Innocent male childcare workers likely to be driven from sector

The fallout from sex abuse charges against a Melbourne childcare worker could force male early learning educators to quit, sector experts have warned.

Within hours of Tuesday’s news that an alleged male sex offender had worked across 20 Victorian childcare centres, parents took to social media to decry men working in the early learning sector, with some posting they would consider removing their children from a centre if a male educator worked there.

The alleged victims attended the Creative Garden Early Learning Centre in Point Cook.

One male childcare worker posted on social media that the “unfortunate elephant in the room” was that for a “small percentage of men in the workforce, they appear to do the majority of the sexual abuse”. He said it was hard to know what to do but “we need to talk about it”.

One mother, whose daughter attended Creative Garden in Point Cook, said the alleged child rapist, Joshua Brown, had been working at the centre when her daughter began attending, but was never directly involved with her child. Brown is yet to enter a plea in relation to the charges.

She said she still felt safe sending her daughter to the centre because there were no male educators working there.“I wouldn’t prefer like, some man [working] in childcare,” she said. “I wouldn’t feel safe.”

Based on the 2024 National Early Childhood Education and Care Workforce Census, 92.1 per cent of workers are female.

But University of South Australia early childhood education senior lecturer Dr Martyn Mills-Bayne said, more generally and without reference to the specific allegations against Brown, if administration staff and after-school-care workers were removed from the data, the percentage of men in the sector was probably closer to 4 per cent.

“Men will likely leave the sector because of this, because of the pressure and the surveillance that this puts on good-quality men,” he said.

“So many of us, the majority of men, are doing the right thing. They’re here for the right reasons, these horrible individuals … ruin it for everyone.”

Police visit the Papilio Early Learning Centre in Essendon on Tuesday morning.Credit: Justin McManus

Deakin University lecturer in education Katherine Bussey said there were already many challenges to encourage men into the professions, including lower pay, a feminised profession and unwarranted suspicion of men working in caring roles.

Bussey said men should be supported to work in the early learning and care sector.

“It unfortunately does not matter what someone’s gender is to perpetrate harm against others,” she said.

“I know of people who were sexually assaulted in early childhood education by a female educator. I believe it is time for a national record of professionals in [early childhood education and care].

“We have stringent codes of conduct as teachers in early childhood maintained through VIT’s [Victorian Institute of Teaching] provisions that are linked to teacher’s registration. However, if you work as an educator, there are lower screening practices for educators as there are for teachers.”

Tuesday’s revelations that Brown has been charged with more than 70 child sex offences relating to children as young as five months have spread fear through the community, but experts say gender is not the issue.

NSW childcare worker Nick Stephens said good men wanted to protect children but said “there are gaps bad people can take advantage of”.

“I think we need to tell parents that there is a risk. You drop your children off at childcare, you don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said.

In early learning centres that have a high ratio of children to staff, it can be easy for educators to be alone with a child. “We need to talk about this,” Stephens said.

Early Childhood Australia chief executive Samantha Page said many people were already suspicious about male early learning educators.

“It has been [an issue] in recent years since there was a case that was quite public and devastating for everybody and that has created concerns and suspicions about male educators unfairly,” she said.

“It’s such a pity because we need good male educators working in early childhood settings.”

Ramesh Shrestha, who runs a support network for male childcare workers, Thriving Educators Aspiring Male Professionals, said the last time allegations about a male educator came out, men who had been in the industry for 10 years decided to quit.

“Just to see them lose their morale and motivation because of what had happened and because of that constant scrutiny from everyone, like, it’s like coming to a workplace and being watched by everyone. So I think, yeah, it is definitely going to have quite an impact.”

He said having male early learning educators was important not only for the sector, but for children.

“Toxic masculinity is on the rise – if we don’t demonstrate those positive male role models in the early years, they are going to find that on the internet with [misogynistic influencer] Andrew Tate,” he said.

Instead of unfairly blaming all male educators, he said, system changes were needed.

He advocated for an increase in staff ratios so that children would always be watched by at least two people, as well as having an easy way to report so everyone could advocate for children’s safety.

With Angus Delaney

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