Nursery told to make improvements after complaint

The States has recommended changes at First Steps nursery

A nursery has been told to make improvements by the States of Guernsey after a mother withdrew her son from its care and made a complaint against it.

Sophie Streeter raised concerns around poor practice at the First Steps nursery to the States through the Multi Agency Support Hub (MASH), after withdrawing her son Harrison in September 2024.

MASH found there had been "poor practice with poor interactions and lack of empathy" in the nursery setting as well as data breaches.

The nursery said "all authorities had found no evidence of neglect or safeguarding or data breach" and it rejected allegations of "neglect".

Sophie Streeter removed her son Harrison from First Steps nursery in September 2024

Ms Streeter said her son, who is non-verbal, had made "minimal progress in his language development" after a year at the nursery, and there was a lack of feedback despite repeatedly requesting it.

In her complaint she said there needed to be a "better procedure" for reporting issues after "being ignored for five weeks".

Ms Streeter said she had been sent videos filmed by the nursery of her son to illustrate "how bad" his behaviour was.

MASH concluded it was "not appropriate" for the nursery to "take videos.. without your permission" and this amounted to a data breach.

In letters to Ms Streeter, seen by the BBC, MASH added it had "conveyed concerns and recommendations to the nursery based on your initial complaint".

The nursery said it was aware of the complaints that had been made to "all relevant authorities" and "no evidence of neglect or safeguarding or data breach" had been found.

Its spokesperson added: "It is the parent's perception that there was neglect but this has not been evidenced".

It disputed the claim of neglect, and said it was "committed as always to provide a safe and nurturing environment for all children in our care."

Regarding the reporting procedure, the States said in a statement: "The introduction of a Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) or Person In Position Of Trust (PIPOT) is currently in development and this will further strengthen Guernsey's safeguarding network."

The posts would have a primary role of managing allegations against adults who work with children and co-ordinating agency responses.

The MASH team receives referrals for these allegations and works closely with the police, education and other relevant agencies.

Ms Streeter removed her son Harrison from First Steps nursery after concerns around poor practice

After investigation, the MASH team told the nursery its staff required "training in respect of responding to children and children with additional needs".

In the letters sent to Ms Streeter, MASH said "the nursery staff have not acted with empathy towards Harrison, who can be seen to be distressed with little or no comfort offered to him".

First Steps nursery said training was a "continuous process" and that it "provides a safe and nurturing environment for all children in our care".

The MASH team admitted Ms Streeter had received a "disjointed response regarding her concerns" and provided assurance the new role should "mitigate this occurring in the future."

Ms Streeter said there was an ongoing investigation by Health & Social Care about how the Early Years Team handled the initial safeguarding complaint.

'Extremely stressful'

Ms Streeter said she previously worked full time but gave up work to care for Harrison after being unable to find a suitable nursery place for him.

She said: "For me and for Dad, it's been extremely stressful. We've had a lot of financial worries. It's caused a lot of distress for us because we are constantly fighting them (the States) when they should be there to support us."