Ban male nursery workers?

[BluntPlumHam]

I came across this article which has left me quite sick.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cze665j2y51o.amp

Said 18 year old was newly qualified nursery worker who’d SA’d and raped 3 year olds.

Nurseries are desperate for workers and I have noticed through friends and families that there is now an increasing number of men entering the profession.

Men traditionally haven’t performed this role and I often find it difficult to envisage what attracts a male to this profession to begin with when we have so many instances of men who run away from childcare responsibilities.

Although men entering the profession can be a positive outcome the other very concerning outcome and on the potential rise is this.

Sex offenders will target this profession no doubt as it gives them easy access to children.

men are significantly more likely than women to sexually assault children.
Official statistics consistently show that the vast majority of individuals convicted of, or reported for, child sexual abuse (CSA) are male. For example:

• In the year ending March 2019, the Crime Survey for England and Wales found that 92% of adults who reported experiencing CSA said the perpetrator was male only.
• In 2022/23, almost 99% of individuals convicted of child sexual abuse offences in the UK were men.
• Reports to the Australian Royal Commission by victims and survivors of institutional abuse revealed that 93.9% of the abuse was perpetrated by an adult man.

So just a blanket ban on them all together ?

It isn’t my personal opinion but I do think we ought to have measures in place to make nurseries more secure and safer. This thread is to invite discussion.

Also, kudos to those brave little 3 year olds who had the courage to tell their parents because they’ve saved a lot of potential victims in the future. My thoughts and wishes for a life time of healing for them and theirs.

My DC had a couple of male nursery workers when they were at nursery. They were great! Really popular with the kids. Lovely kind chaps who obviously loved working with kids. I think it would have been a shame (and also unlawful) to have banned them from working as nursery staff.

What about other measures like no lone member of staff working with children or cctv or something like that?

Looking at it another way, it is white women in the nursery setting who are killing kids- like Kate Roughley or Kimberley Cookson or who are violently assaulting them like Rebecca Gregory. An argument could be made white women should be removed from the nursery workforce as well.

I don't work with kids myself but as a white woman the thought of being labelled as too much of a risk because of a pattern in others and a shared characteristic makes me feel a bit icky. It doesn't feel right to do that to men because of a few bad players. I think they need to up the safety processes and surveillance in all nurseries focusing on protecting kids from all kinds of abuse, not just the sexual ones honestly.

I think we should ban nurseries and allow one parent to look after their own children until at least 3. Institutional care staffed by minimum wage workers is not a good environment for babies or toddlers.

Then we should pay 1 full time wage to all parents so they can divide up staying at home with their DC and all nurseries can become play date meet up spaces for the children to socialise under the supervision of their parent.

@TJk86
Snap!!

The opening post says this isn’t her opinion.

It happens with other offences too. Any discussion of male violence against women and children is greeted by "women are violent too". The fact is that violent crimes and sex crimes are statistically hugely more likely to be carried out by men than women. To deny this makes it impossible to even start to work out how to fix the problem. Which is a men problem.

I'm not sure the answer is to ban them from caring roles and there should be robust safeguarding in place regardless but to jump to "women do it too" is not helping address the problem which is overwhelming a men issue.

No. But it’s VASTLY more men than women and given that SOMEONE has to work in nurseries it makes sense to minimise the risk as much as possible.

It’s why we have male/female spaces; it isn’t only men who abuse women but we keep them out because it’s more likely that men are dangerous.

Nope, that's you being unreasonably prejudiced and paranoid.

Important difference.

If men are so dangerous that they need to be banned from caring for children then it’s concerning that so many women are choosing to have relationships and children with men and allow children to live with men. You never know after all - your DH/DP could be an abuser.

You think sex offenders are going to take up nursery nursing on mass to have access to kids? That is one of the most ridiculous things I've read on here.

Pity you didn't explain your 'rationale' in your first post.

No, that's me being a normal mum who safeguards her children.

If you're off trusting men around your kids without any safeguarding simply because you cant be seem to be prejudice towards the poor menz then that's pretty concerning in itself.

totally agree. My friend is now a nursery manager. The kids and parents love him. He plays several musical instruments and gets the kids engaged (unlike a lot of these young girls gawping into space thinking working with little children is easy).

It isn’t vastly more men than women when looking at child abuse statistics that cover all types of child abuse as far as I know. Last I saw it was about equal after adjusting for contact hours.

When it comes to sexual abuse it is far more likely for a man to be the abuser than a woman. Although sexual abuse by women is more likely to be dismissed and not prosecuted.

They need to increase the investment in professional learning for nursery workers ABs the salaries alongside that.

On top of that, they should always have to be above ratio, rather than at ratio.

These are the first steps I would take to improve safeguarding in nurseries and potentially even to attract more men to the profession. Everyone would benefit from a better gender balance.

I agree that the OP is BU

However, nursery work is easy to get into when you consider that many nurseries employ workers who aren't even qualified. And to be qualified you don't need a degree - it's a much lower level qualification. What makes you think it is not easy to get into?

Didn’t think I needed to explain it. You’re welcome ☺️

That’s awful but it would be unreasonable to just blanket ban men from working with children - where does it stop no male head teachers if the school has a nursery?! Or reception or KS1 or SEN settings? No male sports coaches coming in?

My 3 years olds nursery has the toilets in a high traffic area. Small cubicles that you can see over the top of but still give enough privacy to the child. I don’t think anybody would be able to get away with anything with the set up.

I think settings should have cameras in - I don’t think there’s a need to record audio but cameras in the rooms, outside of toilet cubicles etc would get my vote.

Erm, why? Have you understood the point at all!

The premise of this thread is child sexual abuse committed by a male worker and given that the statistics show men commit said crime at an alarming rate compared to
women, should there be concern in their increased recruitment? Hence I posed the ban question to open the floor for dialogue.

Why anyone would kick anyone’s arse over this is beyond me and why you’re so angry over this question is also beyond me.

Agreed - I also think that at least 1 year of it should be the parent who didn't give birth.

An athlete said recently there are no paedophile sports coaches but lots of sports coaches are paedophiles. They are drawn to any job with young children. Sixty four athletes were interview and fifty four reported being sexually abused.

I read about girls as young as eight bleeding to death on their wedding night because as soon as a girl has a period she is a women. Many would say 'not all Muslims males are bad' - let them move in with you and your daughters.

YABU, do you remember this appalling case?www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-49684939

That's not what you said (or meant) in your first post. I had a reasonable objection to your so-called logic, so you twisted things.

Just proves my point about you, but you do you 🤷‍♂️