Statement from Affinity Education Group
The issues raised by ABC TV’s Four Corners program about Australia’s childcare sector are deeply concerning.
Affinity treats all compliance and safety incidents at our centres extremely seriously and is committed to upholding the highest standards of care for children.
We have a zero tolerance policy for any form of child harm and will terminate the employment of any employee found to be in breach of this safeguard. That includes a strong commitment to a robust reporting culture, where we actively support, encourage and expect all members of our team to ‘speak up’ and raise any concerns or issues both within centres and to management.
The matters relating to individual Affinity centres raised by Four Corners have been investigated and will continue to be addressed through actions being taken to improve the consistency of standards across our network.
Over the past three years, Affinity has invested over $70 million in compliance, safety, care, systems and processes. Our centre performance is independently assessed under the National Quality Standards (NQS) and more than 90 per cent of Affinity centres are rated at Meeting or Exceeding NQS.
Our highest priority remains ensuring safety while delivering best-practice early education outcomes and nurturing the children we care for.