PART 2: My Complaint to CLAIR
[Just look at what is required by CLAIR in order for a breach of confidence to have taken place - Kristina Fukuda's first reply 23rd January]
=====================================
2002/12/05 9:42
Hi Kristina,
Huw Oliphant asked me to speak to you.
It regards Jennifer Kikuchi-Fitzgerald - the ALT supervisor at Sendai-shi.
I understand she is one of JET's official councillors, or similar.
I wish to make a formal complaint against her and I expect disciplinary measures to be taken to ensure that this never happens to anyone again.
I once confided in her that the reason I missed three days of school on one occasion was due to severe stress owing to circumstances back home.
She initially sympathised with me and said that missing school was not a problem - I was allowed to under my contract.
At a later date Kikuchi - my supposed ally and supporter - at a meeting to resolve problems with my school - broke this confidence.
In fact, in an effort to stop me asking probing questions about what my JTE's and Kocho sensei were saying about me behind my back, she announced to everyone in the room that my 'three days off due to stress' were to be considered 'skipping school' if I continued 'causing trouble by asking questions' [these aren't direct quotes but the gist of a 15 minute conversation].
Naturally I found this abuse of trust abhorent and unacceptable, as I am sure that you must too.
I demand that action be taken against her.
The meeting took place on the afternoon of Wednesday June 12th.
=====================================
23 January 2003 03:28
Dear,
Hello again. I have been consulting with the Counselling System Committee (CSC),
the group of professional mental health specialist who work with CLAIR, regarding
your complaint. You have made a very serious charge, and we want to be sureto
have as much information as possible in order to decide if action is necessary,
and if so, what the best course of action would be. Thus, there are some issues
that have arisen as needing clarification before we can proceed further. Please
be assured that your answers will be kept confidential within the CSC. I will
list the questions we would like answered below:
1. What were the circumstances of the initial converstation (the one in which
you revealed confidential information which you say Jennifer later divulged?
When and where did it occur? Who called on whom? Why?
2. When and how did you make a request for personal counselling to Jennifer?
What goals did you set out?
3. If there was no request for counselling, then what was your and Jennifer's
"contract"? i.e. did you contact her to get help with school issues?
did she contact you because the school asked her to? or was there some other
reason for the initial converstation? What goals were set out, and how clearly
did you discuss them?
4. When and how did you and Jennifer discuss the handling of confidentiality
orconfidential information? How clear were the definitions of what could and
could not be shared with others? Was the information you are now pointing to
clearly labeled by you as confidential? How did you do this?
5. What were the circumstances when you allege Jennifer revealed confidential
information? Who was there? What was the purpose of the meeting? How did the
information come up? Was it part of the discussion or something Jennifer seemedto
say "out of the blue"? Was the information something which others
did not already know? Who heard it?
6. How were you harmed by this alleged breach of confidentiality? Were the results
of the meeting different than if it had not been said?
================================
+++NOTE+++
I hope that you can satisfy all of these criteria when you have a confidential
meeting with a CLAIR councillor. Remember I have all of these conversations
on tape - I had learned not to trust anyone at this point.
=================================
27 January 2003 13:24
Hi Kristina,
Sorry for the delay in replying.
You have posed some very detailed questions which I will endeavour to answer
fully and satisfactorily - though I do feel somewhat that in some cases they
miss the point.
I believe that the best reply I can give you is a copy of the recording of
the meeting in question and I will send it to you...
> 1. What were the circumstances of the initial conversation (the one in
which you revealed confidential information which you say Jennifer later
divulged? When and where did it occur? Who called on whom? Why?
As I recall, Jennifer contacted me at home to ask me something about a
completely unrelated matter. Naturally, the topic of why I was at home came
up and I told Jen my awful predicament. I did not wish anyone else to know
the reasons but trusted Jen as she had told us all before that she was our
councillor and that everything we said to her would naturally be in
confidence. She told all of the Sendai ALTs this, as a group, several times
over the course of the year.This occurred about a month before the meeting.
