Facing possible retaliation after calling out unprofessional behavior with school faculty?
*The attached photos are the emails I am talking about that I received, it is not the retaliation part.
I’m aware that this might be more of a legal question but wondering if anyone has also been through this and/or has some advice. I’m a CMHC grad student currently in fieldwork and am set to graduate in April of next year. I have been in practicum since early May and really enjoy the site that I’m at. Sorry for the length but there’s lots of information that led up to this.
However, my school has not made this process easy and I think this might be a possible case of retaliation. There are 3 people involved at the site - let’s call them “K”, “F”, and “A”. When I got my offer, I was told that “K” would be my supervisor during the fieldwork experience. My school uses the site Tevera for us to log all of our hours and submit all the documents that need to be submitted. I put in “K”’s information and was told by my school shortly after that she could not be my supervisor because she hasn’t been a fully licensed LPC for at least 2 years (even though she’s other interns’ supervisors). I let the site know about this, and they said that “F” was going to be my supervisor for the majority of the internship. “F” was on maternity leave when I started and “A” was the covering supervisor. “F” communicated this to my school and the school told me to put “F” as the supervisor in Tevera as there can only be one site supervisor listed. There were documents that needed to be signed by the supervisor, as well as myself. I sign everything on time, but am still getting 0s in the class associated with practicum, because “F” isn’t signing the documents due to being on leave.
A few weeks ago, my instructor emailed me saying I missed 2 required live university supervisions, and to follow up with him. So I did, but was confused because I had only missed 1 due to a situation at work I had to be there for. He never clarified this, instead he sends me a list of all the assignments that are put in as 0s because there’s no supervisor signature. The assistant director of clinical training, not knowing I was still cc’d in the email, said to my instructor “just make sure she gets those 0s in the grade book. That might motivate her! Or not”. I responded to this a bit defensively but basically asking if this is what you do behind student’s backs and to take a look at what she’s missing before saying something like that about students. No response, probably bc she realized she got caught and is now pretending like it didn’t happen. I still keep trying to ask my instructor about what he said about 2 missed supervisions and he is denying that he ever said that.
There was some confusion about me receiving individual weekly supervision at my site, I wasn’t logging them bc I didn’t realize certain things could count as supervision. It has all been fixed as of now though. I get pulled into a meeting with my instructor, the other ACDT, and the DCT. I explained that “F” communicated with them about her maternity leave. They denied it. I also asked my instructor about the missed supervision because he STILL has not clarified to me about it. He goes “no no no no” and denies the whole thing, saying there was more to the email. The DCT, who I never met, asked where my responsibility is in this in a patronizing tone, implying that this was all my fault. I explain that yes maybe I could have reached out, but that their job is to support the students and that it’s unfair that all of the responsibility and blame is being put on us as we are still learning. I admit I raised my voice a bit out of frustration and said something like “I’m done trying to get through to you guys because it’s nothing but problems. So I’m leaving this meeting now” and logged off the zoom.
This past Wednesday, I got an email saying I had been placed on a Student Development Plan, which is basically the school’s version of a PIP at a job if that makes sense and that I need to sign it and it’s going into effect on Monday. The faculty put that I refused to take responsibility and accountability, was emotionally dysregulated, and that there were concerns about my ethical decision making, which are requirements that are assessed throughout the program. I didn’t violate ethics in any way. Of course they didn’t put all of the info that I put here that led up to this incident. They are making me meet with a mentor 4 times in the fall and I have to write a 3 page paper on how my decisions and my communication didn’t align with the ACA Code of Ethics and that how my meetings with my mentors changed that and how I have improved. They are acting like I screamed, threatened, and swore at them, but the worst thing I did was raise my voice just a little bit. I sent an email to all of them stating I was not going to sign anything until I get to share my side of the story with the committee in charge of SDPs. I have not received a response yet. And I don’t think I will. The thing is though, you will get disciplined and possibly dismissed from the program if you don’t comply. Even if the student doesn’t sign, it will go into effect.
My therapist thinks that I should threaten them with a lawyer. However I’m not sure a lawyer is going to take my case since nothing illegal is happening and there’s no money involved. I live in Connecticut and the school is based out of Chicago IL so idk if anything is different across state lines. I do want to take some sort of action though because this doesn’t seem fair and I’m not doing this bullshit paper on how I didn’t take responsibility even though THEY were the ones denying they ever sent the emails and deflecting everything I said. I think they’re just mad that I called them out on their mistakes and gave them any sort of criticism and they’re punishing me. Ugh is there something I’m missing?? They’re making me feel like I’m genuinely losing my mind. Please go easy on me if I’m missing something obvious.