I was injured by pupil at work.......need advice before tomorrow?

[batey]

Hi, I've not been around for a bit, have turned from "regular user" into "dipper"! However, I thought you guys may be able to help me. Briefly, I work as a LSA with a boy (6y/o) who has severe behavioural problems. And on Fri he managed to throw himself at a door with great force catching my hand in the middle. So I now have 1 very bruised finger and one fractured finger. Both fingers are strapped together (3rd and 4th). The thing is friends keep saying I should claim off the school insurance?
So should I? How do I go about that? Is it something the school will prefer me not to do? Is it money grabbing? I don't know....it is painful and I have to keep them strapped for 1-2 weeks. I cant get it wet. It's my right hand so many things are proving difficult, blah blah. Not sure yet if I can drive like this,am going to test that later today. So any thoughts? He hurt me before in Jan and I didn't do anything then and I'm not in a union.

Thanks for that Baka. We have regular monthly reviews for him with everyone involved so I will bear in mind what you said.

What ever you decide make sure you have recorded it in the accident book. You have up to 3 years to make a claim and this does sound like he might need referring to a special school. Your accident report may also help him get the help he needs. Good Luck.

You should also go to your GP and let her see it and make sure it is put in your notes - this will help in future for any insurance claim

I think that you need to claim at least some time off. As an expert dealing with severe behavioural problems you should expect to get these kind of accidents from time to time but that doesn't mean that you need to pretend they didn't happen and live with the consequences.

If the injury is one that is going to affect your life in the future I don't see why not to claim, obviously at this stage is difficult to know if that will happen so I would wait and if the injury heals in the expected time, fine, if you continue to experience problems for a long time and those problems affect your performance, can you claim retrospectively?

Message withdrawn

batey - do you review incidents according to something like the ABC method

A stands for Antecedents: prompts, stimuli, cues, etc. which precede the behaviour.

B stands for Behaviour, which may be unwanted behaviour we wish to reduce in frequency, or wanted behaviour we believe will add to the client's quality of life.

C stands for Consequence, that which happens after the behaviour has occurred and will either serve to increase the likelihood of the behaviour (reinforcement) or reduce the likelihood of the behaviour; consequences can be ones which we have determined should occur, or may be naturally occurring consequences that have served to influence the frequency of the behaviour.

I find that a useful method for problems at home, and it was something I tried to encourage at his mainstream school (which didn't go down very well ). I know whenever there are behavioural problems now the school do spend quite a bit of time trying to identify triggers, and think about consequences. sometimes these can be a very different- for example they wanted to stop him running off during circle time to fiddle with door handles, so they made him a board with lots of door handles, then once he was in one place, faded the door handles- now he sits through circle time almost all the time and is even beginning to enjoy it.

think outside the box..... we've just solved a behaviour problem at home this morning using this method. he was stripping off and weeing on the floor. We couldn't find trousers that he couldn't get off, but we could find a top he can't get off. as he can't strip off completely - no weeing.

the problem the m/s school often had was that they seemed to want to "punish" him for bad behaviour- but all "normal" punishments are very reinforcing for my son- he loves being shouted at, he feels no shame, cabn't understand star charts- I had a hard time convincing them they needed to think about responses that would reduce inappropriate behaviour rather than punish him iywswim..

I agree with Yorkie girl , join a union tomorrow morning. They may not be able to help you with this case, but they can be there for you in other circumstances.

Not wishing to be alarmist in any way but you need to have the back of of legal advice in some circumstances.

Regrading the particular instance, were the guidelines of the boys IEP followed? Is there a set procedure for working with this boy's behavioural isuues? Was it followed (and this is important for both the boy and the people who work with him)?

Has it been logged in the schools accident book and has the H & S officer been notified.

But first thing, join the union!

but remember you dont have to use the Union's solicitors even though they offer legal expense insurance you can/should be able to use your own choice

agree with hmb as well. My son's special school have very fixed procedures for problem incidents- and also (as I think someone has mentioned) for covering themselves. An essential part of this involves very good communication with parents. for instance sometimes my son goes into school with bruises on his head from whacking the wall at home with his head- if I've forgotten to tell them about it then they ring me and ask- obviously covering themselves. Likewise if he bruises himself at all at school I always get told of the incident.

very different from m/s where I wasn't informed- do you have a home-school link book that is filled in daily?

Agree about joining the union, some people may believe that you did something wrong and got the injury as a result, but even in those cases your rights are similar to the ones of the pupil, if somebody thinks you got the injury as a result of the wrong way to deal with the problem you can always ask that if the kid had so specialised needs then why you have not received advice or training in how is the best way to deal with it. It is the responsability of the employer to provide safe working conditions even if that only means that you need to get more support to deal with that particular pupil.

Sorry, didn't get the chance to reply again yesterday. I will get the info about the union today and join today if I can. I've never been given any ynfo about the ABC recording. We only have and incident and an accident book. The hospital said it was up to me about going back to work. I can't do any restaint with him while I'm like this, but I can do the "light weight" stuff. I'm going to try and see the Doctor this morning as I don't have to go in this morning as he's been suspended for today, so far. So I'll see what the Dr says.
Thanks for all the replies and good wishes. Have to go and get dds ready for school now.

Have you had training in restraint/holding/whatever they call it? You really shouldn't be restraining him if you haven't (something that was happening with my son). ABC is fairly standard for any behavioural stuff (unfortunately the staff at my son's m/s school didn't know anything about it either).

I'm just concerned that you haven't been given the training and support you need- it's not fair on you or him.

Hi Sobernow, Well,saw Dr yesterday who has signed me off for a week and said to expect swelling for at least 2 weeks. But at least I have fresh dressings/straps so I(dh) can change it now and again. As I have cuts on my fingers too where my rings hit my fingers.
The meeting went as they often do with too much to cover and not enough time. However the Dep head caught me before it and said I should make enquiries with personnel about compensation. And I now have the union info so I will chase up the union and make some tentative enquires with personnel today.
Baka, I have had restraint training but that wouldn't have made any difference in this case. I have also had training in his particular disorders. We have regular contact with his psychologist and take our cues from her as to how to adadpt what we do in school.
Thanks again for all the replies.

Just to update, have now joined a Union, and am not going to pursue a claim, after having recieved advice about it. Thanks again for all the replies.

If you don't get the support you need from school, and the parents are switched on do tell them. I found I was often able to make more waves with the LEA than the schools iyswim. If I'd know what had been happening in school, and that the LSA was unsupported and being attacked i would have kicked up a major fuss. Unfortunately every day I asked how he'd been and every day she said "fine"!