Activity 6 Unethical Conduct

[crickett55]

Hi Lorina,

I would appreciate your comments on my response to Activity 6 below:

Q. Activity 6: Unethical conduct
This workplace assessment task requires you to outline, according to the service’s policies and procedures, how educators should respond to an incident of unethical conduct.
Prepare a short presentation that could be shared verbally at a staff meeting.
In your presentation, discuss three common ethical issues you may have experienced – or may come across – in an early childhood education and care service. If you are unsure, ask other educators at the service to share examples of incidents of unethical conduct they may have come across. Make sure personal details of the people involved, or the details of the service where they worked, are not divulged.
In your presentation, explain why the behaviour is unethical and identify strategies to deal with it (including ways to report it).
Submit your presentation in your Assessment Portfolio, and, where possible, include the policies and procedures used to inform and guide your presentation.

My Answer:
Three common ethical issues that can be experienced in the Childcare situation are:
1. Swearing in front of the children
2. Gossiping about the family situation, above and beyond the information necessary to allow educators to know why a child needs special consideration when possibly acting out of character (e.g. family separation)
3. Negative comments about a child or their family in front of the child or other children, educators and families (e.g. comments on the child smelling, being poorly dressed or family not caring for them properly).

I have experienced two of these situations.
In the first instance, I overheard an educator swearing badly and repeatedly in front of children. The Responsible Person was there and also heard the words used so I felt it was not my position to speak at that time. I waited until the Director arrived later that morning and went to speak with her, asking her advice on what I should have done. She replied that by coming to her rather than speaking at the time was the correct thing under the circumstances and that she would speak with the Responsible Person before speaking with the educator who swore in front of the children.

The second instance has been when an educator was commenting about how the babies room “stinks” because of the “smelly babies” in front of another educator (myself) and the babies in the room to a parent who had arrived to collect their baby, after the parent made comments about the smell first (I was in the process of changing a particularly soiled nappy at the time which was why the smell was so noticeable).
I made a comment that the babies could not help the way their nappies smelled and that it would soon be unnoticeable once I had finished changing the baby, then cleaned and sanitised the nappy change area. After the parent had left, I mentioned to the other educator that I hoped I hadn’t spoken out of turn (she being my superior). Her response was that this particular parent was often difficult to get along with and agreeing with her was the best way to pacify her.

I have not experienced gossiping, however should that occur, I would refuse to become involved in the conversation. Depending on what was being said, how and about whom, I would either gently remind the gossipers that their conversation could be overheard and was therefore inappropriate, or if particularly nasty, also take my concerns to the Director.
As with all *Centre Name* Policies and Procedures we always fall back to the ECA Code of Ethics which guides us in the legal and ethical frameworks required in Early Childhood Care.


Evidence check
Ensure evidence presented for this unit of competency shows your ability to work in a safe manner and as specified by the service.
You must also include evidence of your ability to:
• follow organisation policies, protocols and procedures
• work with legal and ethical frameworks.