Concerned Canberra families and staff are leaving Guardian childcare centres following serious and repeated safety incidents including children being left outside, served mouldy food, and left in soiled nappies.Guardian says the organisation has a "zero tolerance" policy for child harm and many of the issues were related to staff leaving or being asked to leave.
"Out of the eight hours that I'm at work , I'm putting my daughter's life in somebody else's hands," Ms Stark said. "In the ACT, we have had a number of our centre leaders and team members resign or be removed from our business as a result of this approach," Mr Bright said.Another parent, Roy Johnson, who is being identified with a pseudonym to protect his identity, was told by staff that his two-year-old son had also been left outside on his own one day in January 2024.
"I have received less than a handful of letters from families in my five years as CEO," Mr Bright said.That same month, single mother Tamsin Friedland said she was forced to intervene when her child, who is Jewish, was served pork meatballs at lunch. "It's essentially half my pay cheque … I don't believe for the rate that we're paying we're getting the level of care that we would be expecting."Guardian is one of the biggest childcare providers in the country, with more than 15,000 children on its books at around 170 centres.
"We do acknowledge that when we change a leader in a centre this can then have a flow-on effect on the stability of the team."The most common complaint coming from families and former educators, however, is that centres were constantly responsible for more children than they were legally allowed."Very often we were over ratio — I can't tell you the amount of time we were over ratio because it was almost all of the time," she said.
In response, Guardian said the topic of ratios was often "misunderstood by families and team members who believe the ratios apply at room level". When her child was injured in a fall, she said staff made a report that said "no intervention was provided to avoid the fall due to no carers being available to tend to the area".
"We delegate responsibility to our nominated supervisors to operate our centres in a way that complies with policies, procedures and the regulatory requirements," Mr Bright said.It costs roughly between $150 to $170 per day — before government subsidies — for a child to attend a Guardian childcare centre, but staff said not enough money was re-invested into centres.