{"id":396480,"date":"2025-09-04T05:50:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T05:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/396480\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T05:50:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T05:50:10","slug":"grandfather-mistakenly-takes-home-wrong-child-from-sydney-daycare-centre-childcare-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/396480\/","title":{"rendered":"Grandfather mistakenly takes home wrong child from Sydney daycare centre | Childcare Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

An investigation has been launched and a childcare educator has been stood down after a grandparent mistakenly picked up and took home the wrong toddler from a Sydney<\/a> daycare centre.<\/p>\n

The grandfather arrived to collect his grandchild from First Steps Learning Academy in Bangor on Monday afternoon, only to reportedly be given the wrong child.<\/p>\n

The man unwittingly took the child, who was sleeping at the time, home with him. The mistake was only realised when the boy\u2019s mother showed up at the centre to collect him and found he was not there, the Sydney Morning Herald reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t explain the feeling,\u201d the mother told the newspaper of learning her one-year-old had been collected by a man she didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t blame him. We are not angry with him. We are not upset at him \u2013 we blame the daycare.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The grandfather\u2019s wife told the Sydney Morning Herald her husband was \u201cdevastated\u201d by the mistake and \u201craced [the] child back so fast\u201d when he realised he had the wrong boy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am just so glad the little boy was OK,\u201d she said, adding her husband had arrived at the centre when the children were sleeping and the room was dark.<\/p>\n

New South Wales\u2019 Early Childhood Education and Care Regulatory Authority said it was conducting a \u201cthorough investigation\u201d into the \u201cdeeply concerning and serious incident\u201d.<\/p>\n

The authority said an educator had been stood down by the daycare centre while the matter was investigated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe \u2026 regulatory authority investigation will consider the service\u2019s compliance history,\u201d the regulator said, adding NSW police had been notified. NSW police said it did not have any record of a police investigation.<\/p>\n

Trisha Hastie, the approved provider of First Steps Learning Academy, issued an apology to the families for the distress caused by the incident \u2013 which she said was \u201cisolated\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has never happened before at Bangor, or at any of our other centres,\u201d Hastie said in a statement on Thursday.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhile we have always maintained strict protocols for drop-off and pick-up, in this case, those processes were not followed correctly. The educator involved has been stood down.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have acted immediately to strengthen our procedures and ensure this never happens again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The incident comes at a time of intense scrutiny of the early childhood sector in Australia.<\/p>\n

There have been disturbing allegations of abuse and neglect of children<\/a> across Australian childcare centres in recent months, leading to government reviews<\/a> of the sector in both NSW and Victoria.<\/p>\n

A suite of legislative changes<\/a> has been announced by state and federal governments, aimed at improving safety standards in the sector.<\/p>\n

There have been no allegations of abuse or neglect directed at First Steps Learning Academy in Bangor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An investigation has been launched and a childcare educator has been stood down after a grandparent mistakenly picked…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-396480","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115144466306463536","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}