Childcare is not a dumping ground for the unemployable

[UnsolvedMysteriesRobertStack]

AIBU to feel frustrated with the new staff in childcare?

I don’t want to sound harsh, but I’m seeing more and more new staff who are simply not suited for childcare, and I’m wondering if they're being sent here because the job centre is forcing them into work. I'm talking about staff with complex ASD needs, and some who haven’t worked since their early 20s but are now being placed into jobs. There are staff who can't read or write, and they expect to just sit or tidy up all day. My colleagues and I are picking up the slack, feeling understaffed, and having to tiptoe around these situations. It’s never been this bad before.

Some staff won’t touch certain fruits due to sensory issues, can’t read a book, can’t communicate effectively, can’t lift, can’t change nappies, and struggle to talk to parents. And they’re all getting paid the same as the rest of us. I’m just wondering where these people are coming from, as it feels like there’s no industry standard anymore. It makes me feel like my qualifications and experience are being devalued. We’ve been patient, but the burden feels heavier each day.

This is a huge problem in a care home near me. The latest staff intake don't have the same commitment. They are sneaking off home and signing the time out book the next day with incorrect times so they don't lose money. English isn't their first language so there is a problem with communication. How can this be sorted out?

Oh c'mon. It's not discrimination when you ask for people to be able to communicate with the petson you're supposed to care for. My GDs favourite caretaker was black so def not a racist. He was hard of hearing even with hearing aid and needed people to articulate. It worked fine with everyone except two people who didn't understand him and whom he couldn't understand due to their lack of language skills. It's just common sense that it's important for an elderly person to be able to communicate with care staff.

It's not discriminatory to want care staff to be easily understandable to the people they're caring for. It may not always be realistic, given what we pay, the fact that our primarily English as first language society has had a TFR below replacement for half a century and the new reality that the workforce increasingly value flexibility in jobs.

It’s not racism but accents are accents, people can’t help having an accent. Most of the care staff I work with speak English well, in fact many come from places where English is a dual language such as India, Zimbabwe, Ghana, and so there is no issues with fluency, comprehension. But they have accents. You can tune into accents, it’s a skill but most of us can, old people included. What’s next no Scottish or Welsh healthcare workers either?

I think it's the same in lots of areas/industries, i.e. tradesmen, retail, hospitality, etc. The sad fact is that we have ever increasing numbers of people who are completely let down by our education system which is geared up mostly for the more academic kids pointed towards Uni. Very little is done early enough for the ones who aren't academic so left floundering who turn to disrupting the classes and truanting, etc., and leave school/college completely unprepared for adult life, let alone work. When these are second and third generation of the same, they've not a hope really.

Strong accents can be an issue for people who struggle to understand speech through learning disability for example, although this is often combined with the manner of speaking as well.

Absolutely this, there is a reason that the likes of the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan are buying/building huge chains like Busy Bees in the UK and Giraffes in Ireland, they didnt spend €30 million euro without being convinced they'd make it back and then some!

God, racists cause so much damage – and this is just one example.

There's a genuine need for good communication between staff and clients, and it should be a neutral thing to require, like physical fitness for lifting jobs.

But racists – and let's not pretend they don't exist and haven't existed forever in every country – seize on anything going, as socially acceptable cover for their behaviour.

Racists and xenophobes, in between mocking accents and generally dissing brown people or foreigners or today’s target, claim not to understand their speech. While mysteriously having no difficulty at all with accents or language of the Right Sort of Person with a different accent or first language.

It completely poisons the well. Means every time a language issue is raised, the rest of us have to pause and spend time and energy figuring out if this is a good faith issue that needs to be solved as it stands... or a veiled attack on someone for their race or “otherness” where dealing with the language issue won’t solve the problem because it never was the problem.

And yes, I have indeed come across an elderly racist who, after repeatedly making excuses to snub a black British carer, disclosed to her family that she just didn’t want to deal with a black person.

If we didn’t have racists pulling this shit in the first place, there would be no more “side” to it than solving every other communication issue, like hearing loss or a poor phone connection.

Makes me rage.

