‘Understaffed and overworked’: Loophole made it easy for Joshua Brown to be alone with kids

A childcare worker who has worked alongside alleged pedophile Joshua Brown has revealed the regulation loophole that made it easy for him to be alone with children at a Melton centre.

A former colleague of Joshua Brown has revealed how easy it was for the alleged pedophile to be left alone with multiple children due to staffing shortages, and detailed a “bizarre” incident involving a kid’s monster truck.

The former Kids Academy Melton staff member, who didn’t wish to be identified, told the Herald Sun the centre was regularly understaffed, with two educators often forced to look after up to 28 kids at one time.

Kids Academy Melton was one of 20 centres Mr Brown worked at since beginning his employment in 2017, with the state government website stating he only worked there once on September 12.

This is despite allegations he returned to the centre over the 2024 Christmas holiday period following an exodus of permanent staff.

“I remember the first day (Mr Brown) was there – it was a really hard time for us as educators at the centre,” she said.

“We were really understaffed and overworked and on that particular day, he was generally outside in the yard supervising while the permanent educator was inside doing the daily tasks.”

Kids Academy Melton was one of 20 centres Mr Brown worked at since beginning his employment in 2017. Picture Supplied.

The childcare worker recounted an incident involving Mr Brown which she found “bizarre” at the time, considering he was only at the centre on a casual basis.

“When (Mr Brown) had gone home for the day, a child had come up to me asking where he was,” she said.

“I informed the child he went home and they continued to tell me ‘he’s taken my monster truck off me and put it in his pocket and took it home’.

“I thought it was really bizarre given that he was a fill-in educator with the chance of never returning.”

The former employee said a supervising staff member “looked high and low for this car” but it couldn’t be found.

A verbal report was made, but it’s unclear as to whether it was ever followed up.

Mr Brown and another educator could have been left with more than two dozen children at once, due to the “under the roof” educator-to-staff ratio loophole, according to the former colleague.

The regulation gap allows centres to calculate ratios across the entire service rather than individual rooms, enabling educators to move around or have staff with non child facing roles be included in the count.

According to the National Quality Framework and the Children’s Services Act 1996, in centre-based services there must be one teacher for every four children from birth to 36 months, one educator for every 11 children up to and including preschool age and one for every 15 children at school age.

An Affinity Education spokeswoman said the childcare provider was “committed to delivering exceptional early education, which includes consistently meeting – and often exceeding – the government’s educator-to-child ratio requirements for all our centres”.

Mr Brown and another educator could have been left with more than two dozen children at once, due to the “under the roof” educator-to-staff ratio loophole. Picture Supplied.

The allegations come amid Affinity Education announcing it would introduce a “strengthened suite” of safety measures, including seeking parental preference for toileting and nappy changes and reviewing centre layouts to identify and rectify blind spots.

It will also follow G8 and Goodstart in fast-tracking the installation of CCTV across all centres and will roll out personal device lockboxes nationally to ensure staff securely store their phones before their shift.

It’s understood the rollout of the latter two measures will cost the company $10m.

The provider will also review how its staff move between centres, after Mr Brown was allowed to work across nine of its centres during his employment.

“While this is a common operational practice in the sector, we are now reviewing how these movements are managed through a stronger child safety lens,” the spokeswoman said.

The announcement came just hours after another Affinity childcare worker pleaded not guilty to nine counts of sexual abuse against a child in a regional NSW court on Thursday.

Meanwhile, some of the 20 centres Mr Brown worked at are struggling to retain families following the allegations that emerged about his behaviour.

One parent said the toddler room at Aussie Kindies Sunbury only had five kids in its care on Wednesday morning, while other parents have taken to social media to scope alternative childcare centres after withdrawing their child from their current one.