‘Our daughter was killed at nursery – they need to be safer’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2641weqego
by Rob_Cram
‘Our daughter was killed at nursery – they need to be safer’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2641weqego
by Rob_Cram
22 comments
Wow heartbreaking. Maybe getting rid of hazardous objects like a beanbag would be first step?
My heart hurt a little when I opened this and saw it was the parents of little Genevieve. Their story really stuck with me since it was first in the news. Obviously in their case, I don’t think you can ignore the fact that the woman hired to care for Genevieve was evidently (with hindsight) pure evil. But I am routinely surprised by how many nurseries completely disregard what I would see as basic H&S considerations. Choking hazards in particular, as well as other things such as disregard for basic NHS advice re sun safety.
My sister works at one and she finds that agency staff can be very hit and miss, but usually more miss than hit. It does not help that child to staff ratios are large and providing safe levels can be a challenge when demand for places is relentless. More needs to be done to address the skills of some nursery workers and individuals need to be reported if it seems their skills are not up to standard. That way, they can be removed from the system earlier.
>Nine-month-old Genevieve died from asphyxiation when she was tightly swaddled, strapped to a beanbag, and left unattended by a nursery worker for 90 minutes.
14 years for manslaughter. She as good as murdered that little girl. Evil. Stuff like this makes me worry to send my own to a nursery.
it’s the same in the care industry – we underpay and understaff the industries used to care for the most vulnerable and then act shocked when plenty of them are shit at care, not interested in care, and not irregularly, cruel.
of course there are good care and nursery workers but the system is broken.
I reported a woman for purposely hitting an elderly man on the head with his hoist (hard). the care agency acted irritated and frustrated and other people bitched about the person who did it (it was supposedly anonymous) for ruining her life.
When my son was 3, I put him in a nursery because to get his ehcp (he’s severely autistic) that’s what I was told I had to do, put him in an educational setting.
Well you can guess my absolute fury when reading the notes made by the speech therapist for the ehcp about one of her visits, my son was supposed to have 1:1 and the nursery was being paid for that extra staff member by the council, well he had no 1:1 but they pocketed the money. Then there was a time I collected him and nobody had paid attention to him so had no idea where his socks and shoes were (he liked to strip at that time) but the speech therapists notes specifically stated that despite her sessions with my son were meant to be alongside a nursery staff member they weren’t and she herself had to step into the room when she first arrived and stop my son (who was left indoors on his own) from climbing out of the front window which opened up to a busy main road. They were told many times by myself, his father and even other professionals that got involved for the ehcp that my son was a flight risk and had no sense of danger so this is one of the many reasons why he needed 1:1 at all times, to prevent his attempts to escape out a fucking window.
Ever since then I have always tried to be more vigilant on nursery and school settings, I’ve gone to some nurseries and have just seen staff sat around chatting whilst the kids are left to their own devices, I’ve seen one nursery where staff members were having fags in the garden area near the children instead of away from the nursery building. There’s also been a lot of other cases where I just think “who the hell are you hiring?” Because you can tell the staff aren’t there because that’s the career they want to be in, they’re just doing it for a job and barely interact with the small children people are trusting them to care for.
My heart goes out to this family, a lot needs to be done with these nurseries nowadays. Why aren’t better background checks being made? Why are incidents like this occurring when the parents should be able to leave and have the knowledge that their child is safe and cared for?
I’m still not entirely sure how that death wasn’t seen as murder.
I wouldn’t use one of the nurseries near me after seeing when the staff take the kids to the park they are always just sitting on their phones not paying attention.
Heartbreaking how fast the government moves when it’s about property or profits, but a child’s death? Suddenly it’s paperwork and silence.
This is why no child of mine will ever go to a nursery. I wouldn’t trust under qualified and over worked people to look after my child.
Why did the nursery worker get 14 yrs but ur average rapist gets under 2?
And yet here the government are increasing ratios so nurseries don’t need as many staff while at the same time throwing ‘free’ hours out to flood settings to breaking point, increasing ofsted standards to school levels while paying staff less than someone working at Aldi – all while promoting school nurseries in an effort to kill off the private sector.
I remember my son coming home walking like he’d been on a horse all day. He’d been left in a spoiled nappy and it had basically eroded his skin from his crotch. My husband went and shouted at the nursery staff who were in charge.
Next day they had the gall to say how upset the nursery leader was from my husband shouting at her. I was livid!
These things happen directly because of privatisation..
When nurseries, children’s homes, elder care homes etc were directly run by local councils, staff were much more thoroughly vetted, more closely monitored, much better trained, and paid a decent wage
Private companies are profit driven. They will cut corners, like under staffing, under paying and never investing in training.
Lots of people working in the caring sector are dedicated hardworking individuals. However, since privatisation, bad staff are not weeded out, as long as they’re cheap and reliable.
Source. Worked various roles in the care sector. Watched the changes privatisation bought. Quit in the end because I’m not prepared to abuse/ neglect vulnerable people so greedy individuals can profit
The owners /managers should also have been held criminally liable for this poor baby’s death
How did the other staff let this happen? They should be charged as well. I’m glad at least the main culprit has been charged
Absolutely tragic. Reading how many incidents occur is quite shocking. These are places children should be safe, i cannot understand the neglect at all. I dont get it
After the tories did the whole free hours for everyone things, it closed many nurseries because they got 4 quid per child across the board.
The only reason a lot of places stayed open was because they accepted apprenticeships to basic cover the gaps.
The Tories saw what the last one did and upped the number so the impact will be felt during the labour government. We’re going to see more places close, making it harder for parents to access anything, and more incidents like this arise.
It’s going to get worse…
Early years professional, the issue is how shit and unapproachable OFSTED are. Young staff are terrified as OFSTED inspectors are unapproachable and can be rude, so they won’t report anything. Also, as someone who has reported issues, they do very little unless you have a ton of evidence.
We also have the issue of if you pay crap and get crap these largely women have at least 2 years of college to be qualified get get paid less than those working in a supermarket. I’ve seen nursery balance sheets, and the issue is piss poor funding.
Anytime the government wants to not be absolute bell ends and do something about the above they can, but they won’t.
This setting had CCTV, which people seem to think will fix issues, but as we can see, it doesn’t the issues run deep.
Let’s be real, that callous evil act wasn’t just just person. Each person in that nursery not checking needs to be held responsible and put away as well.
Nurseries are generally staffed by underpaid, underappreciated, undertrained or overworked workers who can’t be better trained or paid because it would make the nurseries unaffordable to most parents.
Having scouted nurseries for my own young children, I discovered most places cheat the statutory staff to child ratio by counting management and admin staff, who are only present amongst the kids part of the time. There is incredible churn and turnover and the youngest babies and toddlers especially are the most neglected because they are the least mobile.
We won’t subsidise the industry any more because the public sector spending bill is already too high, so ultimately the only solution to better nurseries is higher prices which means parents can’t afford them.
And we all as a society scratch our heads as to why the birth rate is so low.
The issue is a society that requires a mother to send her 9 month old to nursery
Standards at nurseries vary massively, even within the same groups. You see some where staff won’t leave a room for two minutes to go to the toilet if that means they’ll be out of ratio and others where the manager themselves evidently does not give a shit about the setting.
Operators will ruminate over the location, accessibility, marketing, condition of the building etc. but factor no. 1 is always the staff team.
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