Ban men from working in nursery settings

[Aliceisagooddog]

After yet another paedophile has been found guilty of awful crimes whilst working at a nursery, surely we need to rethink this. The risks are just too great.

The main criminals in regards to oaefophile activity in nurseries are women.

excelkent nursery practitioners are excellent regardless of their sex. I work with a brilliant male early years practitioner. What we need is rigorous safeguarding measures and open whistleblowing policies.

I agree that what has happened is absolutely sickening, but banning men from taking a career path they choose and could be great at is completely wrong.

If it’s not okay to ban women from a career path, how is it okay to ban men?

My eldest had an amazing male key worker. He still says hi 19 years after us leaving nursery. My child remembers them still, mainly due to the funny songs he would sing with the children. An absolute ban doesnt sit right

The main criminals in regards to oaefophile activity in nurseries are women

Well of course they are because the overwhelming majority of nursery workers are women. That doesn't mean women are a bigger risk than men. If most nursery workers were men there'd be a hell of a lot more incidents.

Unpopular opinion but yes I agree.

Edited to add that I would not send my child to a nursery with male staff. Also, I am highly suspicious of most holiday clubs, camps and the like. Call me paranoid I don't care.

Torn on this as I don’t think you can realistically ban, but I for one wouldn’t be sending my nursery-age child to a place where a man would be doing intimate care or in a position where they were potentially unobserved.

I don’t think you can ban them, but I probably wouldn’t send my child to a nursery with men working in it.

^

I suspect the 'market' will sort this out. Parents simply won't put their kids in nurseries with male staff, rightly or wrongly.

The baby who was strapped face down to a bean bag and not checked for ages and died was killed by a woman. Ban them too.

It won't happen, unfortunately.

I don't think men should be working in a manner that includes intimate care with non verbal children though.

Mens feelings about equality shouldnt be debated alongside children's right not to be raped.

Can't wait for all of the hundreds of posts saying how amazing a man was working with their children alongside all of the rubbish- average women though.

I went to a nursery to see if I could do some voluntary work while at college and they said yes immediately no questions asked with no dbs check and didn’t even check I was really doing a course and while I was there I was just like a member of staff, reading with them, helping with their food and playing outside but I really could have been anyone.
It’s quite worrying that I was left to my own devices to just wander around playing with them all and their parents were none the wiser id even been with their children most of the day.

Edit to add I’m female but I was highlighting how easy it is to get into a children’s setting.

No because men can be brilliant care givers. My children had amazing male key workers and actually part of me choosing the nursery was that there was male nursery nurses and I thought that wad important. There must be other solutions.

I’ve employed a male member of staff who’s been with us for 10 years now, and have employed two other men but for shorter stints in that time too. They bring so much to the setting and it’s brilliant that children see that caregiving doesn’t have to fall to just women.

They are vetted, supervised and have to abide by procedures that all staff do to protect the children and themselves eg no one being on their own with the children, the changing area being visible by others, DBS updates. We operate on a “think the unthinkable” and “it could happen here” approach, even though I trust my staff.

I have to say there was a great young male worker at Gdcs’ nursery - he played the guitar and sang lots of songs with them. I don’t think he did nappy changing, or other intimate care, though.

I do remember the case of a young woman nursery worker, who was found to have committed a lot of paedophile offences, including, taking photos. IIRC she was largely doing it to curry favour with, or at the request of, some vile man.

Most children are at risk from family members.

you may as well say ban men

yabu

Should we also be banning men from being children’s sports coaches (where abuse is still rife), schools and family life (which is the biggest risk).

I don’t know how we stop the men themselves being abusers, they’ve done it forever. We do need to be more mindful that it could happen and ensure that robust safeguarding procedures are in place. I know many parents who happily drop their kids off with male sports coaches for 1-1 or small group sessions without a backward glance or to question the set up. Usually because these coaches are friendly and kind and don’t see how much of a grooming tool that is.

Was this recently? That’s really poor, even when I went into nursery as a parent volunteer I had a dbs even though I wasn’t left alone with the children.

The nursery we use has a male staff member.
He's absolutely lovely and appears so professional.

Sad to think that he could lose his job simply for being a man.

There’s another active thread about this that has been running for a few weeks. I agree op. The benefits of men working in early years do not outweigh the risks. We have huge problems with male sexual violence in our society.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5437394-ban-male-nursery-workers?page=1

Babies and small children are so vulnerable. Even once at school age, kids have a voice and some agency. I agree that the market will probably sort this out.

I would be more focused on the procedures and supervision that prevent any care worker from having the opportunity to abuse those in their care.

I am sorry that this has happened to the families concerned but this is another pointless thread on this subject (pointless because those who think that banning men from working in a nursery setting will not be convinced otherwise). Also, nursery workers are not allowed to be alone with young children during toilet breaks. Nothing to debate.

Thank goodness and shout out to all the men who are still willing to work with young people - sport coaches, Scout leaders, school crossing men, those volunteering to be 'Father Christmas' etc. who give up their time knowing that a few ignorant people might wonder why they are doing so.

Agree.

And we should ban women as well. No-one wants a repeat of the nursery worker who murdered the baby by strapping her to the bean bag or the one who was abusing children and taking photographs for her boyfriend or the one who was scratching and pinching the babies.

Let's ban men and women from working in nurseries. We have to keep children safe.

I never understand this argument. Families are necessary to children in a way that male nursery workers are not to children who require nursery care. Also the demands and regulations upon a professional setting and business are understandably greater than they are in your average home. It is not reasonable to have background checks and mandatory training on everyone who enters your home but it is entirely reasonable and indeed important for nursery staff. That does not mean that safeguarding is also not important at home but it has to be different and as the parents are present in an environment they have control to a greater extent then they have when employing a nursery to look after their child.

Likewise you cannot expect everyone to have a food hygiene certificate and separate fridge at home when catering for guests but it is reasonable for a professional bakery or restaurant to follow those standards. Again it doesn’t mean that food hygiene isn’t also important at home.

And safeguarding is not about eliminating every single risk but reducing and controlling known risks. It will never be feasible to prevent all risks to children but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to reduce them further or not make any effort at all because risk will never be entirely eliminated.