After School Cub worker drove DD home and left her there!

[Crabapple99]

I have an arrangement with one afterschool club worker that she takes my 10 year old daughter home for me once a week. Yesterday she was called away on a family emergency. Howerever, I wsn't contacted and told. If I had been, I would have left work early and collected DD myself. A different member of staff, one who I don't like much, and certainly wouldn't ever invite into my home, closed up the after school club 20 minutes early (DD was the only child left) forced DD to get into the car, drove her home, came in and looked around, then left her there alone. DD was very upset, as she hadn't wanted to get into the car. She has been told never to get into a car with anyone, even someone we know, unless she has permission from myself, her school teacher or one or two specific family friends. She did not have permission to get into this persons car, and I would not have agreed to this person driving my child anywhere, or to coming into my home. I tried to complain, but the after school club do not seem to think anything untoward has happened, and say the staff member was doing me a favour!

PS regarding going to senior school, I'm sure not everyone liked all of their teachers and I'm also sure that each of your children would have at least one teacher that in year 7 they would have been seriously scared to get in a car with having been yelled at by them in the run up to it.

Why does the 10 year old not have a key?

Ah, reread it - she had one. Anyway, at 10 years old, unless the child has some special needs, I can't fathom why it would be a big deal to be home on her own 20 minutes early.

Does she usually never spend any time on her own away from adults? I'm just surprised, because at that age I had to wait half an hour for the bus after school, ride 40 minutes and, then if I missed my connection walk a good 20 minutes home. I also regularly went into town on my own or to go and see friends.

I could understand you being annoyed if she was 6 or 7, but not at 10.

YANBU. I would be amazed if ds's ASC closed early and no one tried to contact me. He is usually the last one there by some time and I've never had a phone call to say they are shutting early because there is only him left.

I would speak to the pic of ASC and if I wasn't happy with what they said I would speak to the head.

Having said that, your dd is 10 and therefore should be capable of being home alone for a short period and the car journey with the person she doesn't like was only 5 minutes. Not being able to dial your phone number is worrying. Ds is 7 and knows the numbers for my office - direct and mobile, my personal mobile, his grandma's home and mobile. He could dial any of those without thinking, which is key, so it wouldn't matter if he was upset he could still dial those numbers.

As for having strange workmen in the house when you don't know if they are going to be there or not, that is extremely odd indeed. Whenever I have had work done in my house I know exactly who will be there and when, even if I have given them a key. Sounds like you need to speak to the heating company to sort that out asap.

Oh my gosh people - this isn't about what you should be and should be able to or could and couldn't cope with at the age of 10. It's about the failure of the club to stay open for the contracted time, failure to contact the OP, behaviour towards the child and then leaving the child, by this point upset, on her own.

Can't see why anyone would think you were being unreasonable.

Poor kid what else was she supposed to do, probably more scared of you to be honest. she is 10 years old soon be going to secondary school, of course she can be left home alone and let herself in.

OP, I haven't read through all the thread, but I definitely don't think YANBU, and frankly, was quite at the amount of posters on the first page of this thread who thought YABU.
The club had NO business closing up 20 minutes EARLY without letting you know. End of story.
I was cross the other day, because I wanted to get a specific ingredient in a specific shop and it was closed 1 minute early, so I couldn't get it, so in your position, I would be . And even more by the club's failure to acknowledge your concerns and apologise properly.

think unreasonable thing is failure to contact you - everything else you could put down to them trying to make sure your daughter got home ok. Probably I'm completely unreasonable and things are diff in UK than in Ireland but 10 seems v old to be at an after school club / child care. Would you consider thinking about her starting to go home by herself in any case - even in terms of getting ready for secondary etc?

Honestly OP, you sound a bit OTT. The regular worker had an emergency, ffs. So, your dd, who is 10 years old, not a baby, is left 'shaking with fear' , because another worker drops her home and she has to wait 20 minutes alone in her own house.

I think this is a good opportunity to talk through with your dd what she could do in unexpected situations.

