Worst meeting imaginable today - what to do?

[dublingirl66]

Many many zoom meetings in and I have to say today was the WORSE meeting imaginable

Do I say something to the person who took over

She was awful!!!

Literally took over
Wouldn't let anyone speak
Asked me time and time to slow down when I was slowly and clearly trying to explain something

Wouldn't let a translator join us via zoom as she hadn't put her camera on and she assumed it was someone trying to invade the zoom call

I felt like crying at the end and so want to say something
The family involved felt let down
And I'm just so angry I let her take over
Aibu to maybe speak to her and give feedback ????

The chair should’ve stepped in, really.

I was in a similar meeting recently. Scheduled for an hour to discuss support for a vulnerable teenager. A support worker for the father spent 45 mins talking AT everyone else about the father’s needs, issues, wishes etc. It was ridiculously inappropriate and the social worker chairing was newly qualified, well meaning but obviously inexperienced, and just let this guy drone on.

I came very close several times to asking him to wind it up, but as a professional new to the family I didn’t feel empowered to do it. Wish I had now.

Zoom meetings make this sort of thing worse somehow.

I did say -
this is really hard for the family to understand without the interpreter

What you needed to say was “I’m uncomfortable with the meeting continuing while the family can’t understand what anyone is saying and can’t contribute to any meaningful degree” and then request that the meeting be adjourned.

That poor family, how utterly bewildering for them and literally no one in their corner.

To be fair it sounds like multiple people in the wrong here, the interpreter for not having the correct name to join, the chair allowing this to go ahead without the interpreter and allowing one person to dominate, the trainee for dominating and everyone else for not speaking up.

Why couldn't the op or the chair simply have sent a personal typed message?

Yes @CantDoMessyBuns
I am new to the family
Never met this other professional before
And wasn't chairing

Next time I know exactly what to do

And will be speaking with the head tomorrow to ask how she will address it
Just not ok

I would speak to her supervisor. Tell them you have some concerns about how Trainee was in your meeting yesterday and would like to let them know about it.

It's valid to be alert to zoom bombing, that's a real thing that can happen, although unlikely to your particular meeting. But given that you were expecting another person to join the meeting, the host of the zoom call (which i am still unclear on who it was - was it the head or her?) Could have allowed the person to join muted and video off and asked them to confirm in the chat who they were. The person who organised the translator could have messaged the translator on another medium (telephone call or email) to check it was them trying to join and explain that they were trying to join with another name on their account.

Regardless of if it was overcautious zoom security procedure, incompetence or malice it is clear that the meeting should NOT have proceeded without a translator, and should be rescheduled with the translator in attendance. And after her boss has read her the riot act, and preferably with the boss in attendance to observe too.

If I did this as a trainee I would be so mortified

In fairness, if I sat in a meeting and let this go on around me, with extensive experience under my belt, I’d be pretty mortified.

Sounds awful but translator should have let you know their zoom name. I wouldn’t let anyone into a zoom call without being 100% about who they are! (One of our first April meetings had a random sharing pornographic images - it was in the national news!)

The rest sounds terrible and I would feed back. Meeting shouldn’t have gone ahead without the translator imo.

I did suggest the translator verify who they are
And that they verify the initials of the child and reason for meeting

Will speak to head and get contact details for the supervisor

Thanks all

I would tell her straight - you need to show more respect to the family and the other professionals; listen more talk less; if you feel nervous talk even less and listen even more; allow people to ask and answer questions.

It's really just normal respectful conversation rules, isn't it?

She does need to be told and someone needs to make sure that it's not mealy-mouthed so she can't misunderstand.

She's undoubtedly upset everyone, and wasted a whole meeting which will have to be repeated, so I wouldn't worry too much about upsetting her. She sounds like she has a pretty thick skin.

And after her boss has read her the riot act, and preferably with the boss in attendance to observe too.

Who’ll be reading the riot act to the qualified professionals who watched this unfold. As I say, very easy to bollock a trainee... they don’t need a bollocking, they’re learning and he’d support to learn. The other professionals should have been modelling good practice in meetings, I consider their failing to be much more significant than the trainees.

Thanks all

Really useful info

I did say - look this is really hard for the family with no interpreter, She said we all need to try to adjust to difficult situations which are unavoidable!!

As this was an entirely avoidable situation, this was really quite a racist attitude for her to take and she really needs to be pulled up on it.

If you rearrange the meeting, does the trainee even need to be on the call?

I’m not sure I understand the dynamics
Here and apologies as I haven’t read the whole thread. But if you felt like the parents weren’t getting to a say could you not have suggested a break in the meeting/ or us there not a facility on zoom you message her stating you were concerned how the meeting was goi g and that you need to break for 10 and regroup?

Why on earth did you not interject?

Don't think she will

The head can rearrange

I was a newbie coming in to assist family in the future
So my role was to gather information and then try to form a plan at the end or if not today in the next few weeks
Which of course I will he doing with the. Help of an interpreter!!!!!

The person most in fault is the chair. Yes, the trainee should not have done this but the chair should have been capable of running a meeting and realising it cannot go ahead if the translator is not present. That is their job in a meeting.

Sorry but I don’t understand if you are an experienced professional how you could let that continue? I know it would have been awkward but by not speaking up you were colluding in whats sounds like awful treatment of this family

I work in education and our safeguarding Zoom protocol is that is the dial in name doesn’t match the name on my manifest I leave them in the waiting room.

That's unrealistic. People quite often turn up at Zoom meetings under a different name, for instance if they are borrowing someone else's computer, and it's easy enough to set up a protocol for verifying them. It would be quite serious if, for instance, you excluded a parent from an education meeting for this reason.

So I did say
Parents will struggle without an interpreter

Nothing was done and it went on without one

New to the setting
New to the family

Did. Not chair this meeting
And know exactly what to do next

If you rearrange the meeting, does the trainee even need to be on the call?
How will she learn then? It would be good for her to return to the meeting (I assume she had a key role given she was afforded so much air time) and see it being professionally chaired this time round.

Who’ll be reading the riot act to the qualified professionals who watched this unfold

^totally this

But I did speak up

Should have said it over and over again

I did say that parents will struggle
Did ask how to get the interpreter back on the call

Will need to go back to chair and give feedback to the trainee

OP- if she is a trainee and you are, presumably, qualified in the profession she is training in, you have a professional duty to be a gatekeeper for the profession and to ensure the people your profession serves/treats/supports get a standard of service concurrent with your professional body’s standards of ethics, conduct and proficiency.

You owed it to today’s poor family not to let that meeting be so badly derailed by a trainee. You’re the qualified staff member, so the buck stops with you I’m afraid.

I say this as someone in a registered profession, who has to sign and maintain my profession’s code of practice. Included in that is the fact I am ultimately responsible (as a qualified member) for the conduct, work and outcomes of students of the profession. And also I accept that I’m a gatekeeper to the profession and without me putting my big girl pants on and being honest in my feedback to students, they will slip through the net and be unleashed on the poor public who deserve so very much better.

So I know it’s awkward/out of your comfort zone perhaps, but you need to think of the bigger picture here.