Childcare giant knew kids were left alone, while pushing for more enrolments

One of Australia’s biggest childcare chains, which employed an alleged paedophile, knew for years that children were being left unattended at its centres, even as it pushed staff to use high-pressure marketing tactics on parents to boost enrolments and bolster positive reviews.

Affinity Education and other childcare chains where alleged Melbourne paedophile Joshua Brown worked have been spruiking their updated safety policies since the scandal plunged the sector into crisis in July. But this masthead has obtained a cache of internal documents that reveal Affinity was aware of long-standing issues with supervision and staffing ratio requirements across its centres, yet continued to push aggressive expansion.

Affinity staff memos as far back as 2023 cite children being left unsupervised “too often” at its centres. Leadership suggested educators conduct headcounts and adjust rosters to ensure government-mandated staff ratios were met, or else “position furniture away from fences, gates and doors”. But educators on the ground say the real problem of understaffing was ignored.

At the same time, this masthead can reveal that senior staff have been awarded lucrative cash bonuses and shares in the company as incentives for growing child enrolments. And Affinity management encouraged centres to infiltrate online mothers’ groups and run prize competitions for which parents could write “the best review” – a potential breach of consumer law.

Experts say Affinity’s internal polices shine a spotlight on why for-profit childcare is seeing company reputation put before child safety.

Under a grilling at a NSW parliamentary inquiry this week, Affinity chief executive Tim Hickey conceded the company’s focus on enrolments could conflict with child safety.

Asked to explain how the company had responded to one shocking incident in which a child was used as a “human mop” to wipe up vomit by an Affinity educator, Hickey said the organisation had “capped the occupancy, no more growth” at the centre to “just totally focus on quality and safety”. After repeated questioning led by Greens MP Abigail Boyd, he agreed that insufficient staff increased the risk of harm to children.

The other large childcare chain at the centre of the Brown paedophile scandal, G8, has also run competitions for parents in exchange for good reviews of its centres and repeatedly ignored concerns about child safety. This masthead has previously revealed that regulators failed to act on a complaint about children being left alone with educators at a G8 centre in Point Cook at the same time police allege Brown was sexually abusing babies and toddlers there.

Both Affinity and G8 have some of the poorest safety records nationwide, and both continue to claim they do not have an understaffing problem – a widespread issue in the sector. The childcare giants have each received a higher-than-usual number of waivers from regulators to excuse understaffing problems. In Affinity’s case, one in five centres in NSW has been granted such a waiver, the inquiry heard this week.

Yet, despite a string of child safety scandals, internal Affinity communiques obtained by this masthead reveal the company has repeatedly listed growing enrolments as its “key priority”, not safety. In a recording of a national meeting days after an ABC Four Corners report on Affinity, senior executives instructed staff to “stay focused” on enrolments.

This masthead has found review competitions at Affinity centres as recently as May this year – the same month Brown was arrested – calling on parents to leave “a great review” or a “5-star review” to go in the running for prizes. At least 25 Affinity centres have been actively running them, but reviews posted at the time do not disclose incentives were involved.

One competition call-out to families read, “hint, hint, you can review us more than once”. In a national meeting, a senior executive told staff: “In the past month, we’ve actually increased the number of raw reviews on Google for five-stars have gone up by about 15 per cent, which is really great to see that people are really pushing it. You’re reaching out strategically to your families and asking for those reviews, and they are coming through.”

Affinity staff told this masthead the practice was widespread, and leadership, including Hickey, had often celebrated its success. In 2017, for example, internal staff communications show Hickey praised one centre’s competition for families who “leave the best review on Facebook” as “wonderful”.

Consumer law says you cannot offer incentives only for positive reviews, and that any incentives must be disclosed.

Meanwhile, Affinity staff guidebooks obtained by this masthead detail extensive step-by-step instructions to infiltrate mothers’ groups on Facebook. They include recommendations for workers to use their personal accounts to refer mothers to centres and to ask the marketing team if they are unsure how to answer questions from administrators when seeking entry. Only one guide among the many reviewed by this masthead included a note down the bottom to “clarify you work there” when giving direct recommendations.

Affinity has been on an expansion tear since it was bought by private equity firm Quadrant in 2021, buying up centres and pushing staff to grow enrolment numbers, yet it now spends less comparatively than other large day-care chains on staff.

At Affinity, staff are instructed to pull educators off the floor to lead prospective parents on tours,“even if you are full”. An “enrolment extravaganza” last year advertised more than $150,000 in bonuses for centre managers who boosted their occupancy, rate, while Hickey’s national briefings to staff have often spotlighted his “occupancy rising stars” for the most growth.

“Our goal is to enrol,” reads one common missive to staff.

Former and current Affinity staff say the focus on company reputation and growth distracts from their work as educators, while incentives tied to enrolment create a conflict of interest for staff needing to report incidents that may attract negative news attention.

“While working at Affinity, I learnt more about business and marketing than education, and I think that speaks to the priorities of the organisation,” said Cheyanne Carter, a former Affinity manager, who now consults for the sector. “So much money is spent to implement Band-Aid solutions instead of just paying for staff on the floor and developing them.”

Memos from Affinity leadership also reveal that educators have been praised for “covering staff absences” during visits by the regulator.

Affinity did not respond to requests to interview Hickey or say if it was aware the review competitions might breach consumer law. But the chain again stressed it took safety incidents seriously.

This masthead has previously revealed that Affinity’s policies for handling child safety allegations instruct staff to first “crisis manage” if a situation will attract media interest before notifying police – part of what staff have called a “culture of cover-ups”.

An Affinity centre in Essendon where detectives believe Brown also offended had been on a government watch-list months before he was arrested, but Affinity initially led police on a wild goose chase by handing over incorrect employment records – despite tracking its workers with a sophisticated GPS.

At the inquiry, Hickey dodged questions about this masthead’s reporting on the Brown scandal, but admitted his salary had risen over the past three years, despite repeated safety breaches at Affinity centres. He said he could not say how much the most recent scandal had impacted his bonus.

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