Advice Wife being kicked out of uni

wnb · 14 Feb 2015 at 09:26

Hi all,

I have been supporting my wife for the last 3 years with doing a Social Work degree she has done very well and she has 99% attendance and is expected to achieve a 1st when she finishes in May this year.

Currently she is on work placement working with children. I wont go into a lot of detail but another student on her course said to my wife she was taking cocaine and my wife ended up saying to her work place mentor that she knew of another student who was taking drugs. The mentor told her course tutor a Uni, the Uni said to my wife if you don't tell us the name of the student who is taking drugs we will suspend you and you will be kicked out of Uni.

My wife decided to give the name of the student and now the Uni are saying that because she did not report the student directly to the Uni she now faces suspension and possibly be kicked out.

This seems grossly unfair to me.

The student who was taking the drugs has been suspended and she has her meeting with the Uni on Tuesday. The wife has said that she has met with the Student Union and they will support her through it.

The SU has said you probably wont be kicked and she has support from a few of her lecturers.

I'm looking for advice on how to get a good outcome for my wife. Does anyone know of any organisations \ Solicitors who has experience with dealing with the above? I'm not about to sit on my backside and wait for a good \ bad outcome I have already tried calling my solicitor about this but I could not get in touch with him. I have suggested to the wife about speaking to our local mp to see whether or not he can help us. She is labour and she called him a tory .......

craptakular · 14 Feb 2015 at 09:29

Aren't you paying the uni ££££ for studying and not the other way around?

If so then Trading Standards or summit.

Tefal · 14 Feb 2015 at 09:33

what? these seems very odd, why did your wife go to her mentor to tell her one of the other students did some coke?

probbaly 99% of her course have done drugs at some point during their course.

what did she think would happen you cant just randomly accuse people of taking drugs then not say who as now your part of it so yes she was gon na have toi tell them but if the other women finds out and hasn't been tested positive your wife could be royally ****ed for slandering her.

Amnesia · 14 Feb 2015 at 09:33

so your wife got the other student suspended after she confided in her...kinda lost sympathy for your wife right there.

Derek W · 14 Feb 2015 at 09:34

How is your wife responsible for other students extra curricular activities?

Salsa · 14 Feb 2015 at 09:35

Must be more to this story.. I find it hard to believe that a University would have any grounds to kick someone out for either alleged drug taking or not grassing up their fellow students for alleged drug taking. Heck if they could do that then they may as well kick out ALL students.

Also I don't gegy the significance of the random political reference other than to prove your wife is a bit stupid to try and insult (poorly) someone who could potentially help her.

/Salsa

Haggisman · 14 Feb 2015 at 09:35

Edit: Totally misread the OP as that the wife had been accused of taking coke and had then mentioned that someone else was taking it.

Upon re-reading:

Surely your wife can just say that she wasn't sure what the whistleblowing policy was, and spoke to her mentor first for advice (because I get the impression that this is exactly what happened).

Unless she's been informed about what the Uni's policy is, then how can she be expected to follow it?

Also, as ivrytwr3 has mentioned, if she gets punished for coming forward then it's going to stop anyone else doing so in the future...

Tefal · 14 Feb 2015 at 09:36

Derek W said:
How is your wife responsible for other students extra curricular activities?

because she went and told the boss that she knew somone had taken drugs, god knows why she did that though.

MrMoonX · 14 Feb 2015 at 09:36

its very easy to get kicked off a social work course, if she has in anyway fallen foul of the HCPC standards of proficiency for social workers in England then she is done for.

Reporting concerns about another student and drugs should have been done directly to her tutor right away, without delay! she might be saved by speaking to her practice educator, but depends on time frame.

you have to look at it this way, if there was any delay and that student was in contact with vulnerable adults or children then she has put service users at risk.

dottty27 · 14 Feb 2015 at 09:36

Unless she was doing the coke at the placement why would your wife mention this as it wont have any real impact on her placement

As for what can happen the wife will prob just get told to go to the uni first on all matters next time

MrMoonX · 14 Feb 2015 at 09:39

dottty27 said:
Unless she was doing the coke at the placement why would your wife mention this as it wont have any real impact on her placement

As for what can happen the wife will prob just get told to go to the uni first on all matters next time

.

Diddums · 14 Feb 2015 at 09:42

Sounds like your wife needs to learn how to keep her nose out of other people's matters, although I strongly suspect that tjere's more to this story than what you're telling us.

Josh · 14 Feb 2015 at 09:44

Snitches get stitches!

Not srs

Your wife imo did the right thing, sadly though it seems like the Uni has had a knee jerk reaction dude to the "social work" side and is possibly trying to appease someone that is rather annoyed about the actions of the coke taking student.

Get some legal advice and see what happens.

ci_newman · 14 Feb 2015 at 09:45

The course entails working with children. This type of role requires a CRB (or the current equivalant) and a past habit of using a class-A drug would almost certainly deny that being granted.

The issue here is that your wife reported the other student to her mentor rather than the Uni which reflects badly on the Uni and future placements

Derek W · 14 Feb 2015 at 09:49

Diddums said:
Sounds like your wife needs to learn how to keep her nose out of other people's matters, although I strongly suspect that tjere's more to this story than what you're telling us.

Didn't you read the op? His wife said she knew of another student doing coke so she did keep her nose out of it

wnb · 14 Feb 2015 at 09:51

MrMoonX said:
its very easy to get kicked off a social work course, if she has in anyway fallen foul of the HCPC standards of proficiency for social workers in England then she is done for.

Reporting concerns about another student and drugs should have been done directly to her tutor right away, without delay! she might be saved by speaking to her practice educator, but depends on time frame.

you have to look at it this way, if there was any delay and that student was in contact with vulnerable adults or children then she has put service users at risk.

It took two weeks for the Uni to suspend the student accused of taking drugs... One would have thougt if people were at risk the Uni would have moved quicker.

Scrutinize · 14 Feb 2015 at 09:53

You need proper legal advice and representation on this asap. End of.....

wnb · 14 Feb 2015 at 09:54

Diddums said:
Sounds like your wife needs to learn how to keep her nose out of other people's matters, although I strongly suspect that tjere's more to this story than what you're telling us.

Their is always more to a story but as I explained in my post I wont go into detail. Prior to my wife whistle blowing on a 'coke head' she was a model student.

Scrutinize · 14 Feb 2015 at 09:56

wnb said:
Their is always more to a story but as I explained in my post I wont go into detail. Prior to my wife whistle blowing on a 'coke head' she was a model student.

Then get legal advice. Seriously without the full details, in a case this complicated, no one on here will be able to advise sensibly.

Nevakonaza · 14 Feb 2015 at 09:59

Wife should have stayed out of it in all to be honest and not said anything,Doing the right thing isn't always the best thing to do as you now have experienced.