Best place to report concerns about a creche

Little CuChulainn

As the title suggests, I'm wondering where the best place to report concerns about a creche would be. A friend of mine has told me he is concerned about overcrowding and the ratio of staff to kids in the creche he uses but he hasn't a clue where to go with his concerns. Has there been any new monitoring or reporting systems set up since the scandals last year?

Orion

The HSE would be the regulatory body. Contact the pre-schools department.

Little CuChulainn

I figured the HSE but it's such a large organisation it's hard to be sure you're concerns will be brought to the attention of the right person. I was hoping there might have been something recent set up.

detoxkid

Little CuChulainn wrote: »

I figured the HSE but it's such a large organisation it's hard to be sure you're concerns will be brought to the attention of the right person. I was hoping there might have been something recent set up.

Try your local county or city childcare committee. Don't think they monitor creche but they will def know who does

bisset

http://www.tusla.ie/services/preschool-services/early-years-pre-school-inspectors

Anon345

Tell your friend not to expect too much from the HSE.
They are chronically understaffed and even when they do find issues, they seem to have limited sanctions that they can bring.
It's more common to hear of a restaurant being closed than a crèche being closed.

Our son was forgotten in an internal bathroom from which he could not get out, with the lights off, for three hours 25 minutes in one of the chain crèches last November.
They found him by accident when looking for another child's teddy.
The HSE investigation decided that there should be a repeat inspection for that crèche in a few months time.
Staff involved were moved to another branch of the chain.
No action taken against the crèche management or owners despite breaches of ratios.

2xj3hplqgsbkym

Oh my god that is horrendous, the poor child.how did you find out? You must have been so angry that nothing was done about it.

The system obviously needs a major overhaul and more staff.

Anon345

One of the creche managers found him 5 minutes before I arrived to collect him.
She was still in a state of shock but didn't give me any indication that it might have been longer than a few minutes. I couldn't imagine a child being forgotten about for more than a few minutes. But all his friends were standing around staring at him, his eyes were very puffy and he was hoarse.

Anger set in later when the creche called in regional management that evening and wouldn't confirm to us how long he'd been there, even though we were telling them on the phone how long he was there. He's 3. so he was able to tell us what happened, We confirmed this with other parents within a few minutes.

When we were looking at the CCTV ourselves in their office a few days later we noticed the minder touching the wall before she left. When I asked if she'd turned off the lights, one of the managers said she might have been leaning against the wall to pick up something from the floor. So I insisted on going back to the room and at that point on the wall was the light switch for the bathroom. So we got more angry at that point.

We also got angry when we asked the creche for the CCTV footage after the HSE investigation had completed, only to be told that they had deleted the footage a few days after the completion because they thought it wouldn't be needed any more.

We would also have our concerns about the independence of the HSE investigation, considering that one of the owners of the creche is on the board of 2 Irish hospitals.

We tried to contact the Minister for Children, Frances Fitzgerald, but apart from the initial standard reply, she never contacted us.

But we mainly felt really sad and sorry for our boy, for what he must have gone through.

cocoman

Anon345 wrote: »

One of the creche managers found him 5 minutes before I arrived to collect him.
She was still in a state of shock but didn't give me any indication that it might have been longer than a few minutes. I couldn't imagine a child being forgotten about for more than a few minutes. But all his friends were standing around staring at him, his eyes were very puffy and he was hoarse.

Anger set in later when the creche called in regional management that evening and wouldn't confirm to us how long he'd been there, even though we were telling them on the phone how long he was there. He's 3. so he was able to tell us what happened, We confirmed this with other parents within a few minutes.

The creche initiialy told us the lights were on. When we were looking at the CCTV ourselves in their office a few days later we noticed the minder touching the wall before she left. When I asked if she'd turned off the lights, one of the managers said she might have been leaning against the wall to pick up something from the floor. So I insisted on going back to the room and at that point on the wall was the light switch for the bathroom. So we got more angry at that point.

We also got angry when we asked the creche for the CCTV footage after the HSE investigation had completed, only to be told that they had deleted the footage a few days after the completion because they thought it wouldn't be needed any more.

We would also have our concerns about the independence of the HSE investigation, considering that one of the owners of the creche is on the board of 2 Irish hospitals.

We tried to contact the Minister for Children, Frances Fitzgerald, but apart from the initial standard reply, she never contacted us.

But we mainly felt really sad and sorry for our boy, for what he must have gone through.
"I cried and cried but nobody came. I think she locked me in because I was bad."

