Does the Volusia County Division of Corrections apparently have a fair and progressive policy regarding the treatment of pregnant correctional officers?
Updated November 3, 2010
"God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you please - you can never have both."- Ralph Waldo Emerson
While doing some investigative research on the Volusia County Division of Corrections, we came across two presentations that VCDC Director Dr. Ford gave during a 2005 U.S. Department of Justice seminar.
We invite you to read these presentations, along with the documented Q&A that accompanied these presentations. Please read both presentations at the below web link. Dr. Ford's presentations start on page 45 and end on page 50 (as listed on the bottom of the pages).
On page 47 of the DOJ bulletin, during a question and answer session, the following Q&A was documented.
Question: What about pregnant women? Do they come in with light duty requests?
Answer: (Dr. Ford -replied) We treat our pregnant women very well. As soon as they report it, we offer a
reduced contact post. However, we just had one female employee who continued to work
the unit, and she had no qualms and no problems.
So, while we here at VolusiaExposed might not agree with all of Dr. Ford's sick leave / Family Medical Leave practices or policies - we do support her apparent committment to her pregnant staff. It would appear that based on Dr. Ford's statements, pregnant officers will find an understanding administrator in Dr. Ford.
Some other law enforcement / correctional agencies have been known to require their pregnant officers to jump through all sorts of hoops in order for them to remain on the job during their pregnancy. Some pregnancies are high risk - and what kind of employer would want to increase the stress levels of an officer experiencing a high risk pregnancy? Kudos to Dr. Ford for apparently having both the knowledge and compassion in immediately assigning these officers to a reduce contact post (if requested by the officer).
As per the Department of Justice bulletin's instructions, additional information can be obtained by contacting Dr. Ford.
Marilyn Chandler Ford, Ph.D., CJM,
Volusia County Corrections,
1300 Red John Rd., Daytona Beach, FL 32120-2865
386-323-3524 Dr. Ford's Email Address - Click here
Should anyone have knowledge that VCDC is not honoring their documented committment to pregnant officers, we here at VolusiaExposed.Com would be extremely interested in hearing about it.
Although we are pleased with how VCDC is apparently treating pregnant officers, we do have some concerns about VCDC's compliance with other leave usage mandates, such as the Family Medical Leave Act, etc. We invite you to review our concerns at the below link.