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.

First comment nailed it. We’ve had males in both our nurseries and they’ve been brill.

I don’t think an outright ban is proportional. However we need more vigorous safeguarding procedures, such as a ban on lone working. I don’t think the new guidance on changing spaces being private is a good idea.

Not really. The main employees in nurseries are women, by a country mile.

Said it on the other thread, I would not use a nursery employing male nursery workers. They have far too much access to the most vulnerable of children.
Men in primary school and above. Fine.

I didn’t say they weren’t?

This is my view as well. I am grateful that both of mine were at nurseries with an entirely female staff.

Ban men from politics and government too, I say!

With little kids why not just stay and watch, I actually never thought it was a good idea to drop and go when my DS was little at football club, plus I wanted to see him in action. My nephew was spotted for one of the top clubs when young and my brother and sil never left him.

YABU because not only can Men be great caregivers, its really, really important for our society that little boys and girls grow up seeing men being caregivers because otherwise we perpetuate gender stereotypes that are damaging for both women and men. I plan to bring both my kids up (one of each) to believe that they should have an important role both as a financial provider and as a caregiver in any family they have.

I can't see how it could possibly be legal to ban males from working in nurseries, but like pp I wouldn't send my dc to one that employs men. There are so many deviant males out there, I just wouldn't take the risk.

Rather than banning men ... find a cure!

I agree, I think we need to stop being naive about this. The overwhelming majority of paedophiles are men. I would be very suspicious of a man wanting to work with nursery age children.
Men being primary school teachers or working with primary aged children is just different because the children are older and generally don’t need intimate care.
I don’t really care if men are upset about the discrimination, the welfare of children is more important.

I don’t see any benefit to the risk of having a man in a nursery setting and question why a man wants to work with babies when it’s clear from evidence that they are far more likely than women to have bad intentions. What parent wants to risk it and what is the benefit to risking something horrific happening to your child. I am extremely concerned following the news today about sending mine at all.

Women can abuse children too, I remember cases of both physical and sexual abuse by women working in nurseries as well as the death of a baby. What is needed is effective approaches to safeguarding which all companies, managers and staff take seriously. It shouldn't be possible for anyone to be able to do this when working with young children in a nursery setting

So how does the first post “nail it”?

The male early years practitioner at my DD’s nursery is fantastic. I had reservations for a micro second (unconscious bias and all) but I’m glad I got over that as he is my DD favourite person at nursery and excellent at his job.

This minimising of male violence is incredibly disturbing.

Men commit the vast majority of violent (95%) and sexual (98%) crime.

Why on earth do women pretend that isn’t the case and, even worse, pretend that women are just as bad???

The post I said nailed it also didn’t say that there were not more women in childcare?

The first post didn’t mention the numbers of male to female nurseries workers at all.

How did it “nail it” though?

Yes people always remember Vanessa George because of how comparatively rare female sexual abusers are but I’d struggle to name many men who have committed sexual abuse in childcare settings because there’s been so many of them in the news, especially worldwide in spite of childcare being very much dominated by women. The number I found in 5 minutes of Googling was shocking.

YABU

Many more female staff have been found to have committed crimes against children than men.

What does need to change is for no staff to be allowed alone with any child ever.

Each room needs to be open plan (small curtains for privacy if needed) and in each room there should be at least 2 staff.

That comment wasn’t minimising. I don’t thinks single rational person thinks men dont pose a greater risk.

They’re suggesting that there are safeguards so neither men nor women can abuse children.

I fully agree. But how would this work with childminders who are often fully alone with children? And in many ways nuch more risky as less adults to 'discover' an adult with negative intentions. From my perspective (and personal experience) childminders are the riskiest option of all. Many cases of sexual abuse by childminders will go undetected due to children in care being non verbal and no other adult to report them

Perhaps.. then why weren't middle aged male GPs banned after Shipman? Or young female neonatal nurses banned after Letby? Or maybe all white British people of any age in the medical professions? Civilised society doesn't collectively punish people by sex or race because of the actions of one person. And rightly so.

What about some SEND schools then where children are also non-verbal? No male TAs, teachers etc there? I work as a TA in a SEND school and intimate care is a large part of the role. Most of our staff are women but there are quite a few men.

In an ideal world, children in these settings would be changed 2-1. But in reality most are changed on a 1-1 basis as there just isn't the staffing numbers for 2-1 changing of every pupil. Given the number of adverts I see for nursery staff, it would seem nurseries have exactly the same problems with staffing numbers.