CONTENT WARNING: This article discusses alleged child sexual abuse.
Fresh and disturbing details have emerged in the Melbourne childcare abuse investigation, with authorities now alleging that a former childcare worker contaminated food with bodily fluids at multiple centres.
Joshua Dale Brown — who worked at 20 different facilities from 2017 until May this year — is facing more than 70 charges, including recklessly contaminating goods to cause alarm or anxiety. Health authorities have recommended precautionary testing for infectious diseases, with a police source telling The Age Brown had tested positive for a sexually transmitted disease.
“At this stage, we are recommending that around 1,200 children undergo testing for infectious diseases,” the Victorian chief health officer said, as reported by news.com.au.
Victoria Police have confirmed that Brown had a valid working with children check and no criminal history while employed across the centres over an eight-year period.
Victorian Minister for Children Lizzie Blandthorn commented, “There is a degree of casual employment in the education workforce … So the fact that someone moves around and might have a number of registered employers is not necessarily in and of itself an indicator of bad behaviour.
“But we do want to know where people have been and where they’re going and how many times they’ve moved in their role as an educator.”
The Department of Health and police have been directly contacting affected families, and a dedicated hotline has been set up to offer support and information.
Victoria will now introduce a mandatory ban on personal devices in early learning centres, starting September 26. If a provider doesn’t sign up, they could cop fines of up to $50,000, and will have conditions added to their license.
There will also be a state-based register for childcare workers established, extending to all people working in childcare. Currently, the state government records workers in its free kinder program, and teachers are recorded on a registry.
Working With Children checks will be on the agenda at the meeting of attorney-generals next month, with Education Minister Jason Clare acknowledging the reforms to standardise these checks across the country “can’t happen soon enough”.
In 2015, the Royal Commission into Institutionalised Responses to Child Sexual Abuse recommended the checks be both standardised and nationalised nationally, although this is yet to be implemented.
Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald, a commissioner for the 2015 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Robert Fitzgerald, said it was time “to actually complete the work needed to make the safeguarding system as strong as it can possibly be”.
“It is not about more reviews. It’s about getting the job done,” he said.
Along with the urgent reforms, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan has also announced a $5,000 immediate-needs payment for impacted families. Allan said “more needs to happen now”, and stressed that “families cannot wait” for safety improvements, per SBS.
Lead image: 9News
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