I'm sorry, you've made the wrong decision.
Here are some points that you need to consider. You should have included some of these in your reflective activity:
- This is not the correct action to take. While you acknowledge what you did was wrong, you are not showing that you understand why it was wrong.
- The best choice open to you now is it accept responsibility for what has happened. You should apologise and acknowledge that you should have stopped the conversation about Diane right away.
- Discussing a service user’s care package outside of work and without your manager’s guidance was a serious mistake.
- Members of the public overheard your conversation which could damage their confidence in the social services and cause distress to them or to Diane.
- You have not shown that you are aware of the SSSC Codes of Practice for Social Service Workers. You need to learn these codes and make sure that you really understand them.
- It is essential to remember that all social service workers are expected to create and maintain the trust and confidence of people who use services and carers.
- An important part of upholding public trust and confidence in social services is ensuring that you do not abuse the trust of people who use services or carers, or the access you have to personal information about them.
- You must respect confidential information and know your employer’s policies on confidentiality. Service users have the right to expect that they will have their privacy and confidentiality upheld by social service workers in whom they and the public place their trust and confidence.
- You should recognise and use responsibly the power that comes from your work with service users and carers. You are expected to respect and maintain the dignity and privacy of service users. A breach of a service user’s confidentiality may put them at risk of harm.
- You must act in a way that demonstrates you are trustworthy and reliable. Through your actions you earn the trust of colleagues, service users and the public. A failure to follow guidelines on confidentiality constitutes a breach of trust.
- By not taking the correct action in this situation, it could call into question your suitability to be a social services worker. There has now been a complaint about your behavior which could result in disciplinary action.
When Bob began to talk about Diane outside of work, the correct action to take was to tell Bob right away that you should not discuss this further until you both returned to work. Click here to find out why this was the correct option.
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