol Matthews agreed, saying “Highly qualified staff are crucial,” and noting that the union has repeatedly raised issues that impact the early childhood sector such as ongoing teacher shortages leading to inadequate staffing ratios. 

 

“This low-paid sector has long struggled with an acute staffing crisis,” she said. 

 

Greater powers for regulators

 

ECA noted that the introduction of the National Quality Framework in 2012, which includes the National Law and Regulations and National Quality Standard to which providers, services and early childhood professionals must adhere, was a significant step toward greater protections in the sector, but that the Four Corners episode is that “unscrupulous and unsafe practices” do still exist in parts of the sector.

 

“There is absolutely a need to ensure that the regulators are best equipped to deal with issues responsively and decisively to ensure child safety and wellbeing is uncompromised,” Ms Page said. 

 

Families, she continued, should have confidence that early childhood education and care services have been recently assessed and rated as compliant under the National Quality Framework. There should also be greater transparency in the regulatory systems so that operators and services that have been sanctioned for breaches or have waivers in place are publicly identified. 

 

“We also need to understand that it is diligent educators whistle blowing on poor practice and that’s a good thing,” she continued. 

 

“We want regulatory authorities to be better funded to be able to undertake more regular rating and assessment. All services should be assessed and rated within the first 12 months of opening and every three years thereafter. We want regulators to have capacity to respond quickly when concerns are raised either by educators or by families, and to intervene and have strong powers to shut services down. No one in the sector wants dodgy providers. This is a sector that has embraced good strong regulatory frameworks. We have a world leading national quality system, but we need to enforce it.”

 

CEO of the Front Project Dr Caroline Croser-Barlow agreed saying “Governments at all levels are not sending a robust signal to business that if you’re not committed to quality, you shouldn’t enter the sector.” 

 

“Instead, they are sending the message that the early learning is open for business, there are excessive profits to be made, and regulatory risks to be arbitraged. As shown by Four Corners, even when some providers consistently fail to meet standards, year after year, the state regulator has continued to allow them to operate, while the Commonwealth has provided a lucrative stream of parent subsidies to underwrite their profits.”

 

“Quality in early education is not an accident,” she continued. “It results from centre directors and educators making deliberate decisions every day about what the children in their service need to support them to play and thrive.”

 

“What Four Corners showed us is that there are some providers who have no interest in supporting centre directors and educators to do this. This is a question of leadership. We know the kind of providers who are more likely to provide quality, yet our funding settings do nothing to encourage these providers to establish or expand services.”

 

Gaps must be urgently addressed 

 

For National Children’s Commissioner Anne Hollonds one of the most alarming aspects of the broadcast was the way that the safety, health and wellbeing of infants and young children was being compromised. 

 

“The safety and wellbeing of our youngest and most vulnerable children should be of paramount concern for governments across Australia,” the Commissioner said.  

 

“There’s been a lot of commentary about ‘childcare deserts’ being a barrier to women seeking employment, and so governments have been focussed on increasing supply and improving affordability as well as increasing pay for childcare workers and early childhood educators. However, there has clearly been insufficient focus on the safety of infants and preschool age children in some of these centres.” 

 

When it comes to ‘quality,’ she continued, “it needs to start with the basics, and that means ensuring the safety and wellbeing of our youngest and most vulnerable children, without exception.” 

 

“We must urgently address any serious gaps in the regulatory scaffolding and child safeguarding framework that allows physical, sexual and emotional abuse of children in early childhood centres to continue unnoticed or unaddressed,” she continued.   

 

“Putting babies, toddlers and young kids at risk because of regulatory failings is unacceptable and we need urgent government action across our federation to address these dangerous gaps in how we protect children in this country.”

 

“By not making child safety and wellbeing a priority for National Cabinet, we’re allowing our youngest citizens to fall into these gaps created by jurisdictional boundaries as well as fragmentation and complexity in the childcare industry (sic.).”  

 

“As I have consistently said, our whole approach to child safety and wellbeing in this country is in desperate need of systemic reform, and this includes our childcare sector.” 

 

“Governments need to stop tinkering around the edges and make the safety and wellbeing of children a priority for the National Cabinet so we have accountability and evidence-based approaches at the heart of how we protect our kids and provide opportunities for them to thrive.”