Children's nursery worker warned by watchdog for placing youngster at "risk of physical harm and distress"

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A children’s day care worker has been warned by watchdogs for pushing a child’s forehead back with her fingers, putting the child at risk of “physical harm and distress”.The Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) has placed a 12-month warning on Simona Cornea’s registration for the incident, which happened while she was a trainee at Little Gems nursery in Armadale in May last year.The SSSC said Cornea had pushed the child’s forehead while attempting to stop them from biting another youngster.The SSSC said in its report: “Your fitness to practise is impaired because social service workers are trusted to care for some of the most vulnerable members of society and must not abuse, harm or neglect them.“You have put your fingers on a child’s forehead and pushed their head back.

This behaviour placed the child at risk of physical harm. Your behaviour also has the potential to cause the child distress and show them that you were annoyed or frustrated at them.“Your behaviour demonstrates a disregard for the safety and wellbeing of a child in your care and falls below the professional standards expected from a registered social service worker.”The report continued: “The behaviour is serious.

Although the child was not injured as a result of your behaviour, there was potential for significant physical harm to be caused.“However, your behaviour does not appear to have been aggressive in nature and the contact made by you appears to have been with limited force and resulted in minimal movement to the child’s head.

In the circumstances, your behaviour appears to have been an instantaneous response to the child biting another child anattempt to highlight the unacceptability of the child’s behaviour to them.