I agree that it doesn't sound very good but from the point of view of the 'nasty' one - was she on her own? does she work that last 20 minutes usually? (how do you know it was 20?) does she have her own children to pick up and is usually on a tight schedule? did she think the 'nice' one was contacting you? did she think the normal arrangement was to let your dd into the house and then go? did she think that she was doing you a favour? if it was all that distance away then she may have needed to get somewhere, after all it sounds more than an hour round trip and she won't be paid any extra.
I think my approach would be to find out why you weren't contacted and then work from there.

Regards the birthmark comments did you actually hear her say this? It sounds so bizarre that I'm surprised she's still employed.

YANBU. I'm surprised at a lot of the people posting here who think you are BU.

The thing is, the after-hours club has a contract with you to look after your DD for a certain amount of time. They had absolutely no business bringing her home and leaving her unsupervised in the house on her own. Of course they should have phoned you first and asked you what you wanted to do.

Can we add anew aibu rule to the banner? Read the bloody thread or you look like a total spanner.

Everyone is asking why the ASC closed 20 minutes early. Isn't it fairly likely that the lady who had to leave early because of the family emergency was possibly the person who would normally stay till the bitter end and in her absence they were short of staff to stay - perhaps the asc worker who took OP's DD home had already stayed beyond her normal hours - potentially she had to get away to pick up her own children ... and had a garbled understanding that it was "normal" for someone to take OP's DD home if her mum didn't turn up?

We don't know that she didn't try to contact OP and perhaps couldn't get through (or even had an old contact number). So she's in the position that everyone is picked up except OP's DD - who she understands to be normally taken home by an ASC worker and potentially worried about her own children (maybe they are in another ASC which is about to close). Taking a 10 (not a 5) year old home, checking the house is ok and then leaving her to (in her eyes) wait a short while till her mum comes home, and then getting off to sort her own stuff WAS the most sensible thing to do.

What would OP have had her do? She didn't know that OP was going to go to the ASC - she could have been waiting for an unknown length of time for someone to turn up.

Merielandmatt - maybe the after school club couldn't stay open because the staff:pupil ratio had dropped below the acceptable level when the other worker had to leave to deal with the family emergency. And maybe they tried to contact crabapple but couldn't, for some reason - hence all the other children being collected.

If this were the case, the remaining asc worker could be criticised whatever she did - she couldn't stay with the child in the after school club because, if anything had happened (ie if the child had had an accident), then both the club and the worker could have been in trouble, and by driving the child home, she has clearly upset crabapple.

For me, the first failure seems to have been communication - no contact from the asc to crabapple to tell her that there was a problem and to ask her what she would prefer - the worker to take her child home or to stay at the club with her until crabapple got there. Had she done that, crabapple could have said to her dd 'it's ok - go with the worker, and I will be home asap' or could have told the worker she was going to be there within 15 minutes. If the club had tried to contact crabapple and hadn't been able to, the worker should have said that to her dd, when her dd was asking to contact her mum.

And then the second issue is the second asc worker's attitude - teasing a child about a birthmark, and shouting at a child until they get upset - neither of these are acceptable.

I can understand how the club had to make quick decisions due to an emergency, but it does not sound as if it was handled correctly. There was no need for the child to be upset like that - and at 10, I would have been upset by being shouted at by an adult, made to go against my mum's express orders and then left in my house alone, not knowing when my mum was going to get there - or whether I'd be in trouble for getting in the car.

If I'm running late then I call ASC to let them know and to give them a possible ETA. If I'm not running late then I expect them to still be open when I get there even if it is bang on closing time. If the person who left early is normally there until the end then there must be some contingency in place for arranging for someone else to stay to close up. Or they have to contact parents to see if they could get there any earlier. The OP needs to investigate exactly what happened to ensure she has contingency arrangements she is happy with. In my case I would arrange for another parent to collect ds if I couldn't get there in time.

Perhaps the ASC worker you have an arrangement with did try to contact you but couldn't get through and her problem is so serious that its not crossed her mind to try to contact you again. Perhaps she had no choice but to trust the other worker with your DD. Until you have all the facts I think you should put off making a decision about whether to continue using the ASC.

