I am speechless that Kathryn Ryan’s response to me about the issues facing ECE operators was: she simply didn’t believe me. In other words, Kathryn’s view is that either I am making it all up i.e I’m lying? or I’m putting my own “spin” on the facts. If I’m lying then that’s a juicy story. Sadly, I’m not so really it’s just one of the ways people in key roles – like journalists – are shutting us down and distorting the true story. I do feel hard done by, on behalf of the ECE providers that know it to be true based on their own experiences with the regulator. But those providers who know are not necessarily in the majority at all. That’s part of why this hasn't been fixed already – we actually need to stand together here. Remember that there are over 2,700 education and care providers in New Zealand and only a small fraction of them had these experiences with the Ministry (but that number is growing). Give it time and more will experience it. Those of you who haven’t had issues – I would advise you to be more compassionate and understanding than Kathryn Ryan was to me. It could happen to anyone. New unreasonable and disproportionate licensing cancellations and suspensions are still happening in 2024. In about January this year ECC worked with Police and ERO to attempt to fix an administrative trap that exists for ECE providers with safety checking. Our work with the Ministry on the issue is still ongoing. In the Children’s Act there are two different categories of children’s workers – “core” and “non-core”. The rationale for Parliament making this distinction remains unclear. The Children’s Act is awful legislation considering it takes a heavy-handed regulatory approach that makes safety checking mandatory (to keep children safe), instead of supporting the ECE sector to do the safety checks to an acceptable standard or quality. Of course, these checks take time. So it’s cynical for the government to presume the time spent checking is unpaid and when the checking work isn’t up to standard, instead of warning or helping you to fix a defective check. In the ECE sector it is a common view, for example, that administrators or cooks are non-core workers because their roles, while having contact with children, should never involve them being the only children’s worker present and neither role is meant to be the primary one with responsibility for children. ECC considers this common view to be legally correct. But it doesn’t really matter what ECC thinks. The problem is what the Ministry’s view is. In fact, when the Ministry finds a cook or administrator’s safety checking documentation has them checked as “non-core” they tend to consider suspending the centres’ licences. ECC is still trying to get the Ministry of Education and Police to agree to change the vetting form. If non-core and core is such a problem then we think the vetting form should be changed to make “core worker” the default setting for ECE checks. It doesn’t fix the regulations but it makes it harder for us to fall into this terrible trap. I encourage all ECE providers to switch to core-checking their workers just to avoid the trap for now. Who would have thought a different tick on a form could make such a difference to whether or not your ECE centre keeps its licence. July 2024 { 9 }
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