Well done, you made the correct decision.
In your reflective activity, you should have covered all of these points:
- By speaking to the care manager you have acknowledged Jenny’s request and not ignored it. This will enable the care manager to discuss boundaries with Jenny and explain that your decision not to accept her request is not personal.
- You may have recognised that although you are not working directly with Jenny, you still have a duty of care as a social service worker to do what you can to get appropriate support for her. Given the recent changes in her life, Jenny may require increased support to cope with these.
- You may have realised that Jenny’s friend request could be an alert that she is not coping in her current situation. By passing on the information about this to the worker, you could be helping Jenny to get appropriate help and support early which might prevent things from getting worse for her.
- By speaking to the worker, you are also adhering to the Scottish Social Services Codes of Practice for Social Service Workers. In particular, your practice was consistent with protecting the rights and promoting the interests of Jenny; promoting her independence while protecting her and others as far as possible from harm; respecting the rights of Jenny while seeking to ensure that her actions did not harm herself or other people; and working in a way that upholds public trust and confidence in you and other social service workers.
- You are likely to have a clear understanding and good awareness of professional boundaries and how to maintain these. These boundaries are in place not only for the protection and promotion of the best outcomes for people who use your service, but also to protect you from conflict of interests or questions about your suitability to work in your role.
- You are also likely to have a good knowledge and understanding of your organisation’s policies and procedures regarding social media. In recent years, as social media has often blurred the lines of formality, people can find it easy to share more information than they intended, and often forget how far and how quickly information can spread. You may have heard the stories of how embarrassing information about people has gone ‘viral’ and been seen by literally millions of people around the world within hours.
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