A childcare centre in Canberra's north west has been banned from operating after the regulator found it failed to respond to a serious medical incident involving a child.
Children's Education and Care Assurance (CECA), the ACT government's childcare regulator, immediately suspended Edge Early Learning Higgins from operating on Thursday.
"The suspension is in relation to the services' failure to respond to a serious medical incident involving a child at the service," a CECA spokesperson said.
"The decision was made based on evidence of immediate risk to the safety and health of children. The service's compliance history, including recurring incidents and breaches of the national law, was a consideration in the decision to suspend the service."
The regulator said it was investigating a range of issues arising from the incident.
"CECA understands the short notice places many parents in a position with little time to find alternative arrangements for their children.
"In making the decision, CECA determined that the risk of further safety concerns for children warranted immediate action," the spokesperson said.
"CECA recommends using the national Starting Blocks resource to find suitable enrolments and information about services and providers."
The regulator urged respect and privacy for the family involved.
Edge has sacked one educator and suspended a number of others pending its ongoing investigation over the incident.
Kurrajong independent MLA Thomas Emerson said the ACT government needed to tighten regulations for childcare centres and ensure patterns in major for-profit centres were not treated as isolated incidents.
"Now's the time for the government to bring forward more transparency measures. I've been calling for a public register of compliance actions, which is available in four other states," Mr Emerson said.
"We haven't done it in the ACT. Families should be able to have a look and assess whether or not the centre they're considering is appropriate for their children.
"There have to be actual consequences when we see this kind of stuff, and it's not enough to give repeated warnings, which is why I do welcome some action being taken by CECA in this instance."
Edge Early Learning managing director Chris Chambers said the suspension notice arrived after the operator had "decided to temporarily consolidate our operations in the ACT into our Charnwood and Ngunnawal centres".
"This decision was made partly in response to a child experiencing an unexpected medical episode, and what we consider to be a completely unacceptable response," Mr Chambers said.
He said the child had recovered from the medical incident.
"The safety of the children in our care is paramount. We took strong action in relation to team members involved and brought in additional senior leadership to support the centre."
Mr Chambers said the operator was "disappointed that this action means that families will not have the benefit of the phased transition Edge had planned, and we are sorry for the immediate disruption this creates," promising to support the families left without care and co-operate with the regulator.
Mr Emerson welcomed the regulator taking firm action against Edge.
"I've seen some commentary from parents saying that they were really pleased with the educators at Edge and that the problem was with management, but the statement we've seen from Edge basically says the opposite, problems with educators," he said.
"I'm not in a position to judge who's telling the truth in this case.
"Obviously, there's more information to come out, but I think when we see repeated incidents at the same centres, run by the same providers, it's right to ask questions about whether they're actually putting children's safety, wellbeing and growth first, or whether there are other incentives that are being prioritised here."
Mr Emerson secured the release to the Legislative Assembly of more than 2000 documents detailing incidents in childcare and after-school programs across the ACT.
He said those documents had already shown a series of issues at the Edge Early Learning Centre in Higgins and the company's centre in Charnwood.
"[Higgins] has had proven incidents of breaches of national child safety and quality laws, including inadequate supervision, inappropriate discipline, and educated working without a valid working with vulnerable people check," Mr Emerson said.
"These have all happened in recent years. We know about them because of the documents that I got released through an assembly order," he said.
"It's really disappointing, but we actually need to hold these major for-profit providers of early learning accountable to the laws that are in place."
.png?w=600)
