To be seriously concerned about sending DS to nursery given news today?

[SharpPinkDuck]

I have a 14 month old DS and had been planning for him to start nursery 3 days per week in London in January as I have a new part time job which I’d been really looking forward to.

However having read the horrific, disgusting news today about the nursery worker in London who SA’d the babies and children I feel incredibly anxious and unsure that I should be sending him. I don’t feel at all comfortable with the idea of any male coming into contact with him in a nursery setting, I don’t care if that’s an outdated attitude, I am not willing to risk it and clearly there is a risk. My nursery had no men while I looked around and we liked the setting and the staff.

Does anyone have any advice? I cannot believe the world is this way, that I can’t send my child to nursery costing a fortune for fear of him being sexually assaulted or worse.

98% of those convicted of child sexual abuse in the uk are men. There is a clear case not to have male members of staff in nurseries . However we seem to have a culture where men’s feelings are more important than child safeguarding.

The issue with DBS checks is that they pick up past crimes. They don’t pick up future crimes. How can they? Nurseries are inspected and no doubt have robust policies but staff need to be vigilent and whistle blow. The nursery probably followed safe recruitment protocols but people can easily circumvent these by either committing a first offence or not being caught. It’s very difficult to catch a perpetrator before they start offending.

Most nurseries have cctv now so make sure you choose a nursery with cctv and no blind spots, including nappy changing areas. Ask questions about how often CCTV is checked, read the safeguarding policies, ask about safer recruitment, ask about their line working policies and whistle blowing policies. Make sure that they have walkie talkies so help can be sought without leaving a room (which can affect ratios). Make sure the DSL is up on safeguarding and has good working knowledge of the signs of abuse etc. some settings are just not open to the fact it could happen in their setting and you don’t want that. This fortunately is very very rare. I work as a LADO and have for 3 years and thankfully I have not encountered anything even remotely close to this with nurseries and I oversee all allegations against professionals in my LA.

I was about to call them, to ask them to break down the doors, when she arrived back. . With hindsight I wish I had called police, taken photos etc, but in the moment I just wanted to get her away from there

It’s absolutely upsetting, yes. But don’t be lulled into the false sense of security that strange men bad/friendly familiar men good.

The reality is that most children who are sexually abused are abused by someone trusted in their family or close social circle, not in school or nursery. You almost certainly have someone close to you who already has close supervised or unsupervised contact with your dc, or will in the future as he starts having play dates and birthday parties, who is a child sexual abuser. Statistically speaking, it’s inevitable. 1 in 6 children is sexually abused in their childhood. You will end up knowing those adults and they will end up being around your dc. Those are the ones you need to worry about.

Trust me, I never would have believed it if it hadn’t happened to me. One close family member arrested for sexually abusing a child in his family. It was horrific. Completely shook my trust in everyone I had around my dc. Through it all, I confided in another even closer family member. Found out several years down the line that her partner was also a convicted paedophile. He’d been using her to get close to children, including my own, and had abused others since (not mine, I’m very grateful). We are a completely normal family, no drama, no other criminals, all professionals, well respected in the community, and even we have 2 paedophiles. There no doubt are more I don’t know about, not to mention friends’ parents, neighbours, whoever. Those are the ones you need to worry about. Not the ones with a DBS and a safeguarding policy to adhere to.

The question can be asked 'how often do you do DBS, do they have auto renew'. Some may only do every 3 years to save money, places which place high importance will do yearly/have auto renew. Definitely not foolproof, but indication of how important they view it.

Think of it a different way, how many children are in nursery? This case is so unusual it’s made headline news across the country. The fact it is headline news is reassuring that it’s so rare. You can apply this logic to many other things too. You need to make decisions that are right for your family but try to remember the millions of children in childcare without incident

My 2 children - one went to a large/converted house with small team nursery.
The other went to Big Chain nursery.

The Big Chain was by far the better managed and led one. Run by a consistent, small team. Being gpart of a chain I think meant they had more training opportunities and more incentives to stay and better pay offering from the odd job advertised to cover maternity leave!

The small homely nursery had the highest staff turnover. 4 managers in 2 years. My child has about 8 different key workers. So many apprentices, few actual qualifications. There was no consistency. No professionalism. And complaints. They didn't know how to manage complaints, period.

Everyone's experiences are so different.

@Bushmillsbabe Not sure if that was mentioned. However there can be delays in getting the enhanced ones done. If the nursery followed the legal requirements, they did. I’ve no doubt it will jolt other nurseries.

If anyone remembers we were all upset when a head killed herself after ofsted found safeguarding errors. The case today illustrates why it matters.

