Another fatal incident at nursery

[TJk86]

I really dislike nurseries for under 3s for many reasons but it seems that they are not even safe anymore these days. Every other week a story like this pops up on the news. To think a reform is needed to make nurseries safer (Better ratios for example)? In this instance, it’s also been decided that no one will bear the consequences of this accident which must be awful for the parents.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15177433/Toddler-allergies-died-following-medical-episode-nursery-given-dairy-yogurt-mistake-parents-say.html

If you have to take a 4 year old into a public toilet with you they just turn around 😂

Exactly!

I do know this. But you are fortunate and most people cannot afford a cleaner and do not have the opportunity to work a compressed four day week nor have 6 - 8 weeks holiday they can take in the summer. Most people are juggling a f/t job that may just about cover childcare with a bit over, 28 days holiday a year and jobs, not careers - they would certainly benefit from having the money provided for outsourced childcare allowing one parent to stay at home at least p/t.
I have two DC and 4 step-DGC. I still parent them - they range between 22 to 46 (also have a step-DS who tends to look after me - well he certainly organises me and to my benefit).
NB I stayed at home till my DS was 9 and my DD 5. I did not use a childminder until I took a masters so that I could return to work (p/t) but I did send them to playschool 4/5 mornings a week! I wrote my novel in that time - mind I did not finish it and only looked at it again during lockdown (when it was already more than 20 years in my past).

And those people definitely shouldn't be judged for going out to work! And earning the money needed to feed and house our children is part and parcel of being their parent.

I didn't say they should. I said that not tying the money for childcare to commercial outlets would benefit them e.g. a mother could work p/t.

Why just the mother? Ideally both parents would alter their working patterns rather than women ending up with a big economic disadvantage

True. Though I am of the opinion that women should stand up and point out that the unpaid work they do is not only valuable but that the world couldn't run without. Apparently women went on strike in Denmark one Friday - did none of the things they usually did that no-one noticed and it caused some chaos and some great discomfort. Not sure it changed much, though.

But why do the women need to do the unpaid work? DH and I share the housework and childcare equally, and have equal careers.

Most mothers do work part time.

Staying at home with your own children should be applauded, not denigrated.

I used to run a village playgroup. Myself and my colleague were both trained but then we relied on one parent helper per session - so just 3 adults looking after 24 kids on busy mornings. We had one child with an allergy but Mum was openly worried about them having shared food so she provided their childs food and drink without issue. Then we had another parent register but on reading their forms, it turned out that their child was type 1 diabetic and would need their BS monitoring and insulin given as needed. They reassured us that one of the nurses from the local surgery would come in and teach us how to use their insulin etc. I was absolutely terrified as my Dad was an insulin dependent diabetic and I knew 1st hand how scary him having a hypo was. So I said that I felt too concerned to have direct responsibility for this child so the child could attend if the parent did too, and it caused all sorts of havoc as the parent went to the local authority etc. But I wasn't having that on my shoulders for the pittance that I was paid. The village school had a nightmare with the poor child when they started as their diabetes was the brittle variety.

Well, that was your choice. I much preferred more focussed individual attention on mine when they were tiny than what they get in a nursery.

The nursery sector is just so low-paid that, as some people have pointed out, people would just avoid going into it altogether if there is even the slightest possibility of ending up with a criminal record or a prison sentence, just through a one in a million incident that could happen because of things that are essentially out of the hands of the individual concerned: inadequate staffing ratios; having to accept too many children with extra needs where the provision is inadequate to safely cope with them; a catastrophic series of events on any given day that is out of an individual's hands which they know means the setting is operating with more risk than usual but what choice do they have?

The fewer people that go into it the higher the salaries will need to be to fund it. And if there just isnt' the money there to fund those salaries then the ultimate outcome will be that highly allergic children sadly become liabilities to childcare settings and one that a standad nursery would just not be willing, OR ABLE, to take on.

And you'd end up with the ultimate in "othering" - specialised childcare settings for allergic children, which cost more to run because the supervision ratios are much better and the staff are allergy specialists etc.

Agree. A very good reason for being a childminder in fact.
That women who stay at home with DC are admirable and this should be encouraged by the benefits and tax system (for those who wish to do it, obv) if part of what I have been saying.
@BluntPlumHam - it is pretty nasty to say that a woman who uses childminding to enable her to stay at home with her own child is in some way reprehensible.

My comment was in relation to nursery workers who have openly admitted that they work there to do minimum hours in order to top up their UC. They also work there because they put their own children in the nursery so they can keep an eye on them.

I haven’t mentioned childminders in any of my posts because the threads is about nursery and nursery workers.

To be assuming that someone higher paid or more qualified wouldn’t make this mistake is ridiculous- even with the highest most consistent training allergies are a minefield

Good for them. Putting their children before money.

Well, the reasons given by nursery workers for taking such a job seem eminently sensible to me.

Hence my original point made. Do we really need poorly trained individuals like that in childcare. In an ideal world, better qualifications, better training and better pay.

Sensible for them but not for parents who expect a good standard of care for their children. This thread is about a child who lost his life because of the poor standard and negligent actions of a nursery worker.

Why are we assuming that women who take a job for practical reasons won't do it well? Most jobs are taken for practical reasons because most people have jobs not high-flying careers. Of course a woman with children will take a job that provides childcare and because of the UC rules she is only able to take part-time work. That doesn't mean she won't take care of the children she is looking after. That's a narrow minded, classist view of people.
My own view on this is that if a job is worth doing it is worth doing well, and if you want it done the way you want then likely you have to do it yourself. So stayed at home with my DC till the elder was 9. I still had a career (though I thought of it as a job, and not the one I had really wanted) afterwards. When I did look for childcare (so I could do an MA to qualify me for a new job) I chose a childminder recommended to me, who offered a warm environment to my DC and who would, when I started work, take them to school and fetch them, and later do the same with the school bus (since they went to school in the city twenty miles from where we lived). It worked well and I had no concerns. We became friends.

crew should be able to read

In my home country it’s done differently. Kids with allergies eat separately. Simple as that. In this country you will have people jumping up and down about how unfair, some ‘ism’, not inclusive and so on.
yet this is extremely effective. And everyone eats what they want. I think if a child’s allergy is so severe then the only 100% prevention would be to keep them at home. Sending them to school with something so life threatening was a risk. Not realistic but you can’t have it both ways.

What do you suggest, OP? Professionalise the staff, have smaller staff to child ratios? Great, but parents either can't or don't want to pay for it. The scramble for ever cheaper nursery provision pushes standards down. You all should be campaigning for the government to roll it into the education system - a place for every child, free of charge, from six weeks old, proper qualifications for the staff, proper pay and stringent inspections. It won't happen though.

They aren’t poorly trained.