Experts warn against witch hunt of male child carers

Experts warn against witch hunt of male child carers

Childcare experts have urged early years practitioners to not focus on gender when learning lessons from the Little Stars Nursery child abuse case.

The call comes after a serious case review published this week highlighted evidence that staff at the now-closed Birmingham nursery were reluctant to challenge Paul Wilson, who used his position as an assistant at the setting to rape a child, “in case this was seen to be discriminatory”.

Although the review did not suggest Wilson’s gender was a factor in his crimes, Richard Harty, the programme leader for early childhood studies at the University of East London, said the case revealed problems with “policy and procedure at all levels rather than individuals and gender”.

“The worst thing that can happen from this would be a witch hunt about men and pedophilia,” he said.

“The witch hunt should be on the other side – why did Ofsted not investigate concerns? There’s been a real failure of safeguarding here.

“Safeguarding agencies need to speak to each other and we need to have good systems in place.”

Harty’s call was echoed by London Early Years Foundation chief executive June O’Sullivan.

“This is a time when we have to be responsible and sensible. This is not about men – it’s about systems,” she said.

O’Sullivan plans to review processes at the foundation’s 24 nurseries as a result of the case, which will look at HR procedures, mobile phone policies and social media regulations among other matters.

She suggested that Ofsted, which the serious case review found had failed to properly investigate concerns at Little Stars Nursery, might react to the report too forcefully.

“I suspect Ofsted will come in all guns blazing and get heavy,” she said. “I wonder if it would pick on nurseries where there are men as a starting point – but I don’t think it would be that focused.”

Laura Henry, director of Childcare Consultancy, said early years practitioners must avoid “knee-jerk reactions”.

“The clear message should be that these issues are not gender-specific

“In the Birmingham case, the problems quite clearly seemed to be around attitudes and behaviour.

“As a result, we should have intelligent conversations and be more solution-driven about what we can do in the sector to prevent this happening again.”

Henry said the Department for Education should lead an initiative to promote strong leadership in early years settings and consider how organisational culture could be defined and measured.

She also highlighted the 2009 Plymouth child abuse case involving female nursery worker Vanessa George, who was found guilty of sexual assault and making and distributing indecent pictures of children, to counter claims males always perpetrated such abuse.

In November 2012, the London Early Years Foundation published research to coincide with the launch of the London Network for Men in Childcare that showed men are deterred from working in childcare because they worry they will be perceived as being a paedophile.

Source: CYPNow

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