Chapter 8: Support the workforce

This chapter recommends addressing poor quality Registered Training Organisations, making child safety training mandatory for all people involved in the provision of early childhood education and care and that there be investment in quality improvement programs. Workers should also be supported to raise concerns about child safety.

8.1 Qualifications that equip staff to support child safety

The ECEC workforce is made up of talented, committed people who want the best for children. However, qualifications, child safety knowledge, confidence and capability across the workforce are varied and training opportunities and requirements are inconsistent.

The ECEC workforce is made up of a range of professionals with different qualifications. The majority of the long day care and standalone kindergarten ECEC workforce in Victoria are certificate III and IV (19.8 per cent) and diploma qualified educators (48.8 per cent), with an increasing proportion being tertiary qualified early childhood teachers. About one in 5 ECEC workers in Victoria (20.1 per cent) are currently enrolled and studying for a qualification while working in the sector, including already qualified staff who are studying towards a higher qualification level.

In Victoria, there are 325 Registered Training Organisations that deliver training to ECEC students, including most of the TAFE network. The sector is diverse, comprising TAFE, community and private (for-profit) Registered Training Organisations. The National Quality Framework sets out the minimum qualifications required to be held by educators. Other regulators, such as the Australian Skills Quality Authority and the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency accredit specific courses or qualifications or regulate Registered Training Organisations.

Current courses and qualifications are not always equipping ECEC workers with the skills and knowledge they need. The Review was told an increasing number of new graduates are entering services with very little knowledge of the basic tenets of early education, let alone knowledge around child safety.

ECEC services described having to invest significant time and effort to bring new recruits—even recent graduates of tertiary degrees—up to an appropriate standard. This was often frustrated by turnover, noting some people enter the sector as a ‘stepping stone’ to other career pathways or due to visa arrangements. Burnout also contributed to people leaving the sector.

The erosion of skills and knowledge is partly driven by some Registered Training Organisations delivering low-quality courses that emphasise speed and passing graduates, over quality and depth of knowledge. The Review heard that many people felt poor quality providers need to be regulated more strongly and exited from the system.

Some ECEC services are also Registered Training Organisations. While many deliver high quality training that seamlessly translates to working in the sector, the Review heard that some providers are using students in training to work in centres to help meet ratios, with little supervision or support.

The degree to which child safety issues (including recognising harm, reporting, and safeguarding practices) are covered in Vocational Education and Training and higher education qualifications for the sector varies across qualification levels and courses. The Review was told child safety education was not embedded enough in training and courses for educators. This meant people were entering the profession with a very limited understanding of even basic obligations, such as mandatory reporting. This undermined their confidence to identify, and report concerns or to promote child-safe practices with colleagues.

Child safety related course content in ECEC qualifications should be strengthened and expanded, at all levels. Registered Training Organisations and universities should deliver child safety core competencies earlier in the relevant course materials, so that important information is provided to students who are already working in the sector, or those who are completing work placements.

The Review recommends that the Australian Skills Quality Authority’s powers be strengthened to address poor quality ECEC training. This could be done through stronger legislation; a stronger regulatory focus on identifying key risk factors leading to poor quality training provision (including training provider characteristics, relationships and practice); and reviewing the key criteria that Registered Training Organisations must meet to ensure criteria focus sufficiently on quality.

8.2 Greater access to training on child safety

The ECEC workforce need greater access to training, as part of a broader strategy to ensure ECEC educators and staff are appropriately skilled, and their development is supported.

Child safety training needs to outline workers’ obligations and support their understanding of how to identify and appropriately respond to suspected child abuse, including by another educator or colleague. It also needs to be undertaken regularly to ensure that ECEC professionals remain up-to-date on any changes to their obligations, as well as emerging evidence and best practice.

8.2.1 Training for everyone involved in the sector

The Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA) Review of Child Safety Arrangements recommended mandatory child safety training for all staff that work with children, as well as management and leadership in ECEC services. This recommendation recognises that child safety is a core competency for everyone in the sector—not just those working on the floor.

