Kylie Lang: Kicking men out of childcare won’t fix the system’s major flaws

The fact that almost all sexual assault offenders are male suggests that if you kick them out entirely, you’ll eradicate safety concerns. But, writes Kylie Lang, excluding men fails to address grave problems in the way many early childhood centres are run.

• How scarily simple it is to work with kids in Qld

The fact that almost all sexual assault offenders are male supports the hot-button argument that men should be banned from working in childcare.

Kick them out entirely and you’ll eradicate safety concerns.

But excluding men fails to address grave problems in the way many early childhood centres are run.

It also demonises the brave men who do good work in this troubled sector. I say brave because it has been easy to question the motivation of those who choose this profession.

It’s not dissimilar to men who become primary teachers or priests – I know a number of them and all been stigmatised in some way.

We are right to be outraged at the heinous allegations against a Victorian childcare worker this week charged with more than 70 offences.

It is alleged Joshua Brown, 26, abused children aged between five months and two years over an eight-year period across 20 daycare centres.

Melbourne alleged sex abuser Joshua Brown. Picture Supplied.

Parents and the wider public are sickened by the allegations.

But rather than ban men, governments should rip into the sector that has monumentally failed on multiple occasions to do as its job states and care for children.

The sector’s flaws were writ large in the case of Ashley Paul Griffith, who pleaded guilty last September to 307 offences including the abuse of 65 young girls at 11 Brisbane childcare centres over a 20-year period.

The abuse included 28 counts of rape, 190 counts of indecently treating a child in his care, 67 counts of making child exploitation material and 15 counts of maintaining a sexual relationship with a child.

In January, the Queensland government tasked its Child and Family Commission to begin a review, titled System Response to Child Sexual Abuse, but the reality is a drastic overhaul was due yesterday.

In June, the commission tabled a progress report, identifying gaping cracks in early childhood centre processes.

These include “prioritisation of an organisation’s reputation” and “a fear of defamation and legal risks to organisations and individuals may act as a deterrent to raising or sharing concerns”.

Ashley Paul Griffith pleaded guilty to 307 offences including the abuse of 65 young girls at 11 Brisbane childcare centres.

The workforce is short-staffed and “highly casualised” – pressures that “may also impact the quality of recruitment processes, including the robustness of referee checks”.

The National Workforce Census shows roughly 8 per cent of early childhood educators are male.

Meanwhile, the Australian Bureau of Statistics says men make up more than 97 per cent of sexual assault perpetrators.

Simon Kennedy, a senior research fellow at the University of Queensland, says the stats present a compelling case.

“It makes a lot of sense to be discriminatory and make it a women-only workspace,” Kennedy tells me.

“It’s not necessary for men to work in childcare; they are not essential to the service.

“As a parent who is also close to adult survivors of child abuse, I’m not interested in giving people the benefit of the doubt. I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

Kennedy, who regularly comments on government policy, says the Blue Card system isn’t enough to guarantee a childcare worker isn’t “a monster”.

On this, I agree.

All people should be rigorously checked out and a national register for childcare workers established.

The National Workforce Census shows roughly 8 per cent of early childhood educators are male. Picture: Supplied

I also think the Child and Family Commission needs to revisit its standards.

In April, it released 10 child safety standards, including: “Empowering children by informing them of their rights and including them in decision-making processes is fundamental to safeguarding their wellbeing.”

The commission is forgetting infants are non-verbal, don’t know their rights and can’t have input into decisions. This falls to their parents – but when they are kept in the dark, their babies are left utterly helpless.

In 2017 the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse outlined ways to make childcare centres safe.

Putting glass walls around toilets and nappy change areas was one. Eight years on, has this happened in every centre, and if not, why not?

Calls have been made since for the installation of CCTV that is monitored by child protection authorities – another no-brainer.

Rushing to ban men will not stop systemic failures.

Kylie Lang is Associate Editor of
The Courier-Mail
[e-mail]

Originally published as Kylie Lang: Kicking men out of childcare won’t fix the system’s major flaws