Making sure your child is safe

To stand on the side of a pitch for an hour once or twice a year, as one of several designated parents on duty for after-school hockey at my son’s national school, I have to be Garda vetted.

Meanwhile, up the road, a childminder looking after three pre-school children from different families in her own home all day, every day during the week, doesn’t.

It is a glaring anomaly, which forthcoming legislation in the area of child protection is doing nothing at present to address.

“It’s crazy,” says Toby Wolfe, acting director of Start Strong, an alliance of organisations advocating improved early care and education in Ireland.

“It is right and proper that volunteers should be vetted,” he stresses. But, he points out, in many sports club and youth organisations, volunteers are operating in an open, public setting with other adults around, whereas “childminders are working in their own homes, unsupervised and unsupported. And this is their job.”

Garda vetting

Schools requiring Garda vetting of parents who voluntarily help out with activities “and who may have unsupervised access to children” is currently best practice demanded by the Department of Education and Skills.

It will be compulsory for all organisations working with children when the National Vetting Bureau (Children and Vulnerable Adults) Bill 2012 becomes law, although it exempts volunteers who assist at sports or community events “on an occasional basis”.

Start Strong wants the Bill to be amended to include paid childminders – and all other adults in their household – as a first step towards regulation of this informal but highly significant part of the childcare sector. At present, only childminders looking after four or more pre-school children have to be notified to the Health Service Executive (HSE) and they are covered by the new Bill. About 50,000 pre-school children are cared for by childminders every day, according to Start Strong, and only 1 per cent of paid childminders are subject to inspection. The paid care of school-age children after school is not regulated at all.

New Bill

However, the new Bill does require any agencies which provide childminders, nannies or homecare assistants to vet the persons whose services the agency employs.

Childminding Ireland, the national organisation for promoting and supporting family home-based childcare, also wants universal vetting for childminders.

“Initially we would be looking for it for childminders and adults within the family home, but not grandparents,” says the manger of Childminding Ireland, Bernie Griffiths. “I don’t think that it is appropriate for grandparents who are minding their own grandchildren.”

The second piece of relevant legislation currently going through the Oireachtas is the Children First Bill 2012, the draft heads of which ent before the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children during the summer. The focus of this Bill is to oblige all organisations working with children to report concerns about neglect, sexual abuse and physical abuse of children to the HSE.

Start Strong would like to see this Bill applying to childminders too. “Our concern to include childminders in the child protection system isn’t just about pointing a finger at the risks associated with childminders,” explains Wolfe. “We are also saying childminders can be part of the solution.”

Reporting abuse

Childminders, who often have a very close relationship with a family, are well placed to identify welfare concerns around the child they look after, he points out. “If they could be brought into the system, it would be a positive thing.”

Griffiths agrees and would also like to see childminders included in the statutory duty of care to report concern about abuse. However, the new system would have to be “useable”. “At the moment the whole reporting mechanism is very complex.”

Neither she nor Wolfe can understand why childminders are exempt from these two pieces of legislation – one produced by the Department of Justice and Equality and the other by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs.

Griffiths believes the “mindset” of the sector is now ready for the vetting of childminders to go ahead: it is probably the bureaucracy and administration involved that is putting the Government off.

Childminding Ireland has 1,000 members but estimates that there are up to 28,000 childminders in the Republic, including unpaid relatives.

Asked why the vetting Bill does not cover childminders, a spokesman for the Department of Justice and Equality points out that the current Childcare Act does not apply to private, small-scale childcare, whether paid or unpaid, “because it is considered that it is neither appropriate nor feasible for the State to oversee or regulate parents’ private child-minding arrangements”. He adds: “If any parent wishes to have a vetted childminding service they can do so by using a registered child-minding service.

Heavy-handed

Any regulation of childminders must not lose sight of the fact that it is a family home, says Griffiths. “Ireland has managed to preserve a very high number of childminders – whereas in other countries, even though it is more supported by the State, it has become over-regulated. Fair and due support wasn’t given to the notion that it is a family home. “If you go in there too heavy-handed,” she adds, “people will back out of it and it will be lost.”

Start Strong is advocating regulation of childminders along the lines of the system in Scotland, where there is a similar sized population. There, anybody who is paid to look after one or more children for more than two hours a day on more than six days a year must register. This involves, among other things, police checks of the childminder and any other adult in the house.

The issue of childminders is among the submissions on the heads of the Children First Bill which are being looked at by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs, according to a spokeswoman. And regulation and inspection of childminding will be considered as part of the new Early Years Strategy, she adds.

Tips for out-of-school activities

When children want to join activities outside school, parents should take time to check out the organisation.

Word of mouth is paramount. Ask parents of children already going there whether they are happy with it, says Tess Noonan, services manager with the ISPCC in Cork. Call in and see if you feel comfortable in the place and whether other children look happy and relaxed. "Trust your gut instinct," she stresses. After that:

* Don't take a written child protection policy as a guarantee that it is put into practice.

* Familiarise yourself with the staff and/or volunteers.

* Inquire about their qualifications and whether they are all vetted.

* Find out whether parents are welcome to sit and watch.

* Observe how well the organisation communicates with parents.

* Ask about the approach to discipline.

* Find out what the policy is on bullying.

* Know who to go to if you have any concerns.

* If there is hostility to you making any of the above inquiries, think again.