To not want to send dd to nursery after this?

[Arkkorox]

2 weeks ago a local nursery nurse was arrested and it's come to light that it was because they were in possession of a large amount of child pornography and indecent pictures of children of the age group he worked with.

Dd was on the list for this nursery and I have since taken her off. It's made me not want to send her to nursery at all.

DP says I'm being silly and we should still look into sending her. I think that I might be worrying too much about it too but if that supposedly background checked nurse can slip through so can others?

When I think back to working in nursery all of them had doors. The changing room in one was a windowless tiny room at the back of the baby room. I have often done nappy changed while everyone has been in the garden and been entirely alone in the building never mind the room!

Infact I've also been on my own begin a closed door at naptime too!

*behind

snoss we had higher than minimum ratios during the busier part of the day (usually 8. 30 to 3pm). We did a few toilet visits where one staff member supervised the loos while another two helped with hand washing and drying. The loo cubicleshad short doors so the cchildren could close them but still be supervised. Outside of scheduled visits older children would use the toilet themselves, but if they needed help two of us would help.

For nappy changes it was two staff and the door open. One of us would usually busy ourselves having a bit of a clean, checking stocks of nappies /wipes etc. But as I say our staff/children ratios were higher than required.

I agree this is really rare.

I heard a discussion on the radio after the last big scandal about the woman in a nursery. One caller said that in their nursery every worker now has to leave their phones in a locked cupboard, so no phones allowed in the place.

I think my concern would be lack of judgement on the part of the nursery management. They employed someone who turned out to be a paedophile. Now you might say that it's unreasonable of them to be able to detect whether someone is a paedophile or not - but if they can't do that, what else can't they detect? You want to be sure that the people looking after your child are good, responsible people who like children.

These are really poor nurseries that have closed doors and windowless rooms why would anyone send their children there? Are they lower cost?

They're obviously not that poor if Ofsted are rating them good and outstanding. IME it is fairly standard to have doors on toilets and sleep rooms.

Personally I wouldn't use a nursery where the sleep area was just a corner with a gauze sheet.

Yes I agree hackmum as an exEY teacher and nanny\cm it IS possible to get an instinctual feeling about some people. Let alone some TA's who openly shout and drag dcs about (oh yes it happens).

Look into your local nurseries' safeguarding policies. At DD's preschool the staff aren't allowed to have their phones on them during the session (they have one collective mobile for contact, just a basic, no frills, no camera, etc), all CRB checked, you need to sign consent forms for photos, outings, etc.

My DD goes to an Ofsted outstanding nursery and the safeguarding is absolutely brilliant. Open plan, low walled and you can see into every room including the sleep room. Also high staff to nursery ratios. I don't know a single nursery that has such lax safeguarding. Bloody awful.

I would just ask the nurseries what measures they have in place. Ours never allowed a lone adult in a room, not so much because of abuse, more in case that adult faints or becomes unwell leaving a group of babies or toddlers unsupervised.

Also like Discopanda they only are allowed shared open access ipads which are used to take a daily photo for our homebooks on them and having a phone on them is a fire-able offence.

When my dd started preschool the manager spent quite some time going over child protection policies. At the time I thought it was a bit much but now I understand. They only accepted children who were potty trained and staff didn't assist in the toilets. If a child had an accident one member of staff would change them and another had to watch from the door both staff members then had to sign a report and the parent signed it too upon pick up. It was explained these rules were in place to protect the staff as well as the children of course. I would visit the nursery and ask them to talk you through their safeguarding policies that should give you a feel for how comfortable you would be with them

I'd feel uncomfortable about nuseries having policies that an uninvolved adult must "watch" personal care as it doesn't seem to respect children's privacy at all. Children's privacy and dignity is also something that Ofsted take account of.

If the offences happened in the nursery setting then the nursery would currently be closed pending investigation.

When Vanessa George was arrested the nursery she worked in was closed for months iirc, this would have to be the case because the nursery setting would be the scene of the crime - iyswim. so if the nursery isn't closed then I would presume that they are not a part of the investigation and are as horrified in fact probably even more so than you are.

