primetime 27-5-13 creche expose [read mod notes in post #4 and #434]

bumper234

Rose35 wrote: »

Well thankfully my child is not in that creche because if I heard anything like what was reported this morning, i would remove him immediately, i wouldnt be taking any chances regardless

If you heard of a bad Guard would you never call them again?

If you heard of a bad doctor would you never use that hospital again.

Do you see what i am saying? You cannot snap call and tar ALL staff in a company with the same brush especially when you are only getting half of the story:rolleyes:

Rose35

bumper234 wrote: »

If you heard of a bad Guard would you never call them again?

If you heard of a bad doctor would you never use that hospital again.

Do you see what i am saying? You cannot snap call and tar ALL staff in a company with the same brush especially when you are only getting half of the story:rolleyes:

When it comes to my child it is a totally different matter, my job is to protect him, i do whatever it takes to do that .... So regardless of full story or not, I would not be happy using that facility, hearing one bad story is enough, dont need a chapter to make my mind up on it.

You said earlier that you have your children in that facility but also your partner is a manager there, I did read your earlier posts.

Hannibal Smith

bumper234 wrote: »

Hi.

So yeah i am a newbie but felt i should throw in my 2 cents worth here and try to get some facts out there. My partner is a manager for Giraffe and we have been talking about this last night. Firstly the accusations are for children being shouted at and being left in chairs too long. Lets get some things straight though. The undercover reporter was in a room and supposed to be helping another educarer but was in fact not pulling her weight. This put the other educarer under undue stress as she was having to do more work. Also what i am sure RTE will fail to mention is that the girl was already under personal stress as her Mother has terminal cancer and really didn't need someone who was supposed to be working along side shirking on the work load just so she could collect (illegally) good footage?

Should she have snapped and shouted at the child for putting his hands in the food? No of course not. Can any of us who have children honestly say that we have not at some time or other shouted at our child? Imagine what it's like when dealing with 10 kids and your so called support is basically got an ulterior motive. I know some will come on here and shout "shill" but that's the nature of people. My children are in a giraffe creche and there is no way they would be staying there if i thought for one second that they were not getting great care and attention from the staff. One bad decision by a staff member over the space of 6 weeks should not ruin the reputation of the hundreds of other staff who do great work day in and day out.

Mods feel free to pm me if you wish to confirm that i do not and never have worked for giraffe or any other childcare company (trust me you will know after 5 seconds lol)

The excuse of 'we've all done it' re shouting at children is not good enough at all. they are trained professionals being paid in some cases over 1000 pm to care for children while their parents go to work. They should be providing the absolute top level of care and no excuses are acceptable.

But I do accept the point that the supporting staff was actually an unqualified camera person and that would be a huge concern for me. the fact that some one could be in your creche secretly videoing your kid is a huge breech of privacy and trust.

bumper234

Rose35 wrote: »

When it comes to my child it is a totally different matter, my job is to protect him, i do whatever it takes to do that .... So regardless of full story or not, I would not be happy using that facility, hearing one bad story is enough, dont need a chapter to make my mind up on it.

You said earlier that you have your children in that facility but also your partner is a manager there, I did read your earlier posts.

No i said she works for giraffe and our kids are in one of their creches but misreading my posts aside what makes you think ANY of us feel differently about our children the way you do? Just because i refuse to snap judge all of the staff there on rumour and hearsay does not make me a bad parent.

Rose35

supporting staff was actually an unqualified camera person ???????

Well how did that person manage to get a job there then, were they not vetted properly???
Says more about the place doesn't it

Rose35

bumper234 wrote: »

No i said she works for giraffe and our kids are in one of their creches but misreading my posts aside what makes you think ANY of us feel differently about our children the way you do? Just because i refuse to snap judge all of the staff there on rumour and hearsay does not make me a bad parent.

Never said you were a bad parent, i was just defending my opinion because you kept throwing things back i.e bad garda, doctor, etc. Totally irrelevent when it comes to the care of children

Sparks

Rose35 wrote: »

supporting staff was actually an unqualified camera person ???????
Well how did that person manage to get a job there then, were they not vetted properly???
Says more about the place doesn't it

See above posts about her FETAC quals and background.

Orion

Folks - lets not descend into fighting here. Rose - You appear to be misreading or missing posts. The journalist was FETAC qualified with references as stated earlier and bumper did not say his partner worked in that particular creche - just for Giraffe.

