First Aid Costs for Childcare workers

bobmalooka

Hopefully someone can help.

My girlfriend works in a creche where they get treated like muck, all staff on minimum wage(were asked to work for less atone stage) unpaid overtime(do it or your not needed here) and told to be creative when being interviewed by HSE inspectors(all the paperwork is a bit on the creative side too)

Anyways the First Aid certs need to be renewed and the staff were told they have to pay for it, just want to find out who's responsibility it is to pay for this

Thay get taken advantage of enough as it is so it would be lovely if this worked out in the staffs favour.

Thoie

I can't help with the specifics of childcare but my first questions would be
- is it in their contract that they must be first aid qualified?
- is there a law which says all creche workers must be first aiders?

If not, and the law simply requires that there be a first aider in the business, then if they all got together and said they were too busy/broke to do a course then the owner would be in a bit of a pickle.

bobmalooka

Contract :rolleyes: (no contract unfortunately)
It is a requirement, anecdotal evidence would suggest that 'requirements' are something to aspire to in private creches.
Community run creches seem to be better in conforming to these rules(non profit)

crotalus667

I know this is a bit of an old one but what he hey

bobmalooka wrote: »

and told to be creative when being interviewed by HSE inspectors(all the paperwork is a bit on the creative side too)

there is a fine line between creative and criminal , at the end of the day you girlfriend above all else has a duty of care which involves reporting any short comings failure for her to report anything can lead to her being hung out to dry by her employers if the dodo does hit the fan

bobmalooka wrote: »

Anyways the First Aid certs need to be renewed and the staff were told they have to pay for it, just want to find out who's responsibility it is to pay for this

The employer is fully responsible for ongoing training that must be done which includes the basic first aid which iirc is mandatory for childcare, you girlfriend is responsible for notifying her employer that her cert is running out or has expired and if she is on the list of occupational first aiders having her name removed

Thoie wrote: »

- is there a law which says all creche workers must be first aiders?
.

yes iirc it is the basic cpr course

Evonatron

Firstly it is against the law for them not to give her a contract. She can ask for this.

It is not the responsibility of the creche to pay for training but they should and alot of creches would do this. She needs a specific pediadric course to deal with babies and children. By law she needs this.

To be honest the creche sounds terrible and she should cover herself by doing the course herself, it will stand to her anyway if she does for another role eventually. Tell her never lie to the HSE or be creative with the truth. She is then only protecting employers that are not protecting her with paying for the basics so she can do her job correctly.

Health and Safety is a huge issue in this country and employers trying to take the cheapest and easiest way out. They have to comply with the law and at the end of the day if something happens to a child in her care, she will be responsible and so will the employer's. As the previous poster mentioned she has a duty of care to those children. Personally I know things are tough and its hard to get work but I would not work for an employer that didnt follow the legislation properly. With my present employer I will not sign something unless I know it is 100% compliant.

Sorry got a little carried away but I would be worried that your gf is being put in a very uneasy situation that may affect her whole career if anything were to happen. I would rather not work there and make a formal complaint to the HSE about the creche.

Evonatron

BTW, I dont know where you are located but there was a free refresher course being held in Cork about 2 months ago for Pediatric First Aid, so do a bit of googling and see if you can find one for free!
The one in Cork was held by the Cork Babysitters Association I think

suelou

hey i work in a creche i just updated my first aid cert a couple of weeks ago and we had to pay for it our selves, i also have a few friends that work in different creches and they had to do pay for theirs too i think its the same across the board. About the money side of it every1 knows that working in a creche is and extremely low paid and thankless job for the amount of reponsibility and you have your girlfriend should definately not be 'creative' while talking to the hse let them see how badly the place is being run they might be treated better then when the hse is on there back constantly

crotalus667

suelou wrote: »

hey i work in a creche i just updated my first aid cert a couple of weeks ago and we had to pay for it our selves, i also have a few friends that work in different creches and they had to do pay for theirs too i think its the same across the board.

Hmmmm look into it because i just completed a health care course and iirc we where told that once we are peranently imployed or employer is the one that foots the bill for updating our first aid course

SerialComplaint

You should definitely be getting paid time off work for any mandatory training - see http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2005/en/act/pub/0010/sec0010.html#sec10

suelou

crotalus667 wrote: »

Hmmmm look into it because i just completed a health care course and iirc we where told that once we are peranently imployed or employer is the one that foots the bill for updating our first aid course

must look into dat thanks

Mrs OBumble

SerialComplaint wrote: »

You should definitely be getting paid time off work for any mandatory training - see http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2005/en/act/pub/0010/sec0010.html#sec10

I'm not 100%, but I think that the law you're referring to is about training that supports the employees own safety, health and welfare.

This is training which is part of the competency of the job, for the safety, health and welfare of the clients, not the staff. So I don't think it's covered.