I bet this particular chain Bright Horizons has the best and tightest safeguarding policies in place now, as a result of this news.

Probably the safest nursery chain around currently, sadly.

Perhaps look to find a nanny share? I think there will be other parents like you rethinking their nursery place at the moment. A nanny-share is such a good option for everyone involved I don't really know why they haven't regained the popularity they had pre-Covid.

The real numbers, although still very small, will be significantly higher than we know. There will always be more people doing the crime than doing the time.

I wasn't keen on our childmimder as they're there by themselves - {and also couldn't give me sufficient notice for holidays).

Hey, my child is in a bright horizons nursery just outside of London. We’ve had nothing but an amazing experience. Low staff turnover, a long standing manager, one male staff member who is amazing and constant updates and support with any anxiety or queries we had. I know it’s scary but for bright horizons alone there are 8,500 staff across the UK, so when you think of those stats it’s pretty low risks. I has a heart attack today as all parents got an email from the bright horizons MD about the case. But my husband reassured me that our little man runs in and runs out happy every day and has done for two years. On our road alone there has been 20 children in this nursery so there’s a close group of parents and none of us have had any concerns with safeguarding.

Go with your gut on the nursery you’ve chosen. Keep asking questions, tell them you’re an anxious heap and what can they do to reassure you, talk through policies.

be kind to yourself, it’s a scary time but just remember these stories are isolated in comparison to the bigger picture and while that doesn’t take away from the devastation they are built on, it might comfort you in your worries.

I think a nursery is preferable over a childminder. At least at a nursery you’ve got other people watching. However, if you can possibly keep him out of nursery until he’s older I’d do that. Dd was nearly three before she went to nursery

Not many women do this, men having a near monopoly on paraphilias. Also not sure some women who have been convicted of SA are actually women and not transwomen.

I am too old to have nursery age children, but would think that in this day and age there should be permanent CCTV in all nursery areas. Passing an enhanced security check only proves an abuser hasn't been caught yet, not that they are not an abuser.

We didn’t send ours until they were pretty fluent for just that reason.
Is that a feasible option?
That said, I was probably overly anxious and the overwhelming majority of nursery nurses are good people who care.

Defend their choice? Some of us don’t have a choice, just remember that.

All the recent cases of abuse in nurseries has been caught on CCTV.

You'll sadly find abusers in all walks of life. Childminders, nursery staff, male and female. There is nothing wrong about deciding that one setting or one type of setting or one gender of person makes you feel safer than another, provided you recognise that that is your choice and not something that's universally right, if that make sense. Also be aware that a nursery could take on a male worker AFTER your child was enrolled, and they would be ok to do that.

I completely understand where you're coming from. Right before I returned to work after DC1 a baby had died at nursery and I was distraught at the idea of sending him in.

I pushed through and he's been absolutely fine, aside from endless colds and bugs.

Abuse is rare enough that you kind of have to take the risk, unless you're willing to stay at home until they go to school.

FWIW I also prefer a nursery to a childminder, not least because people I don't know can't just pop round for a visit.

I think you just have to decide what's best for you for now given your anxiety. you can chose to move if they hire a man, you can keep her home and not work yet, you can see if DH is able to reduce his hours go look after DC etc. there's no real right or wrong answer.
but the reality is it's very rare, it isn't the place children and most at risk and being verbal doesn't mean children are able to tell.

It’s perfectly reasonable to have anxiety around the safety of your children when they’re not with you.

When I was first exploring options I remember visiting one of the few childminder’s with spaces available & I immediately observed signs that caused me to question safety . I decided it was safer to have my babies in a place where there were more workers around. Eventually we found a nursery that welcomed parents to drop in & we spent time getting to know the nursery staff. We also had a selection who we would hire for babysitting at home as they knew our children really well.

Childminders with older children of their own was a concern for me. Much later I recalled a school friend whose mother was a childminder; my friend had disclosed to me that she was repeatedly fending off her teenage brother’s attempts to SA her. They were an incredibly conservative acting family.

I recall many cases of SA of and by family members — in the 80s it was an open secret.

The vast number of family child protection cases are not reported in the news unless it results in death — while SA in childcare or education settings dominate the news cycle resulting in the persistent misrepresentation of the issue as a whole.

You have to remember your response is irrational and brought on by shock and fear. If the news was that a child was abused by their grandad, people wouldn't stop children seeing their grandads. I work in a nursery and I can't speak for anywhere else but the children get excellent care there. In theory I guess an abuser could deceive us but your dh or brother in law could deceive you too. There is just no point in dwelling on it. No matter where you go or what you do there is an element of risk so best to just rise above it and hope your DC will be OK in life.