Dealing with incompetent and unprofessional professional: do I risk complaining and getting her sacked?

[sickofincompetenceandbullshit2]

I am dealing with a professional who has decided to bury her head in the sand when dealing with something that should have been straightforward to resolve. She is supposed to be resolving a complaint about something that is easy to rectify and instead has sat on it for months and come back to me with a load of lies and a refusal to sort it. We're talking about a legal duty that was not carried out for years and she is massively underplaying it.

So, I'm pretty cross. Then I Google her email address one day (as I didn't have my contacts on my new email thing) and one of her social networking pages comes up. She spends all day at work on it and comments on the people, including me, that she is supposed to be (at worst) neutrally investigating on behalf of and (at best) representing. One comment about me was basically along the lines of people should find better things to do!

In my job, such behaviour would get us the sack. I imagine she'd get in a lot of trouble for what she's done. But do I take it to the lengths of ruining her life by making a formal complaint and sending her boss screen shots? I don't want to ruin her life and have her out on the streets BUT I'm pretty angry that my tax pays for her to sit on her arse on the internet slagging me and others off and not doing her job!

WWYD?!

[SENhelp]

Well, I'm glad that your complaint was taken seriously. Professionals do need to be held accountable for their actions. Too many of them, in my opinion, are getting away with treating children and their families badly and then considering themselves untouchable.Good for you.

[feelthelies]

Hi, I'm back (NC). Well...I did send the very detailed complaint and I know it was the right thing to do even though I did feel crap about it .

I posted it and then kept worrying/ wondering so had a look at the (still public!) social networking page. It seems, from the cryptic messages, that her boss is actually doing something. I do feel very bad as she is obviously in a lot of trouble, but it only takes looking at the screenshots in my complaint again to get very cross. You know, in amonst the piss-taking about all the people complaining, there is not one similar piss-take about the public body being complained about, revealing such a clear bias.

Thanks to all for the advice at the time :)

[sickofhypocrisyandbullshit]

Good luck and I will keep you updated.

Thanks to all for the advice!

[SENhelp]

Well,whatever you decide she needs to be taken to task for her actions. There's certainly enough evidence to stop her trying to wriggle her way out of anything. Keep us updated if you can.
I am waiting to hear from school about my complaint but don't expect a lot to be honest.

[sickofhypocrisyandbullshit]

Hi, sorry, I seem to have lost my password! Thanks for all the responses. I know I have a responsibility to do something about her; it seems I just need to decide about newspaper route or (and I could go that route and them not be interested) open complaint.

SENhelp , there would be an investigation and a warning given in my workplace if such a thing happened. It sort of depends how far you push and, as others have said, if children will verify that staff said it. But the child put it on FB, so evidence there! Shocking - and poor when if affects a child like that :(

[vjg13]

Please do complain. It is wrong that this person can behave in this way and appalling for you and others.

[chocjunkie]

omg!! i would not hesitate at all to put a complain in. that is just shocking.

do you happen to know the family of the child with the unusual name you mentioned? maybe worth alerting them and getting them to complain as well?

[tasmaniandevilchaser]

I'm absolutely shocked sick. I'd have zero qualms about reporting it, it's not 'ruining her life', she's better off out of that job if that's how she behaves. She really can't be very happy, I bet her colleagues are fed up with her but feel unable to do or say much. (Speaking from bitter experience here but it wasn't even half as bad as your situation). But agree with starlight she'll probably end up promoted

[eatyourveg]

Straight to the head, with a letter outlining your concerns and a print off of the pages concerned.

[lougle]

star - you take assertive to a whole new level I thought I was being assertive by saying 'I'm not sure how you think she's doing x when my experience is y.....'

I'm surprised by now people don't just say 'mmm...starlightmckenzie. She's probably right, let's just sort it out now and we can have 5 more cups of coffee in the time we spent justifying our position only to cave in....'

I admire you greatly!

[starlightmckenzie]

OMG Lougle You've just reminded me of a meeting I had with ds' SALT plus a number of managers.

They were insisting that ds was receiving a certain number of hours worth of SALT, once driving/meeting/report writing was taking into account. It was a very poor service indeed.

I presented them with a document of how ds' needs would be better met with differently organised time , breaking down their time and demonstrating that 80% of their allocated time appeared to be for 'planning', 10% for travelling. Can't believe I had the gall to do that. Must have been very frustrated.

