ADA or Performance?
birdgirl
29 Posts
A supervisor has presented quite a bit of documentation regarding an employee that seems to be leading toward a mental health issue. The ee has not yet come forward with any information or concerns, yet she seems to be exhibiting strange (re: talking to herself, hearing voices, etc) behavior on the job and using poor judgement regaring her responsibilities. She is a survivor of a violent relationship. Can we request she get psychiatric evaluation since her last work required PE stated she was in fine mental health to perform her job, but that is now not the case. Or can we treat this as a performance issue. I am not sure we can accommodate her at this time, and the supervisor does not feel comfortable leaving this ee alone with the children (she is a child care provider). I am not sure how to procede and am afraid of taking a wrong step regarding possible ADA issues, etc. Help!
Comments
Firstly, do you do any psychological screening for all new employees who will have direct contact with children (children are considered vulnerable and often there is a need to enusre new emplyees don't have any hidden issues that would affect their direct care over the children)?
If you were able to establish some job-related pyschological standards in the care of children you may be able to develop a psychological screen my medical professionals that would help assesst the suitability of a candidate for such a sensitive job.
Regarding this particular case, I would initially address the issue as performance (I assume you don't do any psycholgical screening). The supervisor can address the issue of poor judgement in the exercise of her respnsibilities, but the supervisor should NOT raise any issues about her talking to herself or whatever). If her hearing voices and talking to herself does start impacting the job (e.g., she claims that she did something because a "voice" told her to do it or she starts a dialogue with voices or herself that confuses children) then the suepvisor could raise the issue and concern about her psychological status. But at this point, you aren't clear if the employee is actually demonstrating that type of conduct (rather than merely heaing voice and talking to herself).
Let the employee bring up any psycholgoical issues that may be impacting her peformance rleeated to the judgement issues (right now the supervisor really has no evidence of that).