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Childcare worker charged with more than 70 offences including sexual assault
ABC NEWS (Australia)
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yesterday
Warning: Story contains details some may find distressing. Questions are being raised about checks and oversight at childcare centres, after yesterday's shocking revelations of alleged sexual abuse by a Victorian childcare worker.
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00:00
Police have said that this investigation is continuing and in fact detectives from Victoria's
00:07
sexual crime squad are investigating evidence relating to alleged further child abuse at
00:14
another child care centre in Essendon in Melbourne's northern suburbs.
00:21
It's where Joshua Dale Brown worked and this is different to the 70 charges that the 26-year-old
00:31
Point Cook man faces including that of child rape and also producing child abuse material
00:38
which relates to his time working at the Creative Garden Early Learning Centre in Point Cook
00:45
in Melbourne's southwestern suburbs between April 2022 and January 2023 and we have heard that the
00:54
eight alleged victims involved in this case range in age from between just five months to two years
01:01
of age. Now Joshua Brown also worked at 20 other child care centres across Melbourne from January
01:09
2017 until the time of his arrest in May this year and most distressingly in terms of this case
01:16
health authorities have been able to identify 1,200 children who they have recommended should get
01:24
testing for infectious diseases as a precaution. Now understandably this is incredibly distressing
01:31
for so many parents here in Victoria and so to that end the authorities have set up a special
01:38
child care centre's investigation website which gives advice and also clearly lists all of the
01:44
child care centres and the relevant dates when Joshua Dale Brown worked. We've put the website address up
01:53
there Steph for people to see but more broadly it really shines a spotlight doesn't it on safeguards
01:59
to protect children at these centres? It certainly does and the big question of course for all parents
02:07
out there is just how could these alleged crimes have happened and it's a question that Jacinta Allen
02:15
the state's premier says that every parent has every right to ask in fact she's referred to the working
02:22
with children check or permit system that we have here in Victoria. Now Joshua Brown had a valid check
02:30
and also had no criminal history but this system there has been calls for urgent overhauls of this
02:39
system since the Victorian ombudsman made those calls back in 2022. The premier says that that is
02:45
underway at the moment and she also says that the early childhood regulator has launched an urgent
02:51
investigation into the conduct of the centres where Joshua Brown worked. But more broadly in terms of the
02:59
oversight for every parent out there who sends their kids off to child care there are real questions
03:05
about the scrutiny and we heard earlier from Georgie Dent the CEO of parent advocacy group The Parenthood
03:13
on News Breakfast this morning. She says that while we do have this very high quality national framework
03:19
unless it's properly funded so that people can actually implement and enforce those high standards
03:25
then it is failing to deliver. We have seen the early child education and care sector grow
03:31
faster than oversight and regulation has been able to keep up with. At the Parenthood we have been calling
03:38
for an early childhood commission to really create the leadership mechanism that is required in this
03:45
moment. We need to settle the responsibility between state and commonwealth governments who is responsible for
03:52
what parts of the system. That's Georgie Dent from The Parenthood speaking on News Breakfast earlier
03:59
and she says that there is really good signs at the moment that there's some real appetite for genuine
04:06
reform both at a state and federal level not just tinkering around at the edges but she is concerned about
04:14
some of those gaps and that's been reflected by the words of the Victorian Acting Commissioner for Children and Young
04:21
People Mina Singh. Now she says that she's still very concerned about some of those gaps and the lack of
04:28
interconnectedness particularly between states and when you can have child care workers moving from
04:34
state to state. This is what she had to say. I think that there are lots of checks and balances in the
04:40
system but we need them all working all together and the first place we've got to start is in the actual
04:45
centres themselves so I think parents are absolutely right to be asked in the centres the places where they put their
04:50
children and young people what are you putting in place to make sure my child is safe what are what are
04:55
the checks of staff what are the training you're giving them what are the what's the constant vigilance
05:00
that you're providing to make sure our most precious children are being looked after safely.
05:07
Some important advice there from Mina Singh and we've heard that both the federal government and
05:13
opposition are in favour of urgent reform in the child care sector. Joshua Brown is going to appear
05:20
in court on these charges in September and authorities have moved to reassure many parents here in Victoria.
05:28
They say while they have discovered around 2,600 families who would have had children at centres at the
05:35
time that Joshua Brown worked that if they haven't already received a letter from authorities then the chances
05:43
are highly likely that their children haven't been impacted.
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