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Hi, if anyone can offer any advice on the below issue, I would be extremely grateful.
My Partner has Type 1 Diabetes and is blind in one eye (As a consequence of diabetes). She has worked for a nursery for over a year now, and made them aware of her condition during the interview. About 6 months in, she had a bleed on her one good eye (Again, caused by diabetes), this made her vision blurry in her good eye for a few days. She immediately told the nursery that she was not fit to work as she did not want to put any of the children in danger. As a result of this, she was suspended from work on full pay while they investigated - this took around 3 months. As you can imagine, this destroyed her confidence in herself as a child care professional - especially seeing as she had been completely honest with the nursery from day one.
No progress was made for the first couple of months of her suspension, and after seeking legal advice, we made a written complaint to their head office with the intention of taking it further to an employment tribunal if need be. After this complaint, they arranged for a health and safety inspector to watch her work to assess whether or not she was a danger to the children. The instant decision from the independent assessor was that she was safe to work and she was instantly allowed to return to work. However, she was not included in numbers and was made to work with restrictions. This meant that she was not allowed around any of the children unless she was supervised and she was not allowed any key children (Every other member of staff has approximately 12 key children each that they worked closely with).
We decided not to take any legal action for the sole reason that she is hoping to complete NVQ level 3 in child care, and this nursery provide the funding for their staff to achieve this. We decided that it would be best to try and forget about what had happened, get the NVQ level 3, then move nurseries. Unfortunately the discrimination seems to have continued. We are now 3 further months down the line and she still has not got any Key children, where as other staff members have been given more. The final nail in the coffin is that other members of staff are now being given the level 3 training and Jess has been left waiting still - despite applying for this training alot sooner than alot of the other people that are now about to begin.
As part of her return to work interview, she was asked what could be done to help her in any way. The onething that she suggested was that she is kept in the same base room so that she can feel more comfortable with her surroundings. Every other staff member has a base room anyway, so this wasn't even asking for anything special, she just wanted to get back to work like everyone else! Unfortunately they even failed with this, she is constantly being moved rooms to help out where the nursery needs it - with no care to Jess's needs. This is attributed to Jess not being included in numbers, so she doesn't have an official base room. As a result, she is not able to bond with any children and just feels like a spare set of hands.
I've come home numerous times to find Jess in tears because of how they are treating her, her confidence has been shattered. She has always wanted to work for a place like this, but now feels like she is no good at her job. It makes my blood boil.
Unfortunately, as I understand it, we are now too late to go to an employment tribunal because the initial suspension was too long ago, being towards the end of last year? However, I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to things like this.
If anyone can offer any kind of advice on this, what steps - if any - that we could potentially take next, then we would be extremely gratful. I don't know all of the dates etc, but we have copies of all of the documents / letters etc...
Thank you for taking the time to read this!
Thanks,
Sam
My Partner has Type 1 Diabetes and is blind in one eye (As a consequence of diabetes). She has worked for a nursery for over a year now, and made them aware of her condition during the interview. About 6 months in, she had a bleed on her one good eye (Again, caused by diabetes), this made her vision blurry in her good eye for a few days. She immediately told the nursery that she was not fit to work as she did not want to put any of the children in danger. As a result of this, she was suspended from work on full pay while they investigated - this took around 3 months. As you can imagine, this destroyed her confidence in herself as a child care professional - especially seeing as she had been completely honest with the nursery from day one.
No progress was made for the first couple of months of her suspension, and after seeking legal advice, we made a written complaint to their head office with the intention of taking it further to an employment tribunal if need be. After this complaint, they arranged for a health and safety inspector to watch her work to assess whether or not she was a danger to the children. The instant decision from the independent assessor was that she was safe to work and she was instantly allowed to return to work. However, she was not included in numbers and was made to work with restrictions. This meant that she was not allowed around any of the children unless she was supervised and she was not allowed any key children (Every other member of staff has approximately 12 key children each that they worked closely with).
We decided not to take any legal action for the sole reason that she is hoping to complete NVQ level 3 in child care, and this nursery provide the funding for their staff to achieve this. We decided that it would be best to try and forget about what had happened, get the NVQ level 3, then move nurseries. Unfortunately the discrimination seems to have continued. We are now 3 further months down the line and she still has not got any Key children, where as other staff members have been given more. The final nail in the coffin is that other members of staff are now being given the level 3 training and Jess has been left waiting still - despite applying for this training alot sooner than alot of the other people that are now about to begin.
As part of her return to work interview, she was asked what could be done to help her in any way. The onething that she suggested was that she is kept in the same base room so that she can feel more comfortable with her surroundings. Every other staff member has a base room anyway, so this wasn't even asking for anything special, she just wanted to get back to work like everyone else! Unfortunately they even failed with this, she is constantly being moved rooms to help out where the nursery needs it - with no care to Jess's needs. This is attributed to Jess not being included in numbers, so she doesn't have an official base room. As a result, she is not able to bond with any children and just feels like a spare set of hands.
I've come home numerous times to find Jess in tears because of how they are treating her, her confidence has been shattered. She has always wanted to work for a place like this, but now feels like she is no good at her job. It makes my blood boil.
Unfortunately, as I understand it, we are now too late to go to an employment tribunal because the initial suspension was too long ago, being towards the end of last year? However, I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to things like this.
If anyone can offer any kind of advice on this, what steps - if any - that we could potentially take next, then we would be extremely gratful. I don't know all of the dates etc, but we have copies of all of the documents / letters etc...
Thank you for taking the time to read this!
Thanks,
Sam
