Australia

It's always a jump call - child or facility. Child cares take a huge beating every day. The mess is incredible, and the cleaning is non stop. I know; I do a lot of it. To expect staff to clean during the day is a decision made in favor of a building rather than the children. The trick is to clean as you go, to take care of what you can when you can. Our staff keeps up our building as well as we can. It's a constant battle. I arrive early - 6:20- and tackle as much as I can every morning, floors, bathrooms, kitchen, pet room, classrooms, carpets, plants, windows, etc. Closers try to make sure the building is as tidy as possible before they close. Edith comes in on the weekends to do little things, and I do the grocery shopping on the weekends. Besides the plant, there is the constant upgrading of curriculum, the care of the animals, the care of the plants, the errands, and the accounts to handle like bills, payroll, taxes, step ahead accounts, USDACCFP accounts and records and more. We try to balance time and energy and teaching for 11 hours every day, and for the most part it works. If all teachers are not willing to really help, and that means weekend work, it doesn't work.

In this article, the extremes these care providers are asked to do are unacceptable and a detriment to the real work at hand - namely the children. If the owners of the childcare want this kind of work done - hire it out.

The Age
Austrailia
Toilet Cleaning All in a Day's Child Care Work
By Deborah GoughMarch 5, 2006

CHILD-care workers are required to do extensive cleaning duties — including scrubbing staff toilets — while caring for children at some privately operated centres, including those of the country's biggest operator, ABC Learning.

The union representing child-care workers said that in at least one case, staff were told to use an electric leaf-blower outdoors when they were supposed to be caring for children.

Kindergarten Parents Victoria chief executive Gerard Mansour questioned whether cleaning could take workers away from interacting with children, but acknowledged that cleaning directly related to caring for children should be included in their duties. "It is a question for the regulator if we have children who are not under active supervision," he said.

The revelations came as the Supreme Court heard an appeal last week by ABC Learning against a $200 fine after a child went missing at its Hoppers Crossing centre. The company argued that it should not be held liable when staff failed to supervise children properly.

An assistant secretary for the Australian Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union, Veronica Ilias, said it had had complaints about excessive cleaning duties from workers at community-run centres.

A cleaning duties roster from an ABC Learning Centre lists duties such as cleaning staff toilets, laundries, windows, fans, fridges, lockers and sheds, mopping hallways and hosing verandas. It includes daily, weekly, fortnightly and monthly jobs.

Inquiries at other centres show that the ABC list is similar to lists for contract cleaners at some community-run centres.

Centres contacted by The Sunday Age said the contract monthly cleaning cost for smaller centres was about $900, and $3500 for larger centres.

Ms Ilias said she was aware of one centre where cleaning contractors were hired after parental pressure was exerted. "It is hard to think of another job where staff would be asked to clean their own toilets in a normal working environment," she said.

The head of the department of child and family studies at Swinburne University of Technology, Clare Forbes, said any cleaning duties for child-care workers needed to be directly related to children. Staff-to-child ratios were a minimum standard, she said, and excessive cleaning could effectively take workers away from children.
A spokesman for ABC Learning said the company did employ cleaners but would not be drawn on whether child-care workers were required to do commercial cleaning as well. "It is impractical to have cleaners on throughout the day, and some cleaning tasks are undertaken by child-care staff — such as cleaning up after morning tea or lunch — where it is important to ensure the most hygienic environment possible," the spokesman said.

He said this was common practice in the industry and denied the cleaning routine affected staff's ability to supervise children.

A Department of Human Services spokeswoman said it enforced regulations that governed children's services, including that they be safe and have their developmental needs met to a minimum standard.

A spokeswoman for the Minister for Children, Sherryl Garbutt, said the Government was introducing regulations for out-of-school-hours care and family day-care, and would review regulations for long-day care by 2008. "If work conditions compromise a child's safety, there are regulations in place to deal with this," she said.