See also the Southern Cross scandal, when the strategy of sell and lease back the properties (after carpet-bagging the money released from the sales) unsurprisingly hit the skids.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/jun/01/rise-and-fall-of-southern-cross

https://www.theguardian.com/social-care-network/2011/dec/13/to-big-to-fail-southern-cross

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/jun/02/souther-cross-care-home-chain

Not only was it catastrophic for many residents of Southern Cross homes, but Southern Cross had such a large part of the market it impacted the whole industry.

@PerkingFaintlyexactly, and those in health and social care know what sort of things are meant when people say ‘they can’t speak English’ which is never, funnily enough, an issue raised with Polish or Eastern European staff.

I should add that it's perfectly legal (though not laudable) to have racist feelings, or misogynistic feelings, or feelings that disabled people are creepy, or whatever.

What's not legal is to expect the rest of the world to organise itself around your feelings, or to expect other people to cope with your feelings.

Someone might have a morbid terror of being driven – or OMG flown – by a woman, but that's their problem to solve. It's not for the airline to solve by refusing to employ female pilots.<shrug>

To me the solution would not be to direct men into traditionally female roles but to direct women into engineering/ construction/ trades etc, so that women with poor academic attainment had equal earning potential. I see it a lot in my semi rural location. The boys who leave school with poor gcses generally end up apprenticing in scaffolding/ plumbing and so on , whereas the girls nearly always end up as carers, if they manage to escape the generational cycle of becoming pregnant before they step on a career ladder at all. In mainland Europe you see far more women working in traditionally male dominated industries, and despite the numerous initiatives to recruit women into construction/ stem/ tech, these still seem to be environments plagued by sexism and a preference for male workers.

Yep No one gives a shit when its care homes.
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/in_the_news/5287824-woman-secretly-filming-her-mum-being-abused-in-a-care-home-distressing-content

Don't they have to have achieved qualifications for the job?

Absolutely the same in adult care. I have had staff who couldn’t speak English, which is the basic you need to communicate with the elderly. I had one carer who was older than 7 of my residents. One of my lovely residents stood up and offered my staff member a seat- and she took it! I hate the idea that social care is a crappy unskilled job which you can walk straight into. It is a skilled job whether you have children or vulnerable adults in your care. And all for minimum wage, even as a senior care member

@UnsolvedMysteriesRobertStack
Ask your employer. Do they get some sort of government financial incentives to employ certain people? It's certainly unfair to make your job more difficult.

People are so keen to get disabled people in to work. Workplaces are going to have to accommodate them. I'm sure people with ASD have plenty of strengths that can be utilised in childcare with the right support.

I'm a retired childcare teacher. I've seen and heard about a lot of disturbing instances regarding the treatment of the kids. In one center a young teenage worker held her hand over an infant's nose and mouth to stop it from crying and the child suffocated. I've worked with a person who asked me "why are you talking to an infant because they don't understand you". There were others who ignored children who were crying. It's like they had no child development training and/or empathy for the kids. Many of them were too young and inexperienced for this profession . It is an overwhelming job at times and especially hard when the center is understaffed.

Childcare qualifications are constantly being diluted.

Suffocated as in died? Was it in the papers?

My friend used to tutor in childcare at the local college and she said the same thing.

One of my friends used to work in a preschool/nursery which was run by two sisters who couldn't spell at all, quite possibly dyslexic. Apparently, they were even cheating on their online exams by asking other members of staff to help. On one occasion, the children were being helped to make Father's Day cards. The cards were sent home with the children and they all said, "Happy Farter's Day".

To clarify, PIP isn't an out of work benefit. If you are eligible, you can claim it whether or not you you are in employment. It's likely these people are claiming Universal Credit, but are deemed fit to work, so their work coach at the Jobcentre would have told them they must apply for as many jobs as possible, even if they are clearly not suitable for this type of position. As you say, this is now having a knock-on effect in the workplace.

I remember reading a book written by a comedian who worked in a care home for a while. He recalled a new member of staff who was visibly shaking and covered in self harm scars. She did one shift and never came back. He predicted that would happen too.

batabata yes the baby died and the story was in the news (the U..S) where I live.