Care provider at The Village St Joe’s OSHC fined after autistic boy went missing for about 27 minutes

An Albany child care provider has been fined by the State Administrative Tribunal after a young autistic child was found wandering at a nearby school, having been missing from the centre for half an hour. Harpreet Dhaliwal, of The Village St Joe’s Outside of School Hours Care, was ordered to pay more than $10,000 on February 12, for the incident that occurred on January 29 this year. A nine-year-old boy, who has autism, is non-verbal and requires one-on-one supervision, left the centre on Martin Road by himself via an unlocked gate about 4pm, the SAT was told. Staff did not initially notice his absence, only realising he was missing 17 minutes later when they conducted a roll call and found him unaccounted for. After staff began to search for the boy, a maintenance man for the nearby St Joseph’s College pointed them in the direction of the primary school area. The boy was seen by staff about 300m away from the OSHC centre near a playground, and safely recovered just before 4.30pm after a short foot chase through the school grounds. The child had been missing for about 27 minutes. A subsequent investigation of the incident by the Department of Communities found written supervision and risk assessment procedures — such as hourly headcounts, and keeping doors and gates closed — had not been followed in the lead-up to the incident. The educators working on the day said they had not been told of the procedures. It also revealed that the service had not adhered to the minimum four educators needed to balance the 36-child ratio, as one of the educators was working a shift in the kitchen at the time and therefore could not be counted as directly supervising the children. As a result of the DoC investigation, which recommended disciplinary action for four breaches of the Education and Care Services National Law WA, SAT ordered Ms Dhaliwal to pay a fine of $8600 and an additional $2000 in court costs. SAT documents reveal Ms Dhaliwal has since made a number of changes to the OSHC centre, including installing self-closing gates, a digital gate register to monitor entries and exits, conducting more regular headcountsand ensuring all educators are aware of procedures and plans for each child. DoC executive director of regulation and quality Angelo Barbaro said that adequate supervision was vital to keeping children safe within education and care services. “While it’s incredibly fortunate that the child was found unharmed, services must prevent these types of incidents by adequately supervising all children in their care,” he said. “Our community place a great deal of trust in providers to comply with the law and keep our children safe. “As this outcome shows, there are consequences for breaching the community’s trust and the laws that providers must follow”. Mr Barbaro issued a reminder that for staff to be counted in the ratios, they must be directly working with the children and cannot be involved in other tasks such as food preparation or cleaning.