It's expected workers will be banned from using personal phones and i-Pads at child care centres. The changes have been prompted by allegations against a former Gold Coast childcare worker who allegedly abused 91 girls in Brisbane, Sydney and overseas centres.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00 We've actually had emails from members expressing concerns that employers have asked them to
00:06 use their own personal devices in the workplace to photograph children and upload images on
00:12 Story Park and also Learning Stories.
00:15 So we really welcome this change and we, us as a union and our members support the changes.
00:21 So this ban will go down well with workers themselves then?
00:25 Yes, look their concerns may have primarily been if they could be reached in a case of
00:31 an emergency by their own families or if they have children at school and they need to go
00:35 and pick them up because they're ill.
00:37 But they can keep their phones still in their lockers for the day and check them during
00:41 their morning tea breaks and lunch breaks and they should also ensure that their families
00:47 have the centre contact number so that they can reach them through the office if they
00:51 need to.
00:52 So how big a change would the National Educator Register be at the moment states and territories
00:57 are responsible for their own working with children checks?
01:00 Are there differences in how those checks are carried out between the states and territories?
01:05 Well we need to look into the detail but each state and territory have their own process
01:11 and teachers and educators actually pay a fee for those.
01:16 So we see this will benefit our members because they'll only need to pay for one working
01:21 with children check instead of multiple if they want to work across different states.
01:26 So it'll be easier to get information on the prospective worker and cheaper too but
01:30 easier being the main person.
01:32 Definitely look if the states can communicate with one another if someone's been flagged
01:36 because there have been reports or allegations made against them they can actually cross
01:40 check with one another so that someone that that's occurred to can't just go to another
01:45 state and start working.
01:47 Why hasn't this National Register been set up before?
01:50 It seems to be a no-brainer.
01:53 Well it certainly does but I guess the states and territories need to come to an agreement
01:57 on how the process will look, who will be responsible, the data collection, all that
02:02 type of thing.
02:03 Okay so what would a standard model look like?
02:05 How would it ensure that the alleged events that were discovered early this year are not
02:09 repeated?
02:11 Look I don't think they can guarantee it but if as I said if a person's been flagged because
02:16 allegations or reports have been made against them and that may happen across a number of
02:22 states then the other states where the person's applying for a job would actually be aware
02:28 of that whereas currently they wouldn't be.
02:30 So I think that would be helpful in possible earlier detection but I mean I guess we can't
02:36 guarantee that this can never happen again.
02:38 Broadly you seem to welcome these changes.
02:40 Is there anything that isn't being done that should be done?
02:44 Well look we really think that employers should be providing the resources to the teachers
02:48 and educators, the communication devices to upload the information to families and communicate
02:54 with families but also time to do these things because while they're supervising children
02:59 they're meant to be making sure the children are safe, challenging their thinking and encouraging
03:05 their language skills and if you're responding to parents who are asking questions about
03:09 what happened in this learning story or what did my child eat today or did my child have
03:13 a sleep today etc you can't be fully focused on the children.
03:18 And look we're really short staffed in early childhood.
03:21 People are fleeing the industry.
03:23 I've never seen it like this.
03:24 I'm getting emails on a weekly basis from teachers saying they're not continuing in
03:28 early childhood and so being expected to answer these questions outside of work hours adds
03:34 to that stress and burden especially when you can't go home at the end of your eight
03:37 hour shift because to maintain staff child ratios when they're short staffed they often
03:42 have to stay on the premises and then you finish that day and then you're trying to
03:46 respond to all these messages that have built up during the day.
03:49 We also have an issue of course you're probably aware of the huge pay disparity between early
03:54 childhood and primary school so there's so many teachers going to work in primary schools
03:58 even casually.
04:00 For a teacher with my qualification which is 0-8 and some people have a 0-12 degree
04:04 we can work in primary school as well as early childhood the pay difference is $30,000 so
04:09 of course they're going to leave.
04:11 [BLANK_AUDIO]