When board and committee members, senior leaders and managers have a strong understanding of child safety, they are more likely to invest in child-safe measures, role model best practice, and create a child-safe culture across their workforce.

ECEC services also have a range of other staff that should have a strong grounding in the dynamics of child safety, including human resources staff who may be called upon to oversee organisational responses to concerns about staff or volunteers. Non-educator staff such as administration support, cooks, cleaners, gardeners, and drivers also interact regularly with children and have a role to play.

The Review recommends making child safety training a mandatory requirement under the National Law to accelerate and be implemented with urgency.

8.2.2 A more sophisticated understanding of child safety is needed

The Review heard that current child safety training and capability building available isn't adequately addressing known risk factors of child sexual abuse, or reflecting the latest research regarding offender behaviour. The Review engaged with renowned experts in child abuse prevention, Professor Leah Bromfield, Professor Benoit Leclerc, and Distinguished Professor Ben Mathews. They relayed a wealth of knowledge about the dynamics of institutional child abuse but acknowledged that research into schools and other institutional settings is much more extensive than in ECEC services. The Review commissioned Professor Mathews to prepare a concise literature review, which has informed this report. A range of work is happening across the country to further knowledge and inform training and guidance for the sector, however, more targeted and rigorous research into child abuse in ECEC settings specifically would be beneficial.

Training should build capability in staff to respond to challenging behaviours in children (and what constitutes inappropriate physical discipline). It also should build understanding of the dynamics and signs of child sexual abuse, and other forms of inappropriate conduct, in line with proposed changes to make inappropriate conduct an offence under the National Law. Training should include how to recognise grooming behaviours and patterns, particularly the ‘grey areas’ of low-level but boundary crossing behaviours. These can be normalised or minimised but may suggest a pattern of risk-taking, inappropriate or abusive behaviours towards children.

Regulators told the Review that grooming behaviours and professional boundary breaches were a particularly challenging issue for staff in the sector. Distinguishing appropriate care (including physical comfort and warmth) from inappropriate behaviours that may be more sinister, requires nuanced judgement and skill. Staff need to understand inappropriate care may look like overstepping boundaries, regularly seeking unnecessary physical contact or creating opportunities to be alone with a child, showing favouritism, ignoring policies and rules or a general lack of respect for professional conduct.

Early childhood education and care staff also need more specific training on distinguishing harmful sexual behaviours between children from developmentally expected behaviour to keep the children they care for safe. Training should also recognise some children may be at higher risk of sexual abuse—including children with disability or who have experienced maltreatment (including family violence, neglect or other forms or abuse).

Even in ECEC settings where children are young and their ability to communicate is developing, age-appropriate education about what is okay (and not okay) in how adults behave around them is important and can empower children to disclose abuse. An evidence review commissioned by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found that child sexual abuse prevention programs for pre-schoolers appear effective at increasing young children’s ability to identify inappropriate touch requests and increase their skills on how to respond, who to tell and what to report.

The Review recommends that the Victorian Department of Education provide training on these nuanced issues, either directly or through reputable third parties. This training should complement rather than duplicate training that will support the mandatory training requirement under the National Law.

The Protecting Children—Mandatory Reporting and Other Obligations (PROTECT) online eLearning provided by the Department of Education is available to all Victorian education workforce professionals, including ECEC staff. This is a good universal platform to build from and update to cover the key child safety issues and evidence outlined here.

8.2.3 Overcoming structural barriers to staff training and development

The Review heard that one barrier to providing appropriate child safety professional development and training to staff was that the Commonwealth Government child care subsidy is only payable on days where families pay a fee. This arrangement can operate as a disincentive to create opportunities for curriculum or professional development days for staff because doing so means that services need to ‘run at a loss’ that day, or charge parents fees. The Review heard that it was not fair to expect workers to undertake training after hours, particularly after a long workday.

The Review recommends the Commonwealth Government provide funding for time release or ‘child free days’ to help staff to come together for training and professional development on child safety. This could be done, for example, by changing the Commonwealth Government child care subsidy rules.

