How to massively, epically fail as a company

[fireheart17]

Warning: there may be some distressing things that crop up over here. If you were a victim of a pedophile, you may want to not read the link.

So for those who are unfamiliar, I work for a school-age childcare service. It's not uncommon over here for schools to contract out those services to private companies and I work for one of those companies (in short, the school provides the space, we provide everything else). One of the providers across the country is the YMCA (the Aussie branch) which is NOT the company I work for.

It recently came out that someone at a YMCA service had managed to abuse up to 12 children (there may have been more). This formed part of a royal commission into child abuse (most of said child abuse is looking into institutional-based abuse, not home-based) and there the whole truth came out: the entire company managed to screw up royally when hiring the pedophile.

Here's the link (Warning: link is VERY long and may contain distressing information)

The end result is that the YMCA lost their contract with those schools. The company I work for has since taken on one of them, the others have gone to other private centres or have simply not kept a service going.

All I can say is....wow. The level of failure from the company is just STAGGERING. And it didn't just affect the children, quite a few staff members were also dragged into the mess as well, but were more or less innocent or unaware of what they had to do.

My RM is taking on this service and read that document yesterday. She kept having to stop because it was quite heavy. I read it last night...and I agree.

[Panacea]

Pedophilia is a mental disease and nearly impossible to treat.

It's hard to know what to do with these guys. You can't treat them. You can't keep them locked up. You can't kill them.

So what do we do with them?

[Seshat]

I once met a person who told me they had the urges of a pedophile. They (said they) had never acted on it; instead they had regular visits to a psych. (I don't remember whether it was -iatrist, -ologist or both.)

I had no real idea what to say or think; but I ended up saying I was glad they were being responsible about the feelings.


Honestly, it does seem to me on reflection that they were doing the best they had the ability to do - assuming what they said to me was true.


(I must have a 'please confide me in' sign printed on my forehead. People tell me the weirdest things.)

[Gravekeeper]

Wow....uh. Just reading the findings alone. It sounds like they would basically just hire any random person off the street that walked in the door. No questions asked. Then its just a complete systematic failure at every single level where not a single staff member at that location had any idea what they were doing. Largely in part because apparently none of them had ever been trained properly by the idiots running the place.

[fireheart17]

Wow....uh. Just reading the findings alone. It sounds like they would basically just hire any random person off the street that walked in the door. No questions asked. Then its just a complete systematic failure at every single level where not a single staff member at that location had any idea what they were doing. Largely in part because apparently none of them had ever been trained properly by the idiots running the place.

That sounds about right. To give you an idea of how bad this is, a few extra facts:

-In NSW, there are currently no requirements needed to work in school-age childcare. For anything else, you need to be at least "Cert III" qualified (which is about 6-12 months study). If you're running a centre, you need to be at least Cert IV or Bachelor Qualified (Cert IV is roughly 18-24 months of study) and this applies across the board.

-In other states, you need to be either qualified or working towards a qualification to be able to work in this field. For under-5 childcare, it needs to be actual childcare training, for school-age childcare, the field can be slightly broader (psychology, social work, teaching, even sport coaching!)

-My interview with the company I work for now was a 1:1 interview conducted at the school. I was asked about safety procedures, behaviour management guidelines and I had to hand over my working with children check and child protection certificate BEFORE I was even allowed to set foot in the centre. I also had to do a trial shift* before they offered me the job.

-My training was conducted at another centre due to the time at which I came on (end of the school term), but the coordinator at THAT centre would not let me leave the office until I had read through everything and completed the quizzes that I was provided. I then had to provide examples of how those particular policies applied to this specific site. (For instance, looking at the menu, I had to identify who would have a health issue with the food on the menu and how we would cater for that particular child right through to how the kitchen would be prepared to ensure that we didn't trigger a reaction)

-Both my coordinator and I have been receiving regular training from both our regional manager and another coordinator from another site who runs us through the admin stuff.

-Every afternoon (in theory, in practice this is something we only do if we have new staff present or a number of new children) we're meant to do a short meeting that covers responsibilities, duties, allergies and basically, we know what we're doing and how we're going to do it.

-We also have very regular visits from our regional manager. This can be as minimal as once a fortnight to every week. This gives her a chance to check our behaviour around the kids and call us out on it.

*-according to workplace law, a trial shift is legal IF it's made clear it's a trial shift from the get-go and you're called upon to actually demonstrate your skills that are relevant to the job. For instance, interacting with children would be part of it, sweeping floors and doing dishes would not be.

