Page 4134 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 24 October 2018
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received multiple injuries from kindergarten-aged students identified as having complex needs and challenging behaviours.
The WorkSafe report goes on to say that Melanie reported incidents involving multiple injuries, which ultimately resulted in a psychological injury and an accepted compensation claim. The WorkSafe report says that the incident reports went through the territory’s incident management system and were responded to by the school but that proposed amendments to controls were not communicated effectively or implemented in a timely way, that the risk assessments and associated controls were inadequate and that Melanie continued to be subjected to harm.
We could be excused for thinking that this was just a lapse of protocol, because the incident reports were done and the directorate knew about them. But when you read the detail of what happened to Melanie, a learning support assistant with 10 years experience in disability education and previous experience in nursing, you discover that she was attacked and bitten on no less than 34 occasions, all of which were recorded. She was bitten on the arms, the stomach and the leg, and that was day one. Melanie then endured a further six months of this.
Melanie is quoted in the media as saying that even though the Education Directorate were aware of what was happening—were made aware 34 times, no less—they provided no advice to her and the only assistance they offered was compression bandages to reduce the depth of the bites. That lack of support, that lack of protection, led to Melanie contemplating suicide, unable to work, frightened of children and suffering nightmares about being eaten by crocodiles. Melanie is today, two years after the nightmare, in a mental health facility.
But apparently that is okay, because the government defends its lack of empathy, its lack of action, by saying all injured persons identified in the WorkSafe report have been supported through workers compensation arrangements and that Melanie was receiving regular payments for time off work due to injury. The Education Directorate says that it “sincerely regrets” incidents of violence in some ACT schools; “sincerely regrets”. What an insulting response to Melanie, who has suffered the most horrendous treatment that anyone could imagine you could receive in a workplace. Expressing sincere regret apparently makes it okay. If this were a reality TV show, you would call the storyline implausible.
There is little point in highlighting the other examples in the WorkSafe report because they are the recorded ones, the one we now know about. But how many have gone unrecorded? How many teachers, how many learning support assistants, how many staff members have kept quiet, seeing that it was useless to complain and perhaps fearing the loss of their jobs? We may never know, but if it is anything like the issues of staff bullying in ACT hospitals, there are many silent and frightened staff out there and we want to hear from them.
I am not sure whether the minister, as a committed union member, is so embarrassed and so ashamed that she cannot apply an objective standard to what has happened and so can only see the WorkSafe report as some sort of groundbreaking victory. She says proudly that she is going to share with other jurisdictions the learnings and strategies
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