Sounds awful. Hope the little guy was ok.
I didn't think that there would be locks on kids toilets in creches. Time to get a new creche (if possible).

Sligo1

O my gosh Anon, that's just awful! I hope ur little fella is ok now and is not too traumatised by it. Poor wee fella

NipNip

That was not an oversight.

Xdancer

Anon that's horrific. The poor little guy!

Did you change crèche after that?

icescreamqueen

NipNip wrote: »

That was not an oversight.

I agree, there isn't a hope that no one in the crèche didn't notice your child missing for that long. Even his little friends would have noticed and said something. Especially if he was with other 3 year olds.

How horrible for you and your precious little angel. I can't imagine how you must have felt hearing about what happened.

There seriously needs to be a huge overhaul of childcare in Ireland. It needs to be more like primary education in terms of professionalism and training of staff and proper crèche buildings and facilities. If that had happened in a school, there would have been a massive investigation and the staff would have been accountable.

icescreamqueen

Just re reading this because it annoyed me so much. Perhaps you should contact The Ombudman for Children to make a complaint against the crèche? They should be a neutral agency, if one exists in Ireland.

I just hope it nevers happens to another child again. I just can't imagine what you went through

Rose35

Poor little man, this kind of stuff makes me so angry and so sad for the little child, hope he is ok xx

Anon345

Thanks all for your kind comments.

It happened in November last year and we changed the creche immediately. They had been cutting staff ratios to the minimum to save costs for some time and we'd hung on for the sake of him keeping his friends in the group. When this happened to him, a lot of his friends also left.

The reason it happened was the same as for many airplane crashes. Multiple system failures that had been happening individually and not addressed, coincided that day for a really bad result. Management were constantly doubling up as minders to maintain staffing ratios, with the end result that the managers weren’t managing all of the time. I have since heard, that this occurred at other branches also.
A few months earlier when I collected him, he was in a strange top and trousers, so short and tight that 2 inches of midriff were exposed. I pointed it out to his minder, and she said that he had an accident going pee after his nap. He had his nap in a younger room so the minder there put on spare clothes from that room. But his own minder didn’t notice all afternoon. When we got home we found pink princess pull ups on him, even though he’d been potty trained for over a year at that stage. We complained to the crèche at the time and told them we thought it happened because of staff ratios being too low/on the limit but we remained in the crèche.

On the day he got locked in, they were short staffed again. So his group were being shared with one other group. That morning when I got in, they were packing some children out to the play area even though they never go out at that time. Just to try and keep ratios legal, because they knew I counted every day. He was the only from his room having a nap that day, so he joined another group who went to a special nap room at the end of a long corridor, away from the other rooms in the crèche. From the CCTV we can see that when he woke up, he asked the minder to go to the toilet and she pushed open the doors to the toilet. The toilet is an internal toilet with 2 sets of heavy fire doors. You push them to get in, and pull them by handles to get out from the inside. The handles to open them are over 1 and a half metres off the ground, out of reach of any of the children in the crèche. So he was effectively locked in, but it’s important to point out that the minder didn’t turn any locks. The other kids had by now woken up, and so the minder was now over the ratio and had to call for help. When I pointed out from the CCTV that 1 girl was minding 10 children, they said that the same ratios don’t apply if the children are asleep. We were astonished to hear that. The childcare industry must lobbied the HSE strongly for that and other exceptions in the regulations. When help arrived, they brought the children back to their rooms and the nap minder turned off the bathroom lights before she left. Again, our view is that because she was under such pressure with so many children that her brain quite simply blanked out that our son was in there. We have never thought that it was deliberate, nor that she would be capable of doing something like that. I suspect she feels quite bad about what happened although we attribute zero blame to her. It was a one off mistake, the same as many of us do in our work. If there had been 2 minders there, it would not have happened.

His regular minder, the same one who didn’t notice the small clothes a few months earlier, assumed he had been brought back to the other half of the group, even though he had been with her before his nap. The other half of the group didn’t know anything. When his regular minder was going home she brought her remaining children to the other room. She didn’t notice then that our son wasn’t there. Nor did the minders do any checking of numbers. She still works in another branch of that crèche.

He came through it very well. We were extremely lucky that a good friend of ours is a child psychiatrist and within an hour of us finding out what happened she was advising us what to do. Lots of reassurance, don’t ask any questions about it because he then has to relive it each time. But if he does talk about it, take the time to address any questions he had. Stress and restress that it was not his fault, but instead a very bad accident and that his minders weren’t minding him. Explain how he’s now a hero for the other kids that they’ve put new handles on the doors so they won’t get locked in like he did. It was just as well we had our friend, because the crèche put us in touch with a counsellor who specialises in drugs and alcohol addiction.