As I said earlier I appreciate that this is going to be an emotive topic but let's still keep it civil.

Rose35

Hannibal Smith wrote: »

The excuse of 'we've all done it' re shouting at children is not good enough at all. they are trained professionals being paid in some cases over 1000 pm to care for children while their parents go to work. They should be providing the absolute top level of care and no excuses are acceptable.

But I do accept the point that the supporting staff was actually an unqualified camera person and that would be a huge concern for me. the fact that some one could be in your creche secretly videoing your kid is a huge breech of privacy and trust.

Was referring to this post but qualifications noted and this is at least good to know

Hannibal Smith

That was me....I just got to january's post saying see had fetac qualifications. Sorry Rose

Nordieboy

http://www.herald.ie/news/parents-horror-at-claims-children-in-creche-pushed-to-floor-29291444.html

More topics revealed on what will be covered in Monday's primetime.

Sheep Shagger

Think it is a disgrace that none of the accused creches have been allowed to see the footage - why not ?

Have a child in Stepaside, think it is appauling how this has been handled by RTE, up until this afternoon they would not even share the footage with the guards or the HSH - how is it supposed be dealt with properly?

josip

Rose35 wrote: »

Well thankfully my child is not in that creche because if I heard anything like what was reported this morning, i would remove him immediately, i wouldnt be taking any chances regardless

"That" creche is probably right now one of the best creches in the country to be in thanks to all the media attention. I'd guess that staffing ratios are the highest they have been for quite some time and that the kids are being swamped with quality attention and care.

Orion

And the parents - some of them have demanded to see the footage of their children and have been ignored by RTE. This could be the last episode of Prime Time - imo the journalist, her manager and everyone who approved this gross invasion of privacy should be sacked.

Rose35

josip wrote: »

"That" creche is probably right now one of the best creches in the country to be in thanks to all the media attention. I'd guess that staffing ratios are the highest they have been for quite some time and that the kids are being swamped with quality attention and care.

Now that the worm is out of the can

neris

apparently programmes been pulled now and not being broadcast according to last word on today fm

mathie

Orion wrote: »

And the parents - some of them have demanded to see the footage of their children and have been ignored by RTE. This could be the last episode of Prime Time - imo the journalist, her manager and everyone who approved this gross invasion of privacy should be sacked.

... and who witnessed and recorded alleged child abuse and said nothing for weeks.

But at least hey'll get their pulitzer.

Sparks

Reading the breakingnews.ie report about the Garda involvement has me even more angry:

A garda spokesman says the investigation was launched on foot of a complaint by parents of children at the two facilities.

So even the small edited bits of footage shown to parents by RTE was enough to get the parents to call the Gardai in, but RTE didn't do so themselves? :mad:

And as to the Ministers now going on about how they're about to be briefed, well, hey, they're ministers, they're important. Us parents, well, we're just mushrooms really, aren't we? :mad:

Moonbeam

neris wrote: »

apparently programmes been pulled now and not being broadcast according to last word on today fm

good. unsurprising too.

Moonbeam

was it the same worker in all the creches?

ene

as i said before i work in a creche near the giraffe in question, today we had a huge amount of parents upset and many children picked up early.

This whole thing really is a disgrace, like rte is really in sh1t over this, they actually were witnessing child neglect/child mistreatment and they didnt do anything about it.

is there any confirmation on whether the show will air on monday?

