VAUGHAN – A daycare in Vaughan has reopened after being shut down due to allegations staff were force-feeding infants.
“That’s scary, very scary, so that’s the last place I’d want my kid going,” says area mom Dawn Schwartz.
The infant room remains closed, but the rest of the daycare is open until a full appeal can be heard in the new year.
Cudley Corner is located at 3611 Major Mackenzie Drive and is described on its website as “devoted to providing the children a nutritious and healthy menu.”
There are allegations of video footage proving children in the infant room, which accepts children as young as five months old, were being force-fed by teachers. This came about after a Seneca College student on field placement called Children’s Aid when she says she witnessed questionable feeding practices. The daycare was immediately closed down.
“It’s horrific, I mean the allegations of basically child abuse are awful,” says lawyer Symon Zucker who represents Cudler Corner’s owner.
But he points to the video surveillance from inside the daycare which he claims does not support the allegations of force-feeding. “You don’t see any crying, you don’t see any thrashing about, which is one of the allegations, you don’t see any cruelty to the children,” he said. “You see kids sitting on the lap comfortably being fed.”
Although that behaviour, it and of itself, is against guidelines – as children should be seated, and strapped in high chairs, at meal times.
Ontario’s Licence Appeal Tribunal has lifted the Ministry of Education’s licence suspension pending a full appeal but the centre must follow a number of compliance orders – including suspending certain staff and attending childhood feeding courses.
At least 20 families have pulled their children from Cudley Corner in Vaughan.
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