Nanny registration

Date: 22.04.10

Voice has renewed calls for a compulsory national register of nannies.

Voice Blog: Registration of nannies (22 April 2010)

 

"Call to action": Child Care, 14 January 2010

 

Click here for further Updates below: 

 

Voice press release: 12 June 2009

 

Voice renews calls for nanny registration

 

Voice: the union for education professionals – which represents nannies alongside other childcare and education staff – has renewed calls for a compulsory national register of nannies, following the announcement of a national registration scheme for home educators in England.

 

Senior Professional Officer (Childcare) Tricia Pritchard said: "There are compulsory Ofsted Early Years and Childcare Registers and plans for a compulsory register of parents who home educate, but only a voluntary registration scheme for nannies.

 

"If there can be a compulsory register of parents who educate at home, why not one for childcarers who care for children in the home?

 

"The home educator register is being introduced – and rightly so – to protect children from possible abuse by their own parents so surely they should be protected from possible abuse or neglect by a non-relative without training or experience calling themselves a ‘nanny’.

 

"Unless a register is compulsory it can’t be fully effective as not everyone will join.

 

"A single UK national register for all working with children and young people would be much simpler and more effective than the current complicated, confusing plethora of compulsory and voluntary registers springing up piecemeal. The Laming report called for a single system to end confusion. Instead we are seeing even more registers! 

 

"Compulsory registration would also protect and raise the status of professional trained nannies."

 

Notes

 

Ofsted registers

 

DCSF: Home educator registration

 

CWDC nanny survey (23 October 2009)

 

Nursery World, 14 October 2009: "Nanny exemption from Vetting and Barring scheme is ’dangerous’"

"The Government’s controversial Vetting and Barring scheme has come under fire again after it emerged that nannies employed directly by parents will not be required to register. "Tricia Pritchard, Senior Professional Officer (Childcare) at the education and childcare union Voice, said: ’There seems to be a reluctance to have one scheme that requires the same registration for anyone who works with children. In my mind, children who are looked after by nannies are some of the most vulnerable – a nanny has sole, unsupervised contact with children. Parents often assume that nannies are registered and vetted, and many parents would be surprised to learn that they are not.’"

 

James Tweed’s speech to Professional Nanny Conference, September 2009

 

15 September 2009: Comment by General Secretary Philip Parkin: Nanny registration: The recent furore over the application of the Vetting and Barring scheme to parent volunteers has highlighted the illogical situation whereby a parent who transports a group of children to a sports fixture needs to be registered, but a nanny employed to look after children on his/her own in the children’s own home does not have to be registered. Voice continues to campaign for nanny registration (www.voicetheunion.org.uk/registration).

 

"Nanny registration", Child Care, September 2009

 

"Please end this confusion": Early Years Educator, August 2009

 

Voice press release on home educators (11 June 2009)

 

2003 TV documentary

 

CRY campaign media coverage

 

ends   

 

Contact: Senior Professional Officer (Childcare) Tricia Pritchard (triciapritchard@voicetheunion.org.uk) or Voice Press Office (pressoffice@voicetheunion.org.uk) on 01332 372 337.