Working with Aides

[geocachingRN]

This is just a vent.

I am a school nurse working primarily as a 1:1 and I'm a relatively new grad in graduate school. I have a severe special ed class on site who has 4-6 aides. They had a new one transfer in to work with this close knit group. She is 67 years old and this is far to strenuous a job for her. There was an incident of questionable judgment regarding her handling of one of the children.I didn't see it, but now all the aides hate her and won't help her and this is far too strenuous a job for her to do by herself. The teacher thinks this aide was dumped on her and the district wants to fire her which made the the teacher uncomfortable and she did not want this on her conscience.

As a good Public Health Nurse, I offered to help. I said I could discuss with the aide the physical limitations of her job and if she needed any accomadation. Then I could take the pulse of the other aides as well, to see if the new aide was performing inappropriately and putting the children at risk. The teacher agreed to this plan.

It went well and it didn't. The new aide appreciated the offer as she has no friends, but the old aides felt my talking to her and to them was over stepping my duties as a nurse and they complained to everyone about it.

I got a wrist slap from the teacher who originally gave me permission and even put my intervention in the corrective plan for the aide. I wrote an apology and said I will not discuss it again. But it caused me some degree of anxiety as I'm only a temporary hire and I'd really like to keep this job.

But then I realized my intervention was actually effective! :) Now all the aides can band together and whine about "that interfering school nurse" and go back to helping each other for the benefit of the children.

Seriously, I'll have to wait out the repercussions of how far up the line their whining went though and I learned my lesson. I'm concerned about the children, their health and welfare and anything that interferes with that. The teacher will have to manage her own staff. These types of things are political minefields that are apt to get one fired.

[noreenl]

Be careful seriously. If you are in a classroom in a 1:1 situation that is where your concern must always be. In the real world andything could happen in an instant and you are responsible for that 1:1 child.

People don't always do the right thing. you were right to be concerned if you felt that any child is at risk, but the person yu report it to is your supervisor or the nurse for that school class. Someone could say that you were talking to that aide while you were supposed to be monitoring that child! Now your in trouble for not doing your own job!

[geocachingRN]

Thank you for your concern, noreenl:

The mother of my 1:1 has lunch with her everyday and my charge is at school only 50% of the time, so any time I spent in the special ed classroom is when my charge is safely taken care of. I should have made that clearer. But you do give me a good way out of ever helping in this situation if asked again.

[Purple_Scrubs, BSN, RN]

I have found that school politics are even worse than hospital politics, if that is possible. I just try to keep my head down and fly under the radar, unless there is something I need done. My principal knows pretty much that if I come to him, it is a big problem that must be addressed. Otherwise I leave well enough alone.

[geocachingRN]

I'm new at this Purple Scrubs, and I'm learning as I go. We all know in the grand scheme of things, this isn't anything. No one was injured or died. I just hope everyone else can keep it in perspective and cut me a break.