A Renfrewshire childcare worker has been ordered to be on her best behaviour after accusing a parent of “dumping” her children at nurseries and “abandoning them”.
Megan McGurk, from Erskine, has been slapped with a two-year warning after the incident.
The former Linwood Community Childcare childminder took to social media to tell the mother of a child in her care that “she was a bad parent” after the mother had complained of finding blood on their child’s clothes.
McGurk was found not to have reported the incident to management, nor did she complete an incident report.
After leaving employment as a childcare practitioner with the committee of Linwood Community Care, McGurk also told the mother, “she was using the nursery to just abandon her kids and to dump her kids on other people to look after them”; and, “that her children are the way they are due to the start of their lives”.
In another incident of “serious misconduct” recorded by the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC), McGurk was found to have pointed her finger in another child’s face, shouted, “no, I am very sad with you”, or words to that effect, and grabbed the child and pushed them onto a chair.
The incidents took place in 2020.
The SSSC has ruled that McGurk’s behaviour showed her fitness to practise was impaired.
In a report of their findings, they said: “Social services workers, in whom service users and the public place their trust and confidence, are expected to treat service users with dignity and respect and protect them from harm.
“You shouted at a child, pointed in their face, and grabbed them by the arm to place them in a chair.
“Your behaviour caused both physical and emotional harm to the child. It was a loss of self-control.”
It added: “You have also failed to follow child protection procedures designed to prevent children in your care from being at risk of harm. While no actual harm came to either child, the potential for harm was clear.
“All three incidents are indicative of a pattern of you displaying poor personal and professional judgement.”
McGurk, who has not been working in the sector since the incidents in 2020, had a two-year warning placed on her registration with conditions imposed.
The report went on to state that McGurk had “engaged with the SSSC investigation to a meaningful extent”. It added that McGurk had had a significant period of registration with the SSSC without any previous findings being made against her.
Linwood Community Childcare has been approached for comment on the report.
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