Cotlands absolutely condemns the actions of the caregiver which saw a child at our Turffontein early learning playgroup being left unattended for a period of time. We are shocked and horrified that this occurred at one of our facilities and would like to extend our heartfelt apologies and support to the child and parents of the child.
After an investigation we have established the following facts. The facilitator removed the child from the group as part of a well-known disciplinary technique commonly known as “Time-Out.” At Cotlands, “Time-Out” means, that for a short period of time, children are prevented from joining activities of the group, but not from the group itself, and is then re-integrated back into the group after a period of two minutes. In this instance the child was placed in an adjacent storeroom, while the other children were given lunch and left for longer than our approved 2 minute period.
Our first priority is always the welfare of child. Cotlands management have met with the family to establish and ensure the child’s wellbeing and have offered the child professional trauma counselling. The Cotlands’ policy is to never leave any child unattended for any reason, and because of this the facilitator and the assistant involved have been suspended, pending a disciplinary hearing We will take the severest action should any party be found guilty of these charges.
All our staff members are trained internally and are currently undergoing their NQ level 4 training. We have monitoring and evaluation processes in place to ensure our standards and processes are followed. We strongly condemn this isolated incident.
ENDS//….