Cuddles Early Learning & Childcare Kelmscott

My 3 children had attended this centre for 3 years. In March they had an incident where a baby was bitten horrendously 4... My 3 children had attended this centre for 3 years. In March they had an incident where a baby was bitten horrendously 4 times (see Blaire’s review). My 18 month old was wrongly blamed for this. Given he did not have all the teeth present in the bite marks. The operations manager and the CEO of Cuddles made the decision to terminate my child’s place at the centre labelling him “a huge threat to the safety and wellbeing of other children”. And claimed he had numerous incidents of severe behaviour and complaints from parents. I pulled my older 2 children out as well as this was all news to me. We have not once received any documentation, communications, or meetings regarding his behaviour being a concern. And he had one previous incident of biting 6 months prior. Had subsequently been bitten himself 2 times after that. It was clearly a cover up of some sort given if he’d had this extensive history of behaviour we should have (per their own policies and procedures) incident reports, meetings etc prior to this escalation. We never had anything but positive comments for my baby from staff. Biting is age appropriate but with proper supervision and intervention it would be stopped and redirected before it reached those level of injuries. Myself and the other parent were told numerous different accounts of the events over the following weeks. At times even receiving verbal admission staff had not witnessed the incident and there were too many children present for the limited number of staff to appropriately supervise. The incident was initially supposed to have happened within 7 mins of me dropping my children off at the centre, but then the story changed multiple times after that. With the final incident report still giving no detail and listing the severity as a near miss yet a child’s place was terminated deemed on him being such a danger? I did at one point receive a call from the Operations Manager apologising profusely for acting on false information and offering our children placement at any cuddles centre. Claiming that cuddles value their connections with families and the CEO was devastated at this turn of events, yet I never received an apology or explanation from him on his extreme lapse in judgement and terrible management. Imagine making such a drastic decision, as a CEO and approved provider, without personally reviewing all the evidence. And to say such horrible things about a literal infant even if he was the one who caused these bites. Of course I refused the offer of placement at another centre. Us and the other parent involved have requested the factual accurate account of what happened on that day but have received nothing. Staff have now refused to answer further communications on the subject and we are now left in the dark as to why this incident was able to happen and why my child was blamed when it was clearly not him based on a simple check of the teeth present in his mouth. Why were we lied to? Why was the situation managed so poorly. Guess we’ll never know. It truly makes me sick that I have trusted this company with my children for 3 years. I feel let down, my children’s routines and lives have been turned upside down, and we’re still no clearer on what happened and why a child was injured so severely. There has been no resolution after the extensive distress caused to both families by this company’s malpractice. Also many of the 5 star reviews are written by current staff or previous staff of the centre. I had previously given a positive review on encouragement from staff after joining the centre. I have since deleted. I would avoid cuddles at all costs. Read more

Rebecca Stirling

Apr, 2024

do not send your children here if you don’t want them being abused and neglected. on my 11 month old daughters third day... do not send your children here if you don’t want them being abused and neglected. on my 11 month old daughters third day at the centre, she was viciously attacked.. the centre manager laughed and shrugged the incident off as ‘minor’, staff lied to me multiple times regarding the attack until finally admitting that no one was supervising the 16 children (of all ages). another toddler, was wrongfully accused for attacking my daughter resulting in him being removed from the centre and horrible accusations made about him, with no evidence just a wild guess he may have been the one to do it. the staff are absolutely horrible, the CEO is rude, the manager is no better. no duty of care, no responsibility taken on their behalf. awful centre. Read more

Blaire Smith

Apr, 2024