American researcher Charol Shakeshaft concluded, in her grotesquely under-reported study conducted for the Obama administration, that child sexual abuse in schools “is likely more than 100 times” worse. It’s only in the last year or so that a steady stream of shocking revelations have revealed just how appalling the situation is in Australian schools and ‘early-learning centres’ (aka ‘childcare’), too.
It’s a grotesque tragedy which goes far beyond the two headline cases of prolific childcare abusers Ashley Paul Griffith and Joshua Dale Brown. It’s also increasingly bridging the gender divide: while the stereotype of a paedophile is a male, more and more female educators are getting caught.
A former support worker at a specialist school in Melbourne’s south-east has been charged with serious child sex abuse offences, the principal of the school says.
Endeavour Hills Specialist School principal Karen Hunt offered families access to support services after she revealed that local woman, Roshelle Kassab, had been charged with child sexual abuse offences.
It is unclear whether Kassab’s alleged offending is related to her employment at the school, where she had been working since January, but is no longer employed there.
Victoria has commissioned a ‘Rapid Child Safety Review’ in the wake of the horrific scandal involving Joshua Dale Brown. But it appears that a national inquiry is needed. While we’ve had the Gillard-era Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, that inquiry was too-obviously hyper-focused on ‘getting’ the churches. Its report skated over much of the vast underbelly of child abuse in public schools, while the childcare industry barely rated a mention.
More importantly, the churches have largely taken steps to prevent the horrors of the past happening again. There’s clearly a lot of work to do in other areas involving children.
The Sydney childcare worker accused of filming abuse of 10 children at six centres in the city’s north and CBD continued to work with children after his behaviour was reported to police and the regulator last year.
David James, 26, was arrested in September and later charged over the alleged abuse at the Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) facilities between April 2021 and May 2024.
A court order prevented his identification, as well of the 58 centres he worked at, until a legal challenge last week by the Herald-Sun. The result was that, while he was banned by his former employer, Junior Adventures Group, he was free to prowl where other employers were left in the dark. The case represents yet another failure of Australia’s working with children system.
However, while James was banned from JAG centres, he was able to keep working as a casual with [recruitment agency] Randstad because his Working with Children check was not affected.
In other cases, convicted child murderers were cleared to obtain working with children clearance. Others subject to a litany of complaints were able to hold on to their clearances, including foster parents who went on to murder a teenage girl in their charge.
All this is just the tip of the iceberg of abuse and neglect which permeates the ‘childcare’ sector.
Staff as young as 15 are caring for up to 15 children in the Outside School Hours Care (OSHC) sector as industry heads raise the alarm about for-profit providers putting money over children’s wellbeing and call for nationally consistent regulation in the sector […]
Nearly 600,000 children attend OSHC nationally. The sector is growing, with an additional 426 services added in the past year, nationally topping 5000 services.
Well, here’s a suggestion: don’t farm out your children’s care to strangers who are just in it for the money. We are the first society in human history to embark on such a grotesque social experiment. How’s it working out for us?