As for this: "I think my concern would be lack of judgement on the part of the nursery management. They employed someone who turned out to be a paedophile. Now you might say that it's unreasonable of them to be able to detect whether someone is a paedophile or not - but if they can't do that, what else can't they detect? You want to be sure that the people looking after your child are good, responsible people who like children." that is really offensive. The very fact that paedophiles are able to go undetected for so long is because they are often so plausible, nice people. Where do you draw the line at who is responsible then? What about the parents of the children whose images this man had on his computer? Are they responsible for the fact their children were abused? The parents of any other victims of abuse, surely their instincts should have told them something was wrong and they should have acted?

People say that you should always act on your instincts but reality is that instincts are not a certainty of anything. Many people are instinctively drawn to other people and they turn out to be paedophiles, abusers etc. Is the victim to blame if they didn't sense something was amiss before they're abused? thought not.

Phones at our preschool are in a locked cupboard too for good reason. It's tricky and I can understand your worries. I would send but have a word with the nursery first in terms of trying to allay some of your fears.

The doors on the nappy change and toilet areas in DS2's nursery are all short ones - i.e. about half the height of a standard door, so a typical toddler or pre-school child can't easily see over, but an adult can look over. They're off the main rooms too, so easy for any nursery nurse to glance in while another one is changing a nappy or helping a child use the toilet. The sleeping areas are separated off with half height doors too.

The toilets in the school nursery at DS1's school are similar too, toilets are straight off the main nursery room with no door into the toilet area, and the cubicle doors are about half the height of a standard door.

Snossidge it was the 2.5-4 year olds room that has the gauze for the sleep corner, so rare for children that age to have a nap anyway, if that makes any difference? That corner doubles up as a quiet story corner as well and the layout is arranged so that the noisier activities are in the opposite corner of the large room. We didn't move here until DS was old enough to be in that room, so I have no idea what the sleeping arrangements are in the baby room.

I would have no problem with a 2.5 YO snoozing occasionally in a corner of the room in those circumstances and it certainly wouldn't be a deciding factor for me in picking a nursery for my child. Have I missed something and overlooked a really obvious reason why it isn't appropriate? I do have a tendency to bumble along until someone incredulously points out the glaringly obvious that I've missed, so its entirely possible

My children all needed decent sleep past 2.5.

IMO there are a few ways to look at this. As others have said a CRB/DBS check is no help at all if the perpetrator has no criminal record. I don't think it's fair to say the nursery have poor judgement for hiring him because one of the most common things you hear with abusers is those who knew them saying they had no idea or they were the last person you would expect to do this etc etc. Perhaps this happened because the nursery had poor safeguarding policies in place or perhaps they had just got complacent with the ones they have. Either way not good, however, surely something like this is going to make sure they NEVER let it happen again. Surely they will now put the strictest policies they can in place and be extra dilligent in making sure they are adhered to? I'm not sure if I were in your position that I would be able to still send them but that's something to think about.

However, I think the only way to deal with these things is total transparency and the fact that the nursery is refusing to say whether this happened in their setting would make me not send them. I would expect them to totally hold their hands up to any mistakes and outline in detail how they are going to ensure it doesn't happen again, they are not doing that so I would not trust them

OP: it's understandable that you're worried given what's happened. If you do need to use childcare though, as others have said its a tiny minority and good nurseries have stringent safeguards in place.

It does make me wonder though how those safeguards apply to CMs and nannies. There can't be the same concepts of whistle blowing or staff monitoring others etc.

Y to this the only way to deal with things is total transparency and the fact that the nursery is refusing to say whether this happened in their setting would make me not send them Yes me too.

I am a cm million and of course I work alone with my mindees. All tyr over 16s are crb checked but these mean very little really.

All the checks in the world don't stop abuse.

Every adult and every setting needs to be vigilant and of course the vast majority of child abuse is carried out in the child's own hind not a setting so child carers need to 'think the unthinkable' too.

Remember op that if nurseries see a huge drop in attendance because a staff member has concerns about another staff member this could deter them from speaking out. They are businesses when all said and done.

Whistleblowing needs to be encouraged not feared.