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 ????

moonjelly. You may think it’s unrealistic but the risk is so great to children and families it has to be adhered to strictly.

If there is capacity someone can go off the zoom, verify or help the person enter the zoom call securely. Otherwise is wont happen.

We have had the horrible situation of the wrong person entering a zoom. It was a training session and they came in and were disruptive. The safeguarding measures are there for a reason.

Someone could come on and expose themselves.
Someone could come in posing as another person to learn confidential things and use them against a vulnerable person
Someone could come in there to disrupt. Sometimes getting a CIN/TAC meeting can involve 5/6/7 professionals with diaries that are slammed. Getting those same people in a meeting again in a timely manner can he a huge undertaking all the while a vulnerable child suffers.

Safeguarding should never ever be compromised.

@dublingirl66. Good luck today.

@Atalune, the point is that it's a risk that's very easily managed. It's easy to get the person whose name you don't recognise to verify themselves, without anyone necessarily having to go off the zoom.

I didn't chair this meeting

Still struggling to see why you think you can't do anything unless you are chairing the meeting. Blaming the training and the chair in this situation can make us feel better but we all have a responsibiltiy.

The trainee needs training but so do the rest of you. Look for meeting management or negotiating type trainings, there is a surprising amount of good communications training online.

moon yes I agree with you, as I said you can leave people in the waiting room and verify them.

However the translator should have been made away of the zoom protocol. And op so should you.

This all comes down to safeguarding I think. Zoom is a new arena for us all so training etc needs to happen.

Wow! If she's a trainee then she definitely needs to be given some constructive feedback in relation to her attitude and the way she handled the entire meeting - sound very unprofessional, especially not allowing a translator to join the meeting leaving the vulnerable family with no idea what is going - if anything, they're probably more vulnerable as a result of this meeting. Does this trainee have a mentor? She needs to be spoken to about this and given the opportunity to amend or fail her probation.

Why are you blaming the trainee for not letting the interpreter join you? Isn't that the job of the host?

It is easy to change your name on zoom, so the interpreter could have done that.

@BadDucks

You need to address it and advocate for the family. Sounds like another meeting with family and translator needs to be rearranged with clear guidance that she is attends only to listen in.

This.

And can you or another give her some constructive criticism.

Absolutely!!!

Have done this now

And had a meeting earlier with head, parents and translator to go through next steps

You definitely need to talk to her supervisor so they can keep an eye on her, make sure she learns from it, etc.

Can the next meeting go ahead without bossy boots attending?

Was she a social worker by any chance?

Meeting hosts can mute users I think, maybe look into that.

Everyone involved sounds utterly useless. If the interpreter never accessed the meeting it shouldn’t have started. I’m a nurse and would never allow any trainee to behave like this in a meeting of this nature even if they were from another discipline. If you really couldn’t manage it and are essential to the process you could have left the meeting and followed up in writing to every attendee stating it was inappropriate and a new meeting needed to be arranged.

I really am quite concerned that the subtext around the trainee's attitude was "you're only inferior forrins, your opinion and wishes don't matter therefore it doesn't matter if you don't understand what is going on in this meeting and we will make decisions for you." It's something her employers definitely need to address.