Working with Children Checks revoked for 40 workers in Victoria

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Around 40 Victorian Childcare workers who retained their 'working with children' check, despite being banned from childcare centres have now had their permits revoked.

Transcript

00:00This overhaul of the working with children checks comes after those really disturbing

00:07revelations about alleged misconduct and abuse within the Victorian childcare sector,

00:14notably those dozens of charges against Joshua Dale Brown that really alarmed parents and in

00:20fact anybody concerned about the welfare of children in our childcare systems in the state

00:27of Victoria. Now this cancellation of the 40 individuals with their working with children

00:34checks comes after reforms came through in the system which allowed those permits to be cancelled

00:42if those individuals had also already been banned by the childcare regulator. Now remarkably this

00:50previously hadn't happened. We had situations where the childcare regulator had banned people

00:57from being within the childcare network because they posed an unacceptable risk to children and yet

01:04they were still able to continue with their working with children permit. Now the ABC was alerted to a

01:12couple of these cases and decided to dig a little bit further. Our investigations team actually asked

01:17the state government to give a full update of just how far this issue was pervasive within the system

01:25and the childcare regulator came back with a list of 78 individuals. So those 40 who have now had

01:34their permits cancelled they were the ones who still had valid working with children checks. So thankfully

01:41they have now been cancelled. This is all part of the state government's decision to try to really

01:48upgrade the safety and security surrounding the childcare system and on a national front this is happening

01:55across Australia as well. We've already had the education ministers from all states and territories meet

02:01with the federal counterpart and agree to changes and reforms in the system and they're things like including

02:08CCTV in childcare centres as well as having the National Registry of Child Care Workers and also mandatory

02:17training in place.

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