Another good friend is a barrister also gave us equally valuable advice; not to bother taking any legal action against the crèche. A big company with deep pockets will drag it out in court for a long time and it will end up becoming our focus for years with probably very little satisfaction in the end. We never considered suing them, but we would have liked if some of their directors had been sanctioned by the HSE for endangering children for the sake of profits. So we passed it on to the HSE who investigated, and that was, well, that. We tried to forget about it and get on with our lives, which by and large we have. Whenever our son passes the old crèche, he’ll say “that’s my old crèche where they locked me in”. But not in a sad voice, like it’s something exciting that happened to him. Small children can be so brave and resilient.

We’d forgotten about it until recently when a friend said our son’s case was mentioned on the recent RTE Prime Time show. We watched it on RTE Player and saw the text “Child left in bathroom for a long period of time” and thought that a little strange. The main cases on the program were of children being missing for periods of 15-20 minutes. Anyone watching the program would assume the child was in the bathroom for a similar length of time. No, he was missing in a dark room for over 11 times longer than the other cases discussed on the program. We tried to find out from RTE why they didn’t specify the time for that incident and they said that “The Child and Family Support Agency, summarise complaints rather than give full details.” RTE never said though how they got the details for the other cases on the program. We asked if they would like to know how long "a long period of time” was, but they said that we would have to disclose our identity to them first, which we thought wasn’t worth the potential downside of media publicity.

So the end result is Creche 1 – 0 Parents, HSE referee locked in the boot.

ene

having worked in one the the main creche chains in dublin i saw this regularly, management allow too many children to attend a session with the excuse that one of the managers will slot in the numbers.

the manager then leaves every 2 minutes to do something in the office, so you end up with extra children and no help

from working in the chain i was in we heard the name of the chain that anon is talking about and from what i have heard over ratio rooms are a regular occorance as the creche functions on many smaller rooms with less children then one main room.

this means that one staff member would be left in the morning and evenings with responsibility for too many children.

NipNip

This is ridiculous. I've had my fair share of 2 nightmare childminders and 1 'creche'. You figure it out within weeks though! I have also had the pleasure of fabulous childminders and one unbelievable creche.

icescreamqueen

I'd love if you could send me the name of the crèche via PM. Just so I won't send my baby there!

Anon345

icescreamqueen wrote: »

I'd love if you could send me the name of the crèche via PM. Just so I won't send my baby there!

PM sent

All4shopping

Anon345 wrote: »

PM sent

Also would love this if you wouldn't mind, crèche hunting at the moment

Anon345

All4shopping wrote: »

Also would love this if you wouldn't mind, crèche hunting at the moment

PM sent too

ene

All4shopping wrote: »

Also would love this if you wouldn't mind, crèche hunting at the moment

i think if you are looking for a creche it is important that you feel you can arrive unannounced at any time, that during show arounds it doesn't feel forced.

at the creche where i worked when a prospective parent arrived we were told to make sure we were doing a good activity and it was really fake. it even went so far as the management had toys they took out that looked good that were only taken out at show arounds.

that the activities are child focused and not just 'painting' children learn it all different kinds of ways and shouldn't be forced to paint in the lines at such a young age

Merkin

Your poor little tot Anon, what an upsetting incident

I think I'd be inclined to go to the press about it. It's just totally unacceptable and he could have come to harm.

Millem

That is just so so awful I am back to work soon and looked at childcare options a few weeks ago for our 7 month baby. I just knew creche wasn't for us. I interviewed a lot of minders who currently work in a crèche and they told me all about those ratio :rolleyes:
If baby is under 1 the ratio is meant to be 3 babies to 1 worker. One creche has 11 babies to 3 workers every day. Another girl told me that on a number of occasions she was left by herself with 9 babies!!!!! She said she used to go home and cry every night

Flippyfloppy

Not to quote your whole posts anon, but I find it surprising that the managers actually step into the rooms!

I worked in a busy chain crèche during the Celtic tiger times, and the managers would not help out for love nor money if we were short. At times there could be 4 or 5 'managers' on site (the place was top heavy with management)

They had no relief staff, used to just swap staff from other branches around. Many a time my group was split up all over the place for the day while I went to another branch to keep numbers up. Which didn't make too much sense because then my branch would be coming up short too

Chattastrophe!

