More people will be screened at crèches and after school clubs in an effort to step up child protection, broadcaster NOS reports.

Nursery staff and people who run daycare facilities from their own homes, as well as the people who live there, are already required to register and have a certificate of good conduct.

The register is a tool to make sure childcare staff have not committed criminal acts that would make them unfit to be around children.

Voluntary

From March 1 2018, the register for day care centre staff will have to include the names of everyone who comes into contact with the children in any way.

This means temporary staff, trainees and volunteers should register, as well as people who visit or do building work at a crèche. Registering is on a voluntary basis but anyone who refuses will not be allowed into the presence of children, NOS writes.

According to the social affairs ministry, the current system of screening has flagged up people in around 225 instances. Parents organisation BOINK said the extended registration is ‘a small step in the right direction’.

Robert M

‘We have come a long way since the Robert M abuse case,’ BOINK spokesman Gjalt Jellesma told NOS, referring to a nursery worker jailed in 2013 for abusing dozens of young children. ‘But the register is a passive instrument at best. Let’s not forget that that safety really has to be provided by the staff.

‘They have to be critical of their own conduct and each other’s and create an atmosphere in which they can call each other out on their actions. That is the only way the net will close around an abuser.’

Jellesma also wondered where the line would be drawn as far as registering was concerned. ‘I can see the logic of registering someone who is a regular handyman at a crèche but if it’s a person who does some work occasionally, I can see that things might become complicated,’ NOS quotes him as saying.