Fuming: Mother finds five-year-old in dark cupboard
Cotlands has since reported that they have offered the five-year-old boy trauma counselling and will be retraining all caregivers and early learning facilitators in appropriate disciplinary methods.
JOHANNESBURG SOUTH – Cotlands had to revert to serious damage control and explanations after a five-year-old boy was left unattended and his mother found him in a dark cupboard, as punishment for making a noise.
The mother reported the incident on Monday, May 11, although the reports of this in newspapers leaked only on Thursday, May 14.
Cotlands has since reported that they have offered the five-year-old boy trauma counselling and will be retraining all caregivers and early learning facilitators in appropriate disciplinary methods.
In a statement to the COURIER, Cotlands said they condemn this incident involving a child at their Turffontein early learning playgroup in the strongest possible terms.
Jackie Schoeman, Cotlands CEO, explained: “As a children’s rights organisation we are dedicated to protecting children, giving them the resources and skills to reach their full potential. This incident is deeply concerning and we strongly condemn the action of the staff member involved.
”While we have invested in the training of all our staff members and have monitoring and evaluation processes in place, this incident has made us realise that we need to continuously review our monitoring and training.
“The issue of managing difficult behaviour in children is a contentious one. For many reasons, disruptive behaviour cannot always be ignored, especially in group settings, so Cotlands has adopted the ‘time out’ approach within its early learning play group programme.
”This means that, for a short period of time, children are isolated from the activities of the group, but not from the group itself.
“As part of the investigation of the incident that occurred in one of our early learning groups on Monday, it was uncovered that the facilitator removed the child from the group by making him stand in the doorway of an adjacent storeroom, which is acceptable within Cotlands procedures.
”However, what she then did was to take all the other children to the lunch area, leaving the little boy alone. Cotlands policy is never to leave any child unattended for whatever reason and, because of this, the facilitator and the assistant have been suspended pending a disciplinary hearing.”