[lougle]

I would go as far as to say you have a duty to report her. She is failing not only you, a savvy, articulate, assertive and knowledgeable parent, but also all the parents who don't have support, don't know the SEN CoP, the policies and procedures, etc.

It doesn't have to get personal. Contact the boss, ask to meet regarding a sensitive and serious matter -state that there has been a breach of the DPA. Take copies of the email exchanges and social networking pages. Make it clear that this is not going away, let him do the rest.

She isn't going to come to your house and set fire to it. She's unprofessional and incompetent, but that's a big leap.

It's because people keep quiet that this practice continues.

I complained officially about DD1's old SALT. I presented the evidence of no follow ups, terrible interaction, poor reports, illogical conclusions. The meeting between her and the manager with me, was excruciatingly uncomfortable. However, the manager thanked me for raising it because she could then do something to change it.

[starlightmckenzie]

Good grief!

I understand why you hesitate about 'ruining her life', but you need to consider how many children's lives SHE is ruining by her attitude and inaction.

I doubt her life will come anywhere near mine in terms of grief btw, and my life isn't ruined.

Besides, her boss will probably promote her out of her current client facing position into a decision-making one.

[SENhelp]

Thanks Auntevil. I thought that may be the case. They have previously refuted that any inappropriate comments have been made by any of the staff there even though I know full well things have been said. I do have some written evidence now of really sarcastic,nasty comments from staff but I expect they'll still twist things around .

[auntevil]

The above confidentiality issue is slightly less clear cut unless you have direct evidence and not third party evidence.
School will be tight as a drum on this. Unless one of the children who was spoken to is happy to confirm that the member of staff spoke directly to them, there are too many variations to more than ruffle feathers.
I overheard a conversation at school today, and it truly worried me so I spoke to a member of the management team. They were concerned, but I have little doubt that if she passes this information on that anything will be done. It will all be a case of 'mis-interpretation' and 'not in context' etc.

[SENhelp]

I have a bit of a confidentiality issue myself that I could do with some advice on. Something happened with ds at school that had to have been kept confidential. I now find that staff spoke to other pupils about it (various children have said this) and a pupil repeated the claims on a social networking site even naming the staff that had talked about it! Have complained to the Gov's about the serious breach of confidentiality but expect them to deny that the staff said such a thing. Any suggestions on what else I can do? A child with a disability was left severely distressed by the disclosure of the information

[glimmer]

Hi - this is totally unacceptable. I would make sure to gather lots of valid evidence. If you want to play it nice, you could send the evidence to her and ask her to remedy your issues right away? Maybe she needs a wake up call and will immediately pull it? - I am not saying it's what I would do, but maybe thinking about this route will help you figure out what's the right avenue for you?

[inappropriatelyemployed]

That is a good idea!

[sickofincompetenceandbullshit2]

Thinking that might be a good solution. Good plan, Batman!

[sickofincompetenceandbullshit2]

Hmmm, that would then get me round the anon thing. I could say I'd seen it and want the case re-opening.

[SENhelp]

Well, I might be inclined to send screen shots to a local newspaper to investigate. Sounds like the kind of story a local rag would love.

[sickofincompetenceandbullshit2]

Ah, no, not named, but posted on the exact day that I'd sent an email and she'd emailed back and within the exact hour with enough details that I knew. She also did put the name of another complainant's child with a sarky comment about her name along the lines of, what do you expect of a family who names a child that?

So the safeguarding and data protection concerns are valid.

She got promoted this week and I've been sitting on it for a month. This promotion has made me furious!

[WilsonFrickett]

Emoticon fail and Xpost-tastic!

[WilsonFrickett]

I think there are the complaints that come back to bite us on the bum and the complaints that are actually so nuclear that no LA in its right mind could fail to act on them. This is one of the second ones. She has put your name on a social networking site, with no anonymity and she hasn't even had the sense to put her privacy settings up? FFS! That's just not on sickof. That's child protection issues, safeguarding, all sorts right there.

You have to report. And if she does lose her house (unlikely, I suspect she'll be 'retrained') then you didn't take it from her, her incredibly stupid actions did. [anger]

[sickofincompetenceandbullshit2]

Anyone CAN see the info as it's so public. That's partly why I'm so cross. It's like standing in the street and slagging off people she's supposed to be helping.