> 2. When and how did you make a request for personal counselling to
Jennifer? What goals did you set out?
I did not make a request for counselling.
> 3. If there was no request for counselling, then what was your and
Jennifer's "contract"? i.e. did you contact her to get help with school
issues? did she contact you because the school asked her to? or was there
some other reason for the initial conversation? What goals were set out,
and how clearly did you discuss them?
See answer to question 1. Her "contract" was that she told all of
Sendai's
ALTs that she would keep our confidence.
> 4. When and how did you and Jennifer discuss the handling of
confidentiality or confidential information?
Jennifer told all of the Sendai ALTs that she would keep our confidence.I
believed her.
> How clear were the definitions of what could and could not be shared with
others?
Very clear. By definition, the keeping of our confidentiality means 'not
telling anyone else'.Jennifer told all Sendai ALTs that she would keep our
confidence.
>Was the information you are now pointing to clearly labelled by you as
confidential? How did you do this?
It did not need to be labelled by me as confidential. Even so,I recall
confirming during the initial conversation, by asking that she wouldn't tell
anyone what was being said - something she naturally assured me of - despite
the exchange being redundant.I realise that I cannot be completely positive
on this point and will concede it if need be.
> 5. What were the circumstances when you allege Jennifer revealed
confidential information? Who was there? What was the purpose of the
meeting? How did the information come up? Was it part of the discussion or
something Jennifer seemed to say "out of the blue"? Was the information
something which others did not already know? Who heard it?
Naturally the best answer to give here would be for you to listen to the
meeting. The meeting was held to explain the contents of the following email
which I received, completely out of the blue on May 28th ...
--------------------------
Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 18:55:23 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Fitzgerald Jennifer" <jenfitz1006@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [2001sendaialts] tax info for the Brits
Hi there. Ok we need to make an arrangement to have you come in for a bit
of a chat about the school. I know you would like to stay at Yamada
however, the schools also have the right to request new ALTs etc...We have
just received all of the schools forms in regarding to the ALT for the next
year and Yamada would like to have a new ALT.
I hope you could understand their position. If you were to be in this same
situation in a Miyagi local BOE it would very much be the case where you
could have been asked to leave the JET Program altogether. I think why
maybe things are going well now is because as far as they are concerned you
are leaving in July so they are just trying to keep the peace until then.
I know you have mentioned going to a high school for next year but that will
be impossible as there are none available. At the moment I am trying to put
the school list together for next year. We have though about placing you at
Nakada(Josh Mc Veigh-Schultz school) or possibly Fukurobara (Matt Wilsons
school). Of course we would also like to have your opinions heard on where
you would go.
We could possibly have you come in this Friday or if that doesn't work for
you then anytime next week.
please call me here at Shidouka or just give me an e-mail.
Thanks
Jen
-----------------
Naturally I was more than a touch taken aback by this. I had been working
happily at my school up until this point.I sent the following reply the next
day:-
Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 06:16:47 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Swift response required >>>>>>>>>>
To: "Fitzgerald Jennifer" <jenfitz1006@yahoo.com>
Dear Jen,
Your reply to my email came as a bit of a shock, to say the least. You said
in your email:-
"We have just received all of the schools forms in regarding to the ALT
for
the next year and Yamada would like to have a new ALT. I hope you could
understand their position. "
How can I understand Yamada's position - no one has discussed this with me.
We have had a few disagreements about nenkyu. However, I have done nothing
wrong and my classes are going well. Can you please explain to me what
exactly there is to understand about 'Yamada's position' .
Furthermore, what exactly do you mean by:-
"If you were to be in this same situation in a Miyagi local BOE it would
very much be the case where you could have been asked to leave the JET
Program altogether. "
What situation am I exactly in? I have done nothing wrong and would like to
have explained to me exactly what theis 'situation' is, that I am supposed
to be in, and why it constitutes me having to either leave the JET programme
or move school.