[sophie]

The disturbing part is that I'm not surprised. A lot of places that work with children don't do background checks. Here a high school hired a teacher and let him start before a background check, turns out he had just gotten out of prison for violently raping an 11 year old and a 13 year old. Schools don't seem to give a shit anymore.

[BlaqueKatt]

Pedophilia is a mental disease and nearly impossible to treat.

Part of that is there's effectively *zero* research done on how to treat them, there's few mental health professionals that will do anything but turn them away or report to the police(even if they haven't done anything). One 19 year-old kid *tried* to get help and ended up having to start an online support group because there was simply no one willing to help him or the others in his group. it's really quite sad honestly.

[fireheart17]

The disturbing part is that I'm not surprised. A lot of places that work with children don't do background checks. Here a high school hired a teacher and let him start before a background check, turns out he had just gotten out of prison for violently raping an 11 year old and a 13 year old. Schools don't seem to give a shit anymore.

Thank you for reminding me: the company that I work for does do background checks (they rang me because one of the phone numbers I had given them didn't work, I gave them the alternate. By this point I had the job, they were just running the check) but the company that I worked for previously (not the ymca) I don't believe did. We had to go for a police check annually, but that was it.

[Panacea]

Part of that is there's effectively *zero* research done on how to treat them, there's few mental health professionals that will do anything but turn them away or report to the police(even if they haven't done anything).

I'm not sure how you justify this statement, because it is not true. A search of PubMed turned up hundreds of articles.

In fact, recent research on the subject indicates there's something going on with the brain. It may be a sexual orientation; previous child abuse is not an indicator that one will become a pedophile, and the urges start young. The preference does not change over time. However, pedophilia is associated with developmental disorders, suggesting it may begin in utero.

I did read of one case where an older man with no history of sexual crimes molested his step daughter. Day before he was sentenced, he went to the ER with a headache. They found a tumor on CT. After he had it removed the urges went away. A year or so later they came back . . . along with the tumor.

The ability to control the urge seems to lie in the fore brain . . . where judgement and decision making lie.

CBT and hormone treatments are the only ones available, and they work to varying degrees. Seeking help before you molest someone is difficult as providers are hard to find. Seeking out help after you molest someone is risky because the provider (in the US anyway) is a mandated reporter and must notify police. Balancing the needs of a patient who sincerely wants help, and protecting potential victims creates a lose lose situation for the pedophile and the provider . . .if there were a better solution I'd love to know what it is.

[Seshat]

Yes... someone who's never hurt anyone is easy ethically. You treat the patient, and keep medical confidentiality.


Someone whose impulse control has already failed ... that's tough. I think there's only bad answers. My thought would be to put them in a secure medical facility; among only other patients with the same issue. (Since putting them in a general population medical or punitive facility is likely to result in them being beaten up or killed.)

Now, it's possible that the secure medical facility might double as a secure punitive facility: that's for wiser heads than mine to decide.

[s_stabeler]

since it seems that pedophilia might actually be a legitimate mental illness, then to be honest, I would say that for people who have acted upon it, I would say do something like with legally insane people: send them to a secure mental hospital until they are cured to the point they are safe to return to society.

for people that haven't yet acted upon the urges, then I would say that help should probably be made more widely available- under the principle that it is better to prevent crimes before they occur.

[Panacea]

since it seems that pedophilia might actually be a legitimate mental illness, then to be honest, I would say that for people who have acted upon it, I would say do something like with legally insane people: send them to a secure mental hospital until they are cured to the point they are safe to return to society.

We're actually doing that in some states. Some pedophiles have been kept in mental hospitals after they finished their prison terms. They've challenged their confinement, but the results have been mixed.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

We're actually doing that in some states. Some pedophiles have been kept in mental hospitals after they finished their prison terms. They've challenged their confinement, but the results have been mixed.

I think that if they are being confined to mental institutions AFTER they have served their prison sentence then they SHOULD challenge the confinement. That's just sending them to a different form a prison, which is basically punishing them twice.

Send them to the mental institution first off, instead of the prison sentence. Because to do it after they've served their time just seems like the system is trying to get double the bang for their buck from the conviction.

[Seshat]

I would say do something like with legallydangerously insane people: send them to a secure mental hospital

Fixed it for you.

[Gilhelmi]

My Church does a background check on people taking on volunteer work, even Church leadership.

From Elders and Deacons, all the way to Sunday School teachers and regular volunteers (and of course paid positions, like ministers and secretaries). We are not a big Church, a 3-4 hundred people. This has helped us to never have that problem.

For a school company not to take this basic precaution is just plain absurd. Madness, I swear.

I know background checks are not "magic bullets". Sometimes, there are first time/caught offenders. But that is no excuse. Always do background checks.