SHOEHOLIC

Ive been reading every article in all the papers , and yes this does all sound very bad and from what is said in the papers the parents of these creches have got to c the video footage but if a childcare worker is left in a room with 11 to 12 children with somebody else that is concentrating on nothing else but only to find faults in the setting then obviously this researcher was not doing the job she was employed to do so wher does that leave the co worker??? it leaves the other worker doing all the work. from my understanding no child should be on camera in any form of way without parents consent , so what right did rte have to go into any creche and secretly video any worker or child its an absolute joke and if this was done by any other employee parents would go mad. another thing that i dont understand is how this researcher got employed in the 1st place no persons working with people should be allowed work in a workplacement without a garda vetting??? i dont understand y these childcare workworkers are getting all the grief and y suspensions were done wen by my understanding one creche in question havnt even seen the video footage so how do they have the right to suspend workers. from any parents point of view they dont want there child being giving ou to or been forced to eat but a far as im concerned if the child wasnt encouraged to eat they would be giving out that there child was starving. i also believe that this programme that will be aired on tv will show all the negative parts and make these people ou to be monsters. maybe the workers wernt forcing the kids but encouraging them. if a child bites another child what kind of action should the worker do ?? they should sit the child down and explain to them that it wasnt nice and to say sorry to there friend but if this was ur child at home and ur child bit another child what course of action wud u take. as it says in the papers no child was physically abused so maybe these workers were encouraging children rather than forcing them. i also believe that child care regulations are conterdicting themselves because of the consent of photography in any childcare setting who is to say this researcher wasnt bringing bak these recordings to the studio and that any worker in the studio wasnt a child abuser. none of this makes sense and i feel for the workers. as far as im concerned people are ou there getting there qualifications and there doing what they are suppose to do but are being made ou to be the bad one i think the likes of RtE would be better of looking into and investing the likes of burgalarys , drug taking etc and see wher there cameras get them them!!!!!

DM addict

I've a few bits to weigh in on here.

First off, full disclosure - I work in childcare, but not for Giraffe or any of the other companies mentioned in the report - the latest seems to be Little harvard and Links, http://www.rte.ie/news/2013/0523/452049-prime-time-childcare-programme/ - however I *have* worked for Giraffe in the past (again, not in the creche mentioned here, nor do I intend to mention where I worked). This was back in 2011, and I worked there for six months.

So my few cents worth -

- pay in any childcare setting is around €9p/h. €12p/h is unheard of for regular staff.

- HSE inspections are unscheduled BUT we can often get an inkling of when they're coming - they tend to do 2/3 creches a day (depending on size) and do nearby areas within the same few weeks -i.e. they'd attempt to inspect all the creches in D6 that were due an inspection in the same time period. About having actual advance notice, I've never seen that - I've only ever known to be on best behaviour (as t'were) because a sister creche within the rough area was inspected that week. And we weren't inspected in the end.

- the inspections are WAY behind schedule due to staffing - however any facility that is reported is inspected ASAP.

- when I worked in Giraffe, they were VERY lax with maintaining staff ratios. In my experience, myself or my colleague were often left significantly over ratio. I worked in a baby room (0-1 age, so 1:3 ratio) and there were 2 staff members and up to 9 babies. We were frequently left over ratio (sometimes with six babies and one staff member) at open/closing, during lunches and breaks. There was little/no cover available. Despite mine and my colleagues protestations, little was done - in the end, I chose to leave the job (there were other reasons, but none relevant to this discussion).

- In my current job, ratios are much more strictly adhered to - if there are 4 babies, there are 2 staff in the room. We have additional staff to cover breaks/lunches and a panel of relief staff to cover holidays/sick days. If the reporter in question had tried to walk out of a room when she was 'on ratio', the other staff member would have called her back in and/or someone else would have stepped in - similarly she would have had to explain to the manager what she was doing and be reprimanded for it.

- In terms of not changing nappies - I really can't imagine what excuse she gave for that one.

- In terms of new staff being dumped in/no training - that fits with my experience of Giraffe. As long as you're qualified, you tend to start work as soon as you sign in. It happened to me, despite not having finished qualifications at the time, and to a number of other people who I saw start in the company.

Mods, feel free to clip anything you're unhappy with - have tried not to overstep the mark.

Sheep Shagger

Picked up daughter from Giraffe in Stepaside earlier, got handed a further letter with a fresh update, was also talking to management about it.

The HSE (finally) showed management the video footage this afternoon, the lady I was talking to (who hadnt seen it yet herself) admitted there was some stuff in it that some parents will find disturbing. Now they've seen it they can deal with the employee concerned and warn parents what to expect when it eventually does get to air. The accused employee has been with them a number of years with no issues. When the accusations were first raised (when the RTE girl left) a supervisor was put in the room to monitor the staff member and no issues were identified (presumably the staff member was pulling her weight though!)

They wern't making any excuses but the summary seems to be that the undercover girl (RTE) did pretty much nothing as she was too busy wandering around taking footage (why she wasn't pulled up for this is another story). The remaining staff member in the room was put under undue pressure (clearly that's a problem by you have to take things in context).

Am really pissed off as a taxpayer the way RTE have handled this, and don't get me started on the paparazzi press out the front today taking pictures etc. Also think the papers should outline what accusations relate to which crèches given more than Stepaside is involved.

