In Sydney, two preschoolers escaped from a daycare center to a shopping mall
In Sydney’s Randwick district, two children aged four and five left a childcare center on their own and made their way to a nearby shopping mall. A passer-by stopped the preschoolers and called police. Officers returned the children to the facility, whose staff did not know at the time that they were missing, ABC News Australia reports.
Regulator’s review
The incident occurred on July 2. The New South Wales Early Learning Commission investigated the circumstances and found that the center had breached safety standards.
The regulator issued a compliance notice to the approved service provider over inadequate supervision and failure to protect children from harm and hazards. The commission said it was monitoring compliance with the notice to prevent further risks to children’s safety. The center was also ordered to install surveillance cameras and strengthen security at entrances and exits.
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Parents’ and center’s response
Yasmin Bakshi, the mother of three-year-old twins who attended Randwick Creative Childcare, learned about the incident from an online parents’ group. According to her, to reach the shopping mall, the children would have had to cross a four-lane road twice without adult supervision. After the incident, she decided to withdraw her children from the facility because she did not feel confident about their safety.
The center’s director told parents that the facility was reviewing its safety measures and would conduct child headcounts more frequently during the day. She declined further comment to ABC, saying that staff and the families involved wanted to put the incident behind them.
According to the latest data from the industry regulator, licenses were revoked for 174 childcare facilities in New South Wales in the quarter from April 1 to June 30, compared with 20 during the same period a year earlier. In total, 876 service providers were fined or subjected to other sanctions, twice as many as a year earlier.
