I've been working in care for over 7 years mostly home care but also in residential homes and I am currently working as a live in carer through an agency, we are as you know governed by lots of rules, regulations and procedures to protect our clients and ourselves. I was recently in a situation where my clients close family member wanted my set of house keys (they don't have any) Because I would not hand them over the person was so abusive I ended up having to lock myself in my bedroom and call the police as I so frightened for my own and clients safety. I cannot go in detail because of confidentiality but needless to say it is an experience I will never forget and a week on I am still very upset by it, I wanted to post so that people may understand the difficulties carers face, I know I have never faced this before and as yet I don't know if I want to return to caring but I've had such compliments in the past from families that do appreciate me. Support from the agency they've filled in an incident report, hopefully some action will be taken to protect future carers, the police have also advised something "be put in writing" regarding the person visiting the house, they have logged it as abusive, so if something happens again maybe further action will be taken but I didn't want to have to go to court, maybe that's not standing up to this thug of a bully but I would like to get on with my life.
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Debsoxford
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That’s an appalling situation to find yourself in and very frightening. It just takes one nasty incident like that to stop you in your tracks yet you are better than that. Please carry on caring as you obviously do such an amazing job and let’s hope this nasty bully is dealt with by the powers that be.
Thank you for courageously telling your story Debsoxford and I wish you all the best for the future.
Please come on here to chat anytime, we’re here for you. Xxxxx
That sounds like a really scary experience and you dealt with it in the only way possible, by putting yourself in a place of safety and calling the police. It shows how vulnerable live-in carers are to random acts of violence and abuse, and, unfortunately no set of rules or regulations could prevent that from happening, though hopefully it's a fairly rare thing.
I'm not surprised if you don't want to go back to that situation and ultimately it's the person you cared for who will suffer most, as getting live-in carers isn't always the easiest thing in the world, and after an incident like that it would be understandable for agencies to refuse clients who have endangered the safety of staff.
Maybe it would be best not to go back, if it has distressed you to the point of being fearful in future.
I completely agree that Caring is under-rated, under-paid and full of pitfalls. Even in a nursing home, you are vulnerable to untrue accusations being levelled at you. It's a tricky thing protecting both client and staff.
But I wish you well, whatever your decision is. Only you know how much this has affected you and how much you feel you can cope with going forward.
But certainly good Carers don't grow on trees, so I hope this unfortunate thing doesn't drive you away from Caring altogether.
Very best wishes, and do come back and let us know how it all works out.
Thank you Callendersgal the agency have done an incident report but I am concerned for my colleagues but hopefully some measures will be put in place especially as that's the police advice!
I'm going to have some time of but I enjoy caring so much I don't want to let a bully thug like him deprive me of doing what I enjoy
Has a safe guarding been raised Its terrible what happened and makes you wonder what could happen to others or to the person who's family member it was who acted this way
An incident form has been filled in!! But I've also done an email which includes police recommendations, hopefully something more to protect carers will be put in place.
I'm so sorry you had to deal with such a horrible situation when you, and all carers do such fantastic work, and I hope you never have to deal with a situation like that again, I wish you, and your clients well x
That is dreadful and I would be nervous too,and initially I thought the patient was being abusive ,and was shocked to find it was a family member of the patient ,and obviously there has to be a reason why these relations were not given a set of house keys,and I expect your client has a very good reason why.?
Families can be very difficult and totally unreasonable and wrong at law. Try not to let this stop you doing somethng you are good at. Perhaps another time you are given keys it would be a good idea to get the person giving them to make it clear exactly who you can or cannot allow to have use of the which would protect you from such unpleasantness. No -one should be abusive to you anyway. Why did they want the keys? I am not saying they had ulterior motives but they would not be the first family members to help them selves to something that was not theirs and you would have been blamed. A close friend's family were deliberately not given keys for this reason .
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Off topic Friday, late as usual.
