Coventry Children's Centre - enquiries go through City of Port Phillip

Overall Coventry failed to meet our expectations at nearly every opportunity the past few months. PROS: - great location with easy access to city, suburbs... Overall Coventry failed to meet our expectations at nearly every opportunity the past few months. PROS: - great location with easy access to city, suburbs and tram - great outdoor area for children to enjoy - offer breakfast for kids getting dropped off early CONS: - Probably no surprise, it’s a cesspool of germs we get at least one fortnightly email informing us of kids getting sick at Coventry - Outdoor play area is a free-for-all everyday in the morning and afternoons so it’s near impossible to contain rapid spread of illnesses across all ages in this environment - No application so you never really know what’s happening at the centre nor have any history - You must completely spell out your child’s needs each and every day which we had to learn the hard way. Needs diaper cream may be obvious you but it will not be applied unless you tell them to do it. This has resulted in the worst diaper rashes he’s ever had in his life. Twice. - Despite the centre bring a cost/value leader, we found that compared to the other centre our son attends that Coventry finds reasons to send children home. Runny nose? Temperature within normal ranges? Loose stool? They will send your child home and you’ll need to get a doctors note before they can return. They’ve also been rude and patronising. Tell me my child is sick don’t ask me a 5 questions that all lead to the same conclusion. Be direct, please. Advice to my former self: Your son will spend nearly as much time at home because of how often he gets sick and they will actively try to send him home. Plan to be flexible with your schedule and finances because you’ll pay for many days you’ll never end up using and still need take off work. You’ll get more negative news from his carers than you will positive news and they will still send him home occasionally with diaper rash. This is a pick him up with a soiled nappy kind of place. You can’t rely that he will get a bottle at 5:00pm depending on who is handling him. There will be times they try to send him home without any good reason at all like “soft stools” not even diarrhoea. Most importantly, don’t compromise on childcare because of cost. If they treat parents like this then god only knows what they treat your son like. It will be scantily documented at best. To echo similar sentiment from another reviewer, it’s not easy to the days you need here and I suspect it’s because demand far exceeds capacity at Coventry. Given it’s a counsel run centre, they have a steady stream of children on the wait list. So there is an environment where they trial families/children. Our experience is that they’ll weed you out if they don’t want you. Calls every week with another reason to come pick up your kid. Meanwhile, Busy Bees down the street is happy to wipe a nose, feed him a bottle regularly, and hand him over without a soiled diaper. Hard pass on Coventry and good riddance. Read more

Brad Blackwell

Mar, 2022