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Daughter 'let go' from apprenticeship after 1 day!

Livinupnorth

Hi everyone

Just wanted to vent a bit as my 16yr old daughter is distraught. (she has high functioning autism)

Since leaving school after her GCSEs last year she has been hunting for an apprenticeship along the lines of animal care.

When at school, she found herself a weeks work experience placement in this field and loved it and knew office work or such like was not for her.

She wrote to several places and at Christmas received a phone call from an animal centre asking her to get in touch, which she did.

She heard nothing from them again until last month when they emailed her asking to meet her if she hadn't found an apprenticeship, she was thrilled!

My daughter met the owners and a week later they were happy to offer her a years apprenticeship, with a months trial and arranged for a college to assess her along the way so she could get a qualification.

My daughter arranged everything with the college and started her apprenticeship on Monday.

She was very nervous but enjoyed the day, asked questions and did a lot of cleaning as it was her first day. She came home tired but happy glad that the next day was her assigned day off.

The next day (her day off) my daughter received an email from them saying that they didn't think the role was right for her, that she was a lovely girl but they would still pay her for her days work. 

All that after one day, the equivilant of 7hrs work. Not once had they said to her she had done something wrong during her days work.

What happened to the months trial? She hadn't even got as far as signing any contract with them.

How can they deem a shy, nervous teenager unsuitable after a mere 7hrs? They can't possibly know her or what she is capable of!!

My daughter is distraught, says she feels humiliated and useless and that if her best wasn't good enough what's the point in trying? 

How could they be so cruel? Get to know her and if after a week they feel the same then fair enough but after one day? Really?

I know there's nothing I can do and she wouldn't want to go back there now anyway but I am so angry they strung her along for months, meaning she didn't apply for other apprenticships which are now closed.

Now she's back to square one looking again, having the embarrassment of telling her friends, family etc she was 'let go' after one day.

Just wanting to hear other peoples thoughts.

Thank  you.

Parents

  • This information www.anapprenticeship.co.uk/fixed-term-apprentice-contracts-dismissal.html about dismissal of an apprentice may be useful. It depends what you want to do about it. I have read previously that in (general) employment law, a contract can be verbal and does not have to be written. But given that they have emailed your daughter I am guessing (in a legal setting e.g. employment tribunal) that could be seen as their acknowledgement of a contract - if they did not have a contract why would they need to dismiss someone? (Rehtorical). I would make a similar point regarding paying someone as demonstrating an agreement to carry out work i.e. employment.

    In terms of their awareness of her autism, are you certain that the college would have passed this information on? Unless expressly agreed, it could actually constitute a data protection beach for the college to divulge this to a third party. Or would it have been so obvious to the employer from the face to face meetings that they should reasonably have known that she had a disability and therefore should have made reasonable adjustments?

    If you want to go down a legal route, get advice asap, for example from Citizens' Advice, as there are very strict deadlines for applying for an employment tribunal, and there are other steps you may need to take before then.

    On the other hand, your post may be more about sharing the huge unfairness and upset caused by your daughter's experience. After all that effort of identifying somewhere and communicating/organizing for it to happen, it is certainly a knock to her confidence. But it doesn't sound like she did anything wrong and that they would not make for a very supportive learning environment if the apprenticeship had continued. The fact that they contacted her at a late stage could be due to their disorganisation and unpreparedness to receive an apprentice. 

    A next step might be to contact the college. They will probably have had students before who (for a range of reasons) haven't completed their apprenticeship. I would hope that they would have some suggestions about what your daughter can do from this point.

    All the best for you and your daughter coping with this.

Reply

  • This information www.anapprenticeship.co.uk/fixed-term-apprentice-contracts-dismissal.html about dismissal of an apprentice may be useful. It depends what you want to do about it. I have read previously that in (general) employment law, a contract can be verbal and does not have to be written. But given that they have emailed your daughter I am guessing (in a legal setting e.g. employment tribunal) that could be seen as their acknowledgement of a contract - if they did not have a contract why would they need to dismiss someone? (Rehtorical). I would make a similar point regarding paying someone as demonstrating an agreement to carry out work i.e. employment.

    In terms of their awareness of her autism, are you certain that the college would have passed this information on? Unless expressly agreed, it could actually constitute a data protection beach for the college to divulge this to a third party. Or would it have been so obvious to the employer from the face to face meetings that they should reasonably have known that she had a disability and therefore should have made reasonable adjustments?

    If you want to go down a legal route, get advice asap, for example from Citizens' Advice, as there are very strict deadlines for applying for an employment tribunal, and there are other steps you may need to take before then.

    On the other hand, your post may be more about sharing the huge unfairness and upset caused by your daughter's experience. After all that effort of identifying somewhere and communicating/organizing for it to happen, it is certainly a knock to her confidence. But it doesn't sound like she did anything wrong and that they would not make for a very supportive learning environment if the apprenticeship had continued. The fact that they contacted her at a late stage could be due to their disorganisation and unpreparedness to receive an apprentice. 

    A next step might be to contact the college. They will probably have had students before who (for a range of reasons) haven't completed their apprenticeship. I would hope that they would have some suggestions about what your daughter can do from this point.

    All the best for you and your daughter coping with this.

Children
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