God, reading this makes me so grateful to have a creche that I can trust - much as I complain about the insane cost of it!

Over the past few weeks I've ended up turning up for drop-offs/collections at various random times throughout the day, and there are always plenty of staff there (definitely at least one for every three babies, although it often seems the ratio is even lower than that.) They really seem to know every single child inside out. My son has his own unique feeding and napping schedule, and that's absolutely not a problem - they let the babies figure out their own routine, and work around each individual child's routine, rather than try to put them all for naps at the same time etc. I get a diary home at the end of each day filled in with every detail of his day, nappies and feeds, how much tummytime he had, anything new he was doing, what games he was playing and what stories were read, etc. He does all kind of things that I'd never really do with him at home - for example, he's only seven months old, and they already have him painting (and he came him with blue paint on his hands and feet to prove it! ) The staff are lovely and seem to genuinely adore the babies.

He'll be an only child for a long time, so it's really invaluable that he's getting such great interaction with other babies - he's come on so much since starting there, and I've definitely no regrets about sending him there. I was worried after watching the Primetime show about creches - I think I was pregnant at the time it was on - but this creche is nothing like that. He gets so much individual attention, but loads of interaction with his little "friends" too, and so much stimulation - it really is the best of both worlds!

There are some great creches around, but I can see how people would be put off the idea of a creche from reading some of the horror stories. It's a pity that a few dodgy places can give the rest of them a bad name!

Anon345

Chattastrophe! wrote: »

...
There are some great creches around, but I can see how people would be put off the idea of a creche from reading some of the horror stories. It's a pity that a few dodgy places can give the rest of them a bad name!

It's good that you have a creche you can trust and one would hope that there are only a few dodgy ones.
That is what we believed after the first Prime Time programme.
We thought that because we were in a different branch of one of the chains featured, that the chain management would be taking extra care to increase staffing and avoid any further bad publicity.

There were 150 children in that creche at the time of "the incident" as the creche referred to it.
16 of those were in our son's room. We have friends with children in other rooms. None of them were made aware of what happened.
The parents in our room were told that our son was "left in a bathroom unattended for a period of time". They were not told how long, and the other details in the story were sufficiently sanitised that if I had been one of the other parents, I would not have been overly concerned.
So around 145 of those 150 parents would not regard that creche as dodgy.

Of the people who have read this thread, one knows the creche, and 2 more have asked for the name. All the others who have read this, if they were asked next week if creche X was dodgy, they could not say it was, not knowing which one it was.

It's in the creches' interests to keep all of these stories out of the public domain. The fewer stories we hear, the fewer creches we think are dodgy.

But having read so many accounts from people who have worked in the industry for much longer than we have been involved, we have formed the opinion that truly great creches are the exception rather than the norm.

Millem

Anon345 have you moved your little lad to a new crèche?

I don't like crèches myself for babies no matter how many people tell me how great they are I know some people swear by them (including my neighbour) and viewed two to appease my mum but they were just not for me. Parents pay mega bucks per month but the staff only get paid €8.65 per hour. I interviewed a manager of a crèche in south county dublin who got €9.10 per hour. She had those fetac qualifications. I don't know how they do their jobs tbh Even with the ratios of 1:3 (babies) and 1:5 (wobblers) in my opinion they are overworked and underpaid. I vaguely remember that prime time programme where one creche had a turnover of €100,000 per month!! That is a lot of children.

Anon345

We have moved and are much happier. It's more expensive but we can see what we're getting for the extra cost. The staff are much more engaged and interested than in the previous creche.
It's still not perfect however. When we were making our enquiries we were asking about staff turnover as we saw this as a useful indicator. We asked what percentage of staff were there longer than 2 years and we were told over half. Within 2 months however, both managers had left, as well as 2 of the 4 minders in his room. All for different reasons. One of the girls in the room was a big loss, she had very clear ideas about how things should be and provided a lot of stability after our son's experience in the previous creche. Since then 3 more minders in the room have left. Thankfully, one of the minders is still there; he's brilliant, very warm and dependable.
But all in all much happier.

IvyTheTerrible

God that is shocking, Anon. My heart goes out to you and your little man.
My son's crèche is very small (16 children registered, and there are rarely 16 there at the same time).
They have an open toilet/changing area (the small toilet and changing table are not in full view) so the toddlers can go in and out by themselves. I never knew why it was like that, but after reading your story, I understand.