Care employer keeps putting my wife with a sex pest

[mjr001]

my wife is currently working as a carer, employed by a company to look after people in their own homes. she has workied for this company now for 3 years, which was taken over recently by another care company.

the company has 2 clients next to each other in the same street, one house contains 3 females with care needs and the other house has a young male with care needs. recently they transferred my wife to the males house after working with the females for quite some time and the male has made contant sexual comments, tried to cuddle and touch my wife as well as threaten to steal money from her bag.

my wife made a complaint to her head office about this but nothing was said or done and now they keep putting her in the same house where he keeps doing the same thing.

my wife has now handed in her notice due to the constant stress of it all but they have told her to carry on working there for her notice period, when my wife queried it again after the company phoning her again today about could she be put somewhere else the manager said just get on with it.

there have been other complaints from female workers to management but they only seem to be putting my wife there every day.

Are there any procedures that a company has to do when staff complain off harrasment as they seem to be now penilising my wife for handing in her notice.

she has also just had a week off sick due to a back problem and they also said that the company does not pay SSP. until i told her to ring a manager and complain, which she did. now apparantly her SSP will be in next months final pay

All help thankful

Mark

[julian]

Re: Care employer keeps putting my wife with a sex pest

I do not wish to assume the clients have some intellectual deficiency, but I am going to anyway, just to offer support. It's a shame, but very often men with Down's Syndrome and other such disabilities have no understanding of what is appropriate. They are like 2 year olds. SO quite often they just act without inhibitions. It has been a talking point at carers' meetings as youths are more difficult than young women in most cases.

Although they do not understand initially, they should be told that it is not acceptable. If it continues, you should ask for a chaperone or, if sense, permits, a male carer to take on the role.

A formal report in writing should be made on the inappropriate behaviour and language. However, it is quite possible that your employer is playing down the complaints as they assume you are exaggerating. It is hard to understand that a person with care needs is human after all. Many people assume they are meek, mild and very weak which is not the case. They can become very agitated and violent when they do not get what they want and they do not understand social behaviour.

It is a fact that often they are put into care homes or sheltered housing when the family (normally elderly parents) can no longer control them physically.

I wish you well.

[Undercover Elsa]

Re: Care employer keeps putting my wife with a sex pest

Hi Mjr,
Seems to me your wife's employers have a duty of care to their staff as well as their patients. Might be an idea for her to contact ACAS for a chat, they'll inform her of her rights. Is she in a union?
http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1364

Elsa x

[diddlydee]

Re: Care employer keeps putting my wife with a sex pest

I can't offer any advice but this doesn't seem right to me? I've asked member tastyjane to pop in, just in case she is able to offer any words of support to you. She is good at employment stuff so I hope she can.

diddly x

[tastyjane]

Re: Care employer keeps putting my wife with a sex pest

Morning, well the good news is you are completely right - your wife's employers have an absolute duty of care to investigate any allegations made to them. In fact if you wife has handed in her notice due to their handling of this situation I think she has a pretty clear cut case to take them to tribunal for constructive dismissal!

Has your wife kept a diary of events? Has she at any time documented her concerns to the company? The company should have a clearly outlined grievance procedure for this type of thing? Do you have a timeline of what has happened and where?

Sorry to ask a lot of questions but the timings are all important if you are going to claim constructive dismissal - due to new legislation, there is now a lodging fee to open a tribunal claim dependant up what the situation is so I want to get my advice right to you. Obviously this money is refunded by the tribunal if your claim is upheld.

Jane x