One could argue that there is a slight insinuation that I have done
something wrong somewhere along the lines.
Would you care to tell me what it is?
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
-------------------------
We eventually held a meeting (it was either the next day, or, more likely,
the day after - Friday 31st May). Present were myself Kamikura, Jennifer and
Ann McAllen (Sendai's ALT chief advisor).
It became clear to me that my school had complained about me but not told
myself or even Jennifer what the problem was.However, I wanted to know what
I had done wrong before accepting the huge upheaval of moving school. I
didn't want to be convicted without a trial, or even being told what I was
accused of - which I believe is a reasonable assumption.
Unfortunately, Jennifer seemed to be affronted by my asking these questions
and revealed the confidential information and said that it would be used
against me to prove that I had been skipping school. In other words, if I
was not going to go quietly then reasons for me being dismissed would be
fabricated against me.
Fortunately, I reminded Jen (despite a great deal of protestation from her)
that my 3 days' absence was completely legal and taken for very good
reason - as well as the fact I was abhorred that she had revealed the
information. After a further five minutes of her continued attempts with
these tactics she eventually conceded I had done nothing wrong and moved
onto other blackmailing methods to stop me asking questions - Huw Oliphant
at MEXT is currently dealing with this.
> 6. How were you harmed by this alleged breach of confidentiality? Were
the results of the meeting different than if it had not been said?
I was harmed by this breach of confidentiality to the point where I had to
give up work because of it. Jen had revealed herself utterly untrustworthy
and I was completely hurt by her revelations and actions.Shortly afterwards,
I made the decision to cancel my decision to renew my contract for another
year because quite simply I could not work for people who not only thought
nothing of revealing confidential information but even used it against me.
Because of this I was left in Japan without a job - waiting for my partner
to complete her contract before we could go home early. The financial
repercussions to us both have been huge and my feelings of hurt and
disillusionment with JET have been enormous. If Jen had not revealed this
information and acted in this manner then we would both still be in Japan
working happily.
Now I am continuing to pursue the matter to make sure that such a situation
never happens to any JET again.
Finally, I must ask you some questions.
You make a great deal about establishing things like contracts and rules
before discussing confidential information during conversations with
supervisors. Are you suggesting that every single conversation containing
such information must be preceded with a phrase such as "what follows is
confidential and must not be repeated elsewhere"? If so I suggest you
inform every single JET immediately of this highly unusual practice. In my
experience and, I believe, the experience of every other JET in Japan, if
one's supervisor tells everybody that they are your confidante, one doesn't
expect them to EVER reveal highly sensitive information. Whatever the
circumstance. Can you please clarify this? I believe there are thousands of
JETs out there that would be extremely worried to find out that most of
their most sensitive "confidential" conversations are not confidential
at
all.
The most important thing however, is that you listen to the meeting and
judge for yourself whether Jennifer's actions are acceptable or not. I will
send you a copy asap.
I look forward to your reply.
===============================
+++NOTE+++
I then sent CLAIR and Huw a CD with all of my taped conversations on it.
This is the response I received later...
===============================
Date: 25 Feb 2003 15:33:00 +0900
Subject: Re(2): Re:Formal complaint
Thank you for your patience in what has been a long process. The members of
the Counselling System Committee (CSC) have reviewed the information you sent,
as well as information sent by Jennifer Kikuchi. They have concluded that there
in your situation, there was no breach of confidentiality because there was
no clearcontract or agreement that your conversation was a counselling situation,
and therefore confidentiality does not apply. A general statement made at a
large meeting is not sufficient to cover something that the school already knew.
Thank you for your input. It has been and will be helpful in improving the PA
system for future JET Programme participants.
Kind regards,
Kristina M. Fukuda
JET Programme Coordinator
CLAIR
============================
+++NOTE+++
So there you have it.
I had everything on tape and CLAIR still avoided doing a single thing about
it. If you are a prospective JET or current JET - I'm afraid if shit and fan
collide - you can trust nobody.