COLUMN. “Childcare is becoming stepmother and that is a shame” (Antwerp)
Between the tanks and the rocket attacks, the refresh and another refresh of live updates about the advancing Russian troops in Ukraine, Wouter Beke (CD&V) in his own country provided the false note of the week. In The appointment on Canvas, the Minister of Welfare debated child psychiatrist Binu Singh about childcare policy regarding the drama that takes place in the crèche in Mariakerke.
Elien Van Wynsberghe
Singh kindly but firmly states that our shelter is no longer good enough for the well-being of our children. That the policy must be reversed, because the sector must be treated downwards.
You can read that today in the report about daycare center Tutters & Bellen in Antwerp. Nine children per carer (as required by the standard). And if fruit porridge has to be made, those nine children are even left in the good hands of a colleague who can then manage eighteen babies. Management, yes. Because giving love and attention, the things you do it for as a caregiver, there is hardly any time left for that. “We try to cuddle each child for ten minutes a day,” says one of the nurses. Can it get any worse? Should more alarm bells go off?
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Meanwhile, Beke sits there and watches. Extra money will go towards setting up an ethics committee, more control and putting inspection reports online. Not unimportant, but far insufficient if that’s the case. A plaster on a festering wound.
“Instead of praising our child carers, offering them all the support they need to carry out their work to perfection, they are underpaid, left to their own devices and thus taken by the hand and guided by our government towards a burnout.”
The childcare industry is becoming stepmother and that is a shame. This is about people taking daily responsibility for our most precious asset: our children. Instead of praising our child carers, providing them with all the support they need to carry out their work to perfection, they are underpaid, left to their own devices and thus taken by the hand and guided by our government a burnout. At best, after a while they return but – and you can’t blame them – they decide to take a different path. Do they become a salesperson in a store? There are more and they don’t have to keep nine balls in the air like a juggler without being allowed to fall.
They understand, the nurses told our reporter, that the other thing that colleagues lose their patience. And with that they are absolutely not talking good water has taken place in Mariakerke. But they understand that things can go wrong. Isn’t that certainly worrying? Doesn’t Beke still feel the urgency to finally show decisiveness, to listen – but really listen – to what experts like Binu Singh have to say and to implement policy accordingly? Instead of going around in circles and waiting for the next drama to happen.