Early learning and care · Ireland

Safeguarding for crèches and preschools.

What the Children First Act 2015 asks of an early learning and care service, and the three places services are most often caught short.

Where services get caught

Three things, and none of them are surprising.

Michael has never met a crèche that did not care about this. He has met a great many where the paperwork had not kept up with the service.

Registration is not compliance

Tusla registration under the Child Care Act regulations and obligations under the Children First Act 2015 are separate things. Meeting one does not meet the other.

The statement without the assessment

Most services have a statement. Far fewer have the written risk assessment it is supposed to rest on, which is what decides everything named in it.

A deputy who was never trained

The designated liaison person is usually the manager. If nobody else is prepared, the role is uncovered every day they are not on site.

The risks specific to your setting

Written from your rooms.

A risk assessment for an early learning service has to name the things that actually happen in one: nappy changing and toileting, sleep rooms, collection when a parent is late or is not the named person, outings, one-to-one time with a distressed child, and photographs.

A generic list will miss most of those, and the gap will be exactly where nobody thought to look.

Answers

Questions crèches ask most.

Does the Children First Act 2015 apply to a crèche?

Yes. An early learning and care service is a provider of a relevant service under Schedule 1, so the Children First Act 2015 applies in full: a written assessment of the risk of harm, a child safeguarding statement specifying the procedures that manage each risk, a relevant person appointed as first point of contact, and the procedures the statement names — including information and, where necessary, instruction and training.

Is our Tusla registration the same as Children First compliance?

No. Registration under the Child Care Act regulations and obligations under the Children First Act 2015 are separate. An inspection may look at both, and services are often surprised by that.

Who should be the designated liaison person in a crèche?

Usually the manager or owner, with a deputy who can hold it when they are not on site. Both should be named and both should be trained, because the role cannot be uncovered on a day the manager is off.

What do parents have a right to ask for?

Your child safeguarding statement. It must be displayed where the service operates and given to any parent, to Tusla, or to any member of the public who requests it.

Do all our staff need training, including part-time?

The Children First Act 2015 asks for appropriate information, instruction and training for staff and volunteers. What is appropriate follows from your risk assessment — and a part-time staff member alone with children at collection time carries the same risk as anybody else.

Who you would be working with

Fifteen years leading Ireland's national child protection unit.

Senior Investigating Officer with An Garda Síochána, leading three national units: the National Child Protection Unit, the Sexual Crime Management Unit and the Online Child Exploitation Unit. Ireland's National Expert to Interpol and Europol on child safeguarding.

Safeguarding policy developed with Tusla, the HSE and three government departments. M.Sc. in Child Protection and Welfare, Trinity College Dublin. More about Michael

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