Safety & Security
Is there Enough 'Care' in child care?

Every now and then we hear of an incident where a small child has met with an accident, escaped from or been left alone in a child care centre after hours. Luckily these incidents are fairly few and far between when you consider the number of children in child care every day, but still it begs the question: how much care is in child care?

What is the duty of care? What are the regulations governing health, safety and security in child care facilities? How vigilant are the carers and what is the responsibility of the parents in matters of health and safety? As with pre-school education, child welfare, regulations and licensing which includes Child Care Services is the responsibility of the State and Territory Governments, not the Federal Government.

Each State and Territory Government is responsible for legislation under which child care services are licensed and licensing provides a legal 'floor' below which no service is permitted to operate. Typically licensing includes structural quality factors which are most readily measured, such as space, range of equipment, number and ages of children, number of staff and the qualifications of staff, all of which contribute to quality.

The National Childcare Accreditation Council (NCAC - www.ncac.gov.au) administers Child Care Quality Assurance (CCQA) systems for family day care schemes, long day care centres and outside school hours care services across Australia.

As parents, we all know how hard it is to keep your eye on a small child at all times, particularly when there are several children in different parts of the house or even just in the one room, but a toddler in a supervised environment to be choking by a blind cord for long enough to turn blue (as happened recently in a child care centre in NSW is completely unforgivable by anyone's standards - both from an equipment safety point of view and from the point of basic attentiveness.

So from the get-go it's very important for parents to look for, check and question health, safety and security when thinking about enrolling their child into a child care facility and at regular intervals after their child is enrolled (see below links to help with this).

At the very least every child care facility whether a pre-school, child care centre or family day care facility should be in good working order with all equipment, furniture and fittings well maintained and secured (e.g. cupboards, blind cords and doors). It should have a high level of safety and security measures in place, e.g. sign in/out sheets and security doors - to keep out strangers and keep in children! It should adhere to fire regulation and regularly hold fire drills and it should provide a low ratio of children to carers and vigilant staff who are trained to be aware at all times and educated in first aid and resuscitation techniques.

The level of structure in a child care facility also plays a huge part in safety and security. When children have a structured environment and are doing activities in groups they are easier to supervise than when they're just running around in a room or outside with no real direction. Parents can also ask questions about the structure of children's activities and their daily routines which will help to give an understanding of a particular facility's level of care.

Child care providers are duty bound to adhere to the strictest of safety measures as set by the state or territory's governing body, the child care centre's management, the appropriate child care association (e.g. Family Day Care Australia) and most of all, by the parents whose children are in their care.

As well as the regulatory and moral accountability of the child care providers, there is a huge responsibility on the part of the parents to educate their children in basic safe behaviour and to establish ground rules at home before they set foot in child care. After all, as far as a toddler's concerned, child care is just a fun place they go, but there's no distinction between that place being any more or less safe than their home environment. To them it's all the same - just with more children.

The majority of child care workers are vigilant and attentive, but there will be some who are not; particularly those casual/agency staff who turn up for their shift and go home, without building a relationship with the children in their care and who therefore don't have the same kind of feelings of responsibility for them - remember child care workers don't have to be qualified and don't necessarily see their job as a career choice.

Unfortunately fragmentation, commercial competition, low morale, low pay and high turnover of staff in child care, means those carers who lack sufficient levels of care are potentially on the increase. More than ever, health and safety in child care must be the responsibility of both the individual child care providers and the parents.

Remember YOU, the parents are paying for your child to be there and you have the right to expect certain standards of care. If you feel your child care provider is falling short of those standards, it's your right and your duty to pull them up on it.

Information and Resources:
The following links may be useful when assessing potential or current child care facilities for your child:
 
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