YWCA Canberra is deeply concerned at the serious issues raised in the ABC Four Corners broadcast Betrayal of Trust on 17 March 2025.
As a non-profit provider of seven early learning services and 12 school age care services, YWCA Canberra provides early education services to over 3000 children each week. The safety and wellbeing of children in our early childhood education settings is the highest priority, and we are committed to ensuring that every child, parent or guardian using our services has access to safe, high-quality care and information transparency.
Given our footprint as a provider of critical community services, such as housing support, therapeutic counselling and youth services, our early learning services are able to collaborate with our community services team to identify and refer children and families that require additional support. This is part of our commitment to ensure all children are supported to participate fully in our community.
While we acknowledge the response from the ACT Minister for Education and Early Childhood, Yvette Berry MLA to the serious issues raised by Four Corners including improving reporting obligations, as a non-profit provider we have consistently put families in our services first and advocated for greater equity of access.
For some time, we have been lobbying the ACT Government to sustainably resource and expand important equity initiatives like the emergency placement program for children in out-of-home-care and the three-year old initiative. We have also called on the ACT Government to maintain existing peppercorn lease arrangements that allow us to provide services, in convenient locations, at affordable daily rates, that are on average around $40 cheaper than nearby for-profit providers.
The distressing issues highlighted in the Four Corners report reinforce the importance of a compliant, vibrant, sustainable and valued not-for-profit provider network. We call on the ACT Government to continue investing in community service and policy reforms that encourage equitable access to the lifechanging potential of early learning.
For more information, please contact:
Eleanor Sander O’Hearn
Executive Director Communications Advocacy Engagement
Eleanor.sanderohearn@ywca-canberra.org.au
0475 240 101