But I am confused why you would use this ASC knowing that your DD may be left with the worker that has called her names in the past and if your DD is so afraid of her?

redskyatnight - you'd expect her to keep the club open during normal operating hours. After school clubs have to have procedures. They must have a written procedure for dealing with an emergency where a worker has to leave urgently. And it cannot be 'take a child elsewhere without anyone knowing and dump them in an empty house'.

It is plain wrong to force a child into a car and then leave her in an empty house. And those who keep trying to blame the dd - fgs, she's 10, an adult in authority over her was insisting, what do you expect her to do, fight the woman off?! I'm not surprised she was upset, it sounds like a very unpleasant experience. Being forced by an adult into doing something you know is wrong must be very distressing.

The staff member who usually takes the DD home should be left out of this. Emergencies happen.

The blame lies with the staff member who shut the club early, failed to tell the OP that she had done so and then apparently shouted at the child to get into the car before leaving her at home, already feeling shaky I would imagine.

Seriously - all you who pay for childcare would be happy for it to shut early with no warning? In fact, would you be happy for school to shut early and dump your child(ren) home? Would you be happy to arrive at wherever they were being cared for to find it shut up early and empty?

How can 1;1 ratio be below par? Do your clubs have 2.4 carers to each child?

Lets sum up so those having trouble can see the problem: A childcare worker took it upon herself to CLOSE EARLY. WITHOUT telling the parent of the remaining child, WHO WAS ON HER WAY TO PICK HER UP ON TIME. She then ordered the TEN year old into a car when child did not want to go and knew she should not. She then abandoned the distressed TEN year old ALONE at home with a good chance of UNKNOWN WORKMEN coming in and out, and literally hazardous conditions.

Now, can you tell me on what insane planet you live on that you would find this acceptable?

SDTG makes a valid point.

There were two workers. One had to go home because of an emergency, which leaves only one worker, and one child. It could be against rules for just one worker to be with one child, so worker who doesnt have an emergency offers to drop child off rather than the worker who needs to get home quickly.

All sounds fair enough so far, but then the breakdown in communication happens. At this point someone should have contacted the OP to find out if she was picking her daughter up or not. Until OP speaks to the worker who normally does this, nobody knows whether that was tried or not.

I'd find it acceptable because she obviously did it to help out the OP. It was an unforeseen circumstance, the other worker leaving early. I should imagine she did try and contact OP but couldn't get through. She's not allowed to be on her own with a child in any case, but probably thought that it would be less time driving her home than staying at the ASC. OP's DD had a key for her house, anyway, so is obviously used to getting in the house on her own.

As another poster said way above, if this is the sort of reaction that people get, no wonder people don't want to help out each other any more. Nothing happened, OP's DD was OK and if OP didn't like this worker because of comments the worker allegedly made to her DD why was her DD still in the ASC?

OP- before you take your complaint any further you will have to consider if you are happy for the arrangement to come to an end.

Tbh i doubt the manager will be happy for a private arrangement to cause these sorts of conflicts.

A lack of communication is always the reason why these situations go wrong. Perhaps because of the ill will between you, the staff member did not want to contact you?

The staff member who was left in charge shouldn't have any extra duties because another member of staff has an arrangement in place, for financial gain. However she has been reckless because had an accident occured, she would have been liable and should know better, as a child care professional. But then had she of called you, you probably would have seen it as her being deliberately difficult.

She DIDN't HELP the OP. She didn't HELP the child either.

She was helping her colleague in an emergency. Things like that happen.

We dont know what the emergency was.

How is closing the ASC 20 minutes early, and leaving a distressed child alone when she's being paid to care for her, helping? If she had just kept her at ASC until closing time then none of this would have been necessary. Sounds to me like she just couldn't be bothered hanging around with OP's DD and decided to bunk off early. I could understand the "help" arguments more if this had happened at the end of ASC but not 20 minutes early.