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A report by the French General Inspectorate for Social Affairs (IGAS), published on Tuesday, April 11, points to a “very uneven” quality of care in daycare centers and alerts to situations that resemble mistreatment, calling for profound reforms.
The report does not hesitate to draw a parallel with the situation in the EHPADs, centers for the elderly. The inspectors were requested by the Government after the death of an 11-month-old baby in a private nursery in Lyon last June. A case in which an employee was charged as suspected of having made the child ingest a caustic product. They visited 36 public and private establishments throughout France and distributed a questionnaire to which 5,275 directors, 12,545 crèche employees and 27,671 parents responded.
The best and the worst
The result: in terms of nurseries, there are both the best and the worst, according to the report of the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs (IGAS) published this Tuesday. Along with “high-quality daycare centers, supported by profound pedagogical reflection”, there are also “very poor-quality establishments”, which can cause “deficiencies in the affective security and development” of young children, the authors of the report point out.
This issue “is not discussed enough”, despite the fact that “the risk areas and the reported facts are identical to those observed in any care for vulnerable and dependent people”, that is, in nursing homes or establishments for the disabled, the authors of the report point out.
mistreatment
Many of the adults interviewed describe situations that resemble abuse, the authors note, mentioning children left on the toilet, deprived of naps because there are not enough beds, or left crying until they they sleep.
Other testimonies mention children who are not given anything to drink, “so that we change their diapers less”, who are left with a dirty diaper for too long, who are humiliated or insulted (“you cry for nothing” , “you smell bad”…), who are forced to eat by pinching their noses to make them open their mouths, or even who are physically mistreated by pulling their hair or tying them to a radiator.
Given these findings, “all the recommendations” in this document will be taken into account, the Minister of Solidarity, Jean-Christophe Combe, said in a statement on Tuesday, who wants to “act quickly.” The minister is expected to announce measures in the spring, under the “public service for early childhood” promised by President Emmanuel Macron. This project has a quantitative dimension, with the necessary creation of more places, but also a qualitative one, underlined the environment of the minister.
For the IGAS, the improvement of the quality of nurseries must go through the reinforcement of controls, the increase of staff and the qualification of professionals, but also by conditioning the financing of establishments to quality objectives. The speakers also insist on the need to remedy the lack of attractiveness of professions related to early childhood, which is both “an aggravating factor and a symptom” of the difficulties in offering good care to children.