Rat poison, dog faeces, a chest freezer and bleach were within children’s reach across family day-care services in Melbourne’s north, which have been temporarily shuttered for posing health and safety risks.
Laugh & Learn Family Day Care education and training services was slapped with an emergency action notice on April 13 after the independent childcare regulator uncovered serious breaches at two of the nine residences run by the service during spot checks in March.
The Victorian Early Childhood Regulatory Authority (VECRA), which took over in January after sweeping reforms targeting the childcare sector, said in a statement that authorised officers had found the two services in Craigieburn posed “immediate risk to safety, health and wellbeing of children attending”, and that children should not be at risk of ingesting poisons at day care.
Across the two centres, there were unsecured furniture, including a large and heavy bookshelf, and dangerous materials including bleach, paint and Ratsak bait, accessible to children in various rooms.
Children could access a freestanding chest freezer on a verandah with no child safety lock and dog poo in grassed areas, trampolines with no safety matting and unsecured accessible water features.
Family day care is approved childcare run from an educator’s own home. A provider may oversee a number of educators running services from their homes.
The approved provider, Laugh & Learn FDC, operates from Wollert and has been consistently rated “working towards” the national quality standard in 2022 and 2025. The age range of children the provider can care for is between 15 months and 11 years.
The emergency action notices on Laugh & Learn require the provider to ensure the two educators don’t provide education and care to children at their residences in Craigieburn until they meet the requirements. Two family day-care educators have also been issued with warning notices.
Laugh & Learn has 14 days to tell VECRA the breaches have been addressed and that an updated risk assessment of the educators’ residences has taken place.
If the organisation does not comply, it could be prosecuted and a maximum penalty of $103,200 could apply.
A Laugh & Learn FDC spokesperson said the organisation was working closely with the regulatory authority and almost all issues had already been rectified.
“We do put children first and safety is our priority,” she said.
“The safety, health and wellbeing of children is, and always has been, our highest priority. Upon being notified of the matters identified, immediate action was taken and all items were addressed promptly. At all times, the services have acted swiftly and responsibly to ensure a safe environment for children.”
She said issues were fixed “without delay”, but Laugh & Learn respected the authority’s decision to take a cautious approach while all processes were finalised.
“[Our families] love them, they treat educators as family, so it’s sad for them to be going through this,” she said.
“We understand the impact this temporary pause has had on families and are providing ongoing support while working towards resuming care as soon as possible.
“Our services remain committed to maintaining the highest standards of care, compliance, and continuous improvement.”
Interim Early Childhood Regulator Adam Fennessy said: “Parents and caregivers expect their children are kept safe and well in all childcare settings, not at risk of being injured by unsecured furniture or ingesting poisons.”
Fennessy said family day-care providers must ensure every reasonable precaution is taken to protect children in their care from harm or any hazard that could cause injury.
“Our visits established this requirement was not being met by Laugh & Learn at two of their residences.”
The latest Productivity Commission report, released in February, found almost 5050 children were injured, became ill or experienced trauma at Victorian childcare centres last financial year.
The rate of serious incidents, which seriously compromise the health, safety or wellbeing of children attending early childhood education and care services, increased to 6613 from 6142.
VECRA was established to take over from the Department of Education’s Quality Assessment and Regulation Division after the sector was plunged into crisis when former care worker Joshua Dale Brown was charged with alleged child sex abuse in mid-2025.
There’s been a raft of changes in the sector since, including improvements to Working with Children Checks, a national early childhood worker register, new offences and penalties and a CCTV trial in some centres.
A Victorian parliamentary committee investigating the childcare sector is under way and hearings will continue in May, with a final report expected on July 30.
Since it was established, VECRA has issued actions including suspending the service approval of long daycare centre Milestones Early Learning Werribee, owned by Affinity Education Group, for 90 days due to “serious and concerning” child safety failures. At the time, an Affinity spokesperson said it had made improvements and continued to do so. The centre was among the 23 where Brown briefly worked.
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