To think male nursery workers should be banned for safety reasons?

[Carla786]

I KNOW most men who work in them are fine but sexual abuse in nurseries is overwhelmingly committed by men. No more men, much less abuse risk.
Yes we need more CCTV etc to watch bad women but it cuts SA risk immeasurably.

We can still have male primary teachers etc kids are old enough to speak up then.

And yes, you can ban on the basis of sex for safety reasons. In women's refuges, eg.

Many won't agree on here, as it's probably classed in the 'being precious' or 'overprotective' category 🙄 and it surprises me in RL how many people aren't bothered by it, but I absolutely agree with you!
I would never send my child to a nursery with a male working there, or to a male childminder.I know they are not ALL paedophiles of course, but it's just not worth the risk.I would also never knowingly put any of my kids in a situation where they could be left 1-1 with a male (such as 1-1 music lessons, sports sessions etc)
Teachers at school i see as less risk as they are usually teaching abit older kids so not doing personal care, and are mostly with a larger group of children together. Male TA in reception would bother me though.
I don't agree that kids being older means they would necessarily speak up however....yes they have they technically have the ability to, but sadly many parents still don't chat to their kids about sexual abuse and body autonomy and sadly kids can easily be threatened, coerced or scared into silence by adults.

Not equating anything, just exploring the concept of collective punishment.

Exactly.

I do get this argument & ideally this is what would happen. But I suppose I'm just thinking in terms of the potential least worst option. How long will it take to sort safeguarding out properly? In the meantime, maybe men could be banned until it's sorted out properly (if that ever happens.. )

This is the crux for me.

Thank you. I suspect a large number of women are the same.

I think the studies done have allowed for proportion, but I will check this up.

Men committing most sexual abuse would align with robust findings across areas that men are much more likely to SA children & commit sexual assault in general than women are, but I agree it should be checked.

There are serious doubts about Lucy Letby's conviction from some respected medical people. She may be guilty but I'd be wary of using her as an example right now.

Exactly

This

You homeschooling your kids for all their childhoods?

That's fine, but you do understand some women are not financially able to do that? And that some women may be single, may have a deadbeat partner, etc and not have family to mind their child, so they nay HAVE to use childcare?

You seem quite harshly judgemental of those who use childcare but you just understand that not all women are financially able to avoid sending kids to childcare, let alone avoid sending them to school & homeschool.

Why do you think women whose choices you disapprove of should not be able to have a say in whether male nursery workers are allowed or not?

Having worked with youth over the years and obviously carried out relevant training etc I'd actually say it's pretty much 50:50 for which gender abuses.

Just to play devil's advocate here, imagine what our response would be if a man said something like "as more women than men are convicted of multiple kidnappings then we need to make sure women are kept away from other people".

It's ridiculous. And you absolutely are being unreasonable.

We want our men to be more involved with kids but then you say these things so basically men will be scared to actually want to be involved in their kids' lives.

Do you think banning men would be instant? That would take a lot of time too.

Gender discrimination laws would have to be adjusted or completely changed and that would likely not go unchallenged
There would have to be some kind of plan about the men who would be set to lose their jobs
There would also have to be some kind of plan for the males who were studying childcare

etc etc

It would take years to put in place.

There's no such thing as an instant solution.

You are saying SA specifically is 50-50? That women sexually abuse kids as much as men? Or do you mean abuse including physical & emotional?

I get this but there are at least not that many. Estimates are around 2-3% of nursery workers are men.

Yet there are literally thousands of posts here where we're crying out for our men to help us with childcare because it's meant to be shared parenting and not just done by us...

If you get it, why do you seem to think it would be quick? Yes, not many nursery workers are men but just turfing them out of their jobs or college without anything in place would be incredibly harsh.

and again, it would involve a change to the law. That doesn't happen overnight.

So we may as well go the whole hog and actually tackle the safeguarding issue which will take time but will protect more children on the whole from all types of abuse.

In my experience, knowing all kinds of families in all kinds of situations, where there is a will, there is a way. Most of us also manage to work at the same time. Depends how much of a priority it is. At least for a few years at preschool level. Sometimes there is no choice but to make it work too.

I don't particularly care if men are banned from childcare, as unfair as that is, but then let's not complain when women are landed with the bigger care load in society.

An individual family might feel safer homeschooling. But government absolutely should not be encouraging home schooling or even taking children out of nursery as a way to cut down on abuse as it would almost certainly dramatically increase it. As far more children are abused at home as in a regulated setting like a nursery. Nor would it be in most children’s best interest for a myriad of other reasons.

I’m intrigued to learn what you mean by “sort safeguarding out properly,” and if you have an informed view on that?

I work in education recruitment, which involves a strict compliance system. KCSIE is updated every year, minimum, all staff already have to have the relevant training on top of the various legal frameworks we have to follow before anyone is allowed near a child.

What do you think needs fixing, and how long do you think it would take?

DBS is literally just mean that somebody hasn’t been caught or more accurately they haven’t been convicted.

I’ve worked with some disgusting men who would pass the DBS. I believe there is something called a lado that ought to be more utilised within the recruitment process and it’s an opportunity to flag behaviour that’s concerning that didn’t actually result in dismissal or prosecution.

And then people can draw their own conclusions as to whether they want to employ them and have them around small children or vulnerable elderly or vulnerable females.

I'm not sure that this thread should be in AIBU?

Don't we have a section called IARAWBNAWCYPST?

(I Am Absolutely Right And Will Brook No Argument Why Can't You People See That?)

We do have something called LADO. Or rather, someone called LADO.

Any information the LADO would share with you would, if severe enough to be shared, have come up in the “relevant comments” section of a DBS. Which isn’t a conviction necessarily, but information worth sharing.

It’s quite likely however that information that met that criteria would have lead to someone being barred anyway, and the LADO doesn’t really deal with “is a bit of a weirdo, may well be an undiscovered abuser.”

They have to deal in facts and evidence, which if someone has never been caught - they still don’t have.

I can't comment on schools but clearly the safeguarding policies in nurseries are not working that well if Vincent Chan & others were able to abuse without being caught by cameras or prevented by rules meaning no child is changed alone.

I'm also doubtful of how far a DBS check can weed out abusers.

They’re systemic failures, not policy failures.

Those individual nurseries aren’t following proper safeguarding guidelines, either because they’re understaffed etc, or because they’re negligent.

The actual policies and procedures are robust, when they’re followed.

A DBS won’t prevent anyone without a conviction, caution or comment from doing anything, and it’s only valid on the day it’s printed. It confirms that on the specific day the check was done, no information exists.

I’m not sure how you would propose to deal with that however, as we can’t go around assuming people are child abusers with absolutely no evidence of that being the case.

So we ban men from working in childcare. Then what?

The result will be that all SA in nurseries will be perpetrated by women.