8.3 Professional support for best practice

The Review heard that there is a large amount of existing material available to ECEC services to guide their policies, procedures and practices, such as ACECQA’s Child Safe Culture Guide, the Victorian Department of Education’s PROTECT resources and guidance from the Commission for Children and Young People. However, service managers would benefit from more opportunities to hear from experts regarding best practice in child safety, child protection and safeguarding practices, as well as to learn from other services and providers. This could also include:

• referrals to and promotion of existing evidence-based guidance, resources (practice checklists, templates, sample policies and procedures), and training
• case study problems of practice and how to respond; and
• access to networks of other services and leadership staff to promote peer learning.

The Review observed that Early Childhood Australia’s Children’s Safety and Safeguarding in Early Childhood Settings professional support program of webinars and resources is high quality and effective for staff across services. This program provides useful resources but also an opportunity for ECEC educators to come together and hear from experts on child safety issues directly relevant to their practice. The Review recommends that the Department of Education partner with Early Childhood Australia to expand this offering so that service leaders and staff can access the latest evidence and best practice. This voluntary program should complement the mandatory training in Recommendation 20, focusing on practical tools, discussions and networking for educators.

8.4 Invest in services to drive quality improvement

Child safe cultures and quality improvement comes from all levels of an organisation. While the Victorian Government operates a Kindergarten Quality Improvement Program that works with funded kindergarten services to improve their quality, this is only available to long day care services that have a funded kindergarten program.

Quality improvement cannot only be driven by regulation and compliance approaches, it is also reliant on supporting the leaders, managers and professionals working in services to embed best practice.

The Commonwealth Government should establish and fund a Child Care Quality Improvement program, for child care subsidy-approved services. The program should work with services and providers to improve quality. Such a program would complement the Commonwealth Government’s plans to stop or place conditions on child care subsidy approval for services with quality or safety concerns. This program could be delivered by states and territories (or other appropriate organisations). The Commonwealth Government should consider broadening it to also capture family day care and outside school hours care.

One of the most confronting elements of child abuse in ECEC settings is reconciling that staff offer the greatest protection to children in their care but can also pose the greatest risk to their safety. The overwhelming majority of educators care deeply about the children they care for and prioritise their safety. They are often best placed to report any suspected misconduct or child safety risks. Reporting incidents and complaints needs to be encouraged, and staff need the tools and confidence to do it. Noting the diversity of the ECEC workforce, information may need to be available in multiple languages.

The Review heard of a range of barriers to reporting child safety concerns. This includes:

• Reporting obligations for the sector can be confusing and, in some cases, management and staff can be unsure of which authority to direct their concerns to.
• The workplace culture is not child-centered and open to feedback and complaints.
• Staff may worry about reprisals for speaking up—either from colleagues or management—which is a particular risk factor for workers with less secure employment or who rely on their employment to meet visa conditions.
• A blurring of professional and personal relationships amongst staff can make people less inclined to report inappropriate behaviours of people they consider to be ‘friends’ rather than ‘colleagues’.

Many of these broader issues are best addressed by organisations upholding their obligations under mandatory reporting, Child Safe Standards and the Reportable Conduct Scheme. However, the Review recommends providing training and clear guidance to ECEC workers about speaking up if they have concerns. It is important that staff understand that they are able to (and in some cases, must) report directly to certain agencies to discharge their professional obligations. The Review also recommends ensuring that ECEC educators and other workers have avenues to report concerns to regulators and authorities anonymously.

As part of this work, the Department of Education should update the Four Critical Actions guidance, Identifying and Responding to All Forms of Abuse in Early Childhood Services guidance (PROTECT) and Protecting Children—Mandatory Reporting and Other Obligations (PROTECT) online training.

The various reporting obligations and requirements of ECEC providers and staff as outlined in Appendix 3 demonstrates the complicated set of overlapping requirements for workers to navigate, which can lead to confusion and a risk of both over and underreporting of child safety concerns.