One of Australia’s largest private childcare operators will speed up CCTV rollouts in more than 400 centers, after allegations of misuse of hair sex against an employee.
G8 Education will also allow parents and carers to choose who can change their children’s diapers and take them to the toilet, the firm said.
26 -year -old Joshua Dale Brown has been accused of over 70 crimes, including child rape, allegedly committed against eight children at the center owned by a G8 education in Melbourne between 2022 and 2023.
The boss of the firm said that the allegations were “deep -harassed” and apologized for “unimaginable pain for our families”.
The Australian-list company operates about two dozen childcare centers brands and appoints around 10,000 employees who take care of about 41,000 children.
In an announcement on Tuesday, the company’s managing director Pageman Okhowat said that this police would also conduct an independent review of the allegations against Brown after the investigation and criminal proceedings are over.
“Our primary focus is on supporting all the families who are affected, as well as our team members in Victoria,” he said.
The rollout of the CCTV in all the centers of G8 education will be “quick” and comes after testing at some places, the firm said, but it did not give a time outline on the rollout.
A spokesman for the company said, “While installation will take time, we are committed to transparency and inform our families and teams with timely updates as more information is available.”
Asked if families and employees would have to agree before monitoring, the company said it “understands the importance of child safety, child dignity, privacy and data security requirements”.
The company will also commit to adopting all the relevant privacy laws and the regulations of the region and the best exercise cyber security measures “, he said.
The spokesperson did not say who would operate the CCTV system, who will have access to the footage or by when the footage will be stored.
For child safety experts and X-Detective Christie McWay, CCTV “will only be good as humans who manage it”.
He said, “This can be sidelined and evidence can be destroyed to protect the interests of the organization,” he told the BBC.
In the case of Ashley Paul Griffiths – currently 70 young girls in Australia and abroad are serving life imprisonment for raping and sexual abuse of girls – CCTV said in the centers where they did not work as a preventive, McWaway said.
Professor Derryl Higgins, who heads the Institute of Child Protection Studies of Australian Catholic University, resonated those concerns.
“This is not a silver pill,” Professor Higgins said, “and important counseling will be required about what, where, how and why we will implement it”.
“Who will see footage and how will it be used?” He asked.
Martin Mills, a senior lecturer in early childhood education at the University of South Australia, CCTV is worried that “false sense of security” will provide and allow operators to delay better measures such as growing employees.
He also said that giving the option to choose parents and carers, which changes the diapers and takes children to the toilet, can put extra pressure on female workers and cause gender discrimination in the processes of hiring.
An investigation into Brown’s alleged offenses found that he worked at 20 childcare centers – which did not include G8 education centers – between 2017 and his arrest in May this year.
This motivated health officials to ask families of about 1,200 children, who were under brown care in centers to undergo tests for infectious diseases.
Officials said the tests were a “precaution”. The allegations against Brown inspired the state and federal governments to investigate and promise regulations of more stringent employees in the childcare region.
Brown is accused of producing and transmitting child rape and sexual harassment offends as well as child abuse materials, which belongs to children between five months and two years of age.
He is yet to enter a petition, but has been sent to custody and is scheduled to appear in the Melbourne Magistrate Court in September.