Based on what we know am fully behind the crèche, daughter loves it and everybody is very friendly, would be a disaster of it closed with huge disruption to the kids (am told that wont be happening which is a relief).

Inquitus

Sheep Shagger wrote: »

They wern't making any excuses but the summary seems to be that the undercover girl (RTE) did pretty much nothing as she was too busy wandering around taking footage (why she wasn't pulled up for this is another story). The remaining staff member in the room was put under undue pressure (clearly that's a problem by you have to take things in context).

lol, are you serious, otherwise good staff member becomes unhinged and verbally abuses and mistreats kids due to pressure of working with undercover reporter not pulling her weight? And that's a viable excuse? Often in all employments staff don't pull their weight and need to be disciplined or indeed terminated, does that excuse mistreatment of children? no it doesn't its a poor exercise in ass covering by the facility involved.

lazygal

I'm not surprised about either of these chains. I've worked in a related industry and former staff have reported them to the HSE, as have parents, but were given the brush off. They are businesses above all else, and that's the clear message from the top down.

Snabe

my daughter was due to start in the links creche in question next month, in the room where the incidents took place; today i have arranged alternative childcare. i just could not be comfortable leaving her there, despite people saying that it will now be the safest creche. the trust is gone. i would not be able to forgive myself if i left her somewhere where i thought was safe, only to have her shouted at and possibly mishandled.

a few points in response to posts here:

the creche did not think to advise parents that have their children enrolled but not yet attending. i heard rumours from a neighbour yesterday morning and i rang the hse and the creche and both confirmed it but wouldn't tell me much. i had to spend the day trying to discover what was going on. while on the phone to the manager of the creche, she was quite short with me. now i absolutely understand that she is stressed out by all of this, but it is her job as manager to put parents at ease. i eventually managed to get hold of the two emails that the owner had sent to parents on tuesday night and last night.

while people say that one person can result in the entire creche getting a bad rep from all of this, you must remember that in giraffe two staff members are suspended, and in links one staff member is fired and three others are suspended. in links this means that either 4 people have been involved in the abuse, or maybe one person was the perpetrator of the abuse and three others knew and didn't act. this tells me there is a culture of acceptance of this sort of behaviour.

one of the creches is stating that the other staff member in the room was put under undue pressure because the investigator wasn't pulling her weight and sharing the work. seriously?!?!?! this news comes out and you use this as an excuse??? doesn't wash with me.

regarding cctv footage being available online. it should not take the threat of being seen in order for staff members to behave appropriately. also not all rooms can be recorded - what about the nappy changing area?

i am absolutely horrified by what has gone on and have felt sick to my stomach for the last 2 days because of it. i am so relieved that my daughter had not started at the creche already as i would always wonder if she had been treated like that and it just hadn't been caught on camera. there is absolutely no excuse for this type of behaviour

Sheep Shagger

Inquitus wrote: »

lol, are you serious, otherwise good staff member becomes unhinged and verbally abuses and mistreats kids due to pressure of working with undercover reporter not pulling her weight? And that's a viable excuse? Often in all employments staff don't pull their weight and need to be disciplined or indeed terminated, does that excuse mistreatment of children? no it doesn't its a poor exercise in ass covering by the facility involved.

Having not seen the footage, guess it all depends on what your definition of 'mistreatment' of children is. This is the problem with RTE delaying getting this on air (or only allowing the creches to see it today), people are speculating as to whats in the clip and to what extent.

Sheep Shagger

Snabe wrote: »

one of the creches is stating that the other staff member in the room was put under undue pressure because the investigator wasn't pulling her weight and sharing the work. seriously?!?!?! this news comes out and you use this as an excuse??? doesn't wash with me.

I never said it was an excuse and neither did the creche.

Clearly this is a sensitive topic, just think people need to take a step back, take a deep breath and wait for the facts/info to come out before making decisions/judgements.

Snabe

of course it's a sensitive topic, the unknown is always going to terrify, i personally cannot wait to see primetime to see exactly what has gone on.

but the facts are actually out - the creches have seen the footage, the type of abuse/behaviour has been described, and the creches have issued responses to the press and letters/emails to parents. both links and giraffe have stated that they are horrified by the footage, which in itself tells me that I, as well as every other parent, is going to be upset by it when we see what they have seen.