The problems that can cause drama in disablity facilities..

 

This is a really interesting question of what do to when a client complains about a support worker and there is no proof, but there with the support worker in question is a pattern of unacceptable behaviours, so things like falling asleep on shift, medication near misses,( that aren’t reported) behaviours that aren’t acceptable in a support worker working for an agency and this is a massive issue for both clients and providers and I have experienced this and it complicates things when it comes down to familiar relationships both within and outside of the company.

This is a really complex question and I am going to try and answer the question due to the fact that I have had a situation that is similar to this pop up in my life but it wasn’t exactly like I am describing and I see that the response from the provider could have been so much better and it shows that you really do need good communication in the organization from the bottom up and the top down needs to be a clear two-way street due to the fact that it means that people feel safe in that organization to speak up.  I know that some providers that support workers aren’t able to speak up and this situation can be made worse by a cover up culture.  As again we are seeing that providers are not up with the legislation as it is changing rapidly as well and we are seeing a massive push towards person centred care and not block funding or having to rely on family and friends and struggle but it has created a situation where people don’t feel safe to complain as they feel that they can’t or they feel that the providers will make them feel like a trouble maker due to the fact that they dared to speak up.

I in my other blog posts was talking about manifestation and I  know that your thoughts create your reality but I didn’t realise until it happened that I was so worried about one support worker that I try to minimize my contact with was doing some coverage shifts and we had been told that she was being removed from the house and I know that there is going to be a transition period for people but I see that this support worker is in the job because her family owns the business. But I am failing to understand why a support worker with the behaviour’s that I have described above is in this industry or even not working for another industry and doesn’t see that when she has two clients that don’t appreciate her “ sense of humour” including flipping the bird to a client, or swearing at them under their breath it really doesn’t help my trust issue/ paranoid thinking that I live with as well.

I saddens me to say that when this support worker is on in my house that I don’t feel safe, so I don’t get good quality sleep, and this again makes me at risk of more paranoid thinking due to the fact that I am over tired.  

The other question is what happens when the client has a history of manipulating a situation to her advantage but has worked so hard to be able to tell the truth so who do you believe? This has recently happened to me and I see that this is where notes for support workers are so important as is having good formal and informal conduct in ethics in support as what a support worker might think of as a joke might not be funny to a client and a client might not be able to control themselves manipulating the situation as it might be a learnt behaviour as a survival technique as well.

But I would think that when you have clients that don’t want to engage with you on your shift or minimize their contact with you this could be a massive red flag in that you need to see what you are doing and it’s hard as it is cold and flu season but I see that this is the issue as some providers have the attitude of you get whom you get and you don’t get upset by this and we see that people need to be aware that sometimes this does work but in the long term it for me creates care resistance due to not being able to trust or connect with your support workers. We also see that this could be actively causing harm to a client in that they would push themselves when it would be better for them to rest and ask for help.

 I am not asking for the world but simply for a support worker to do their job and to do it well.  So, in a sil situation (that being supported independent living) doing the afternoon tasks so the basics that are the responsibility of the support workers and this will vary from house to house as well. For me, it’s a lot of prompting, but generally, it’s unpacking bags from activities outside of the house. Such as shopping, going to a day centre or volunteering activities, work or an adventure day.

It might be cooking dinner for the clients if they aren’t capable of doing it for themselves or prompting them to microwave their dinner if it’s precooked or if they have a meal delivery service, as this is an option under the NDIS as well.

The question that I asked above is very relevant as they were believing the support worker not the client and when the house had a rental inspection there was not a formal breach made but a complaint due to the fact that the basic house work hadn’t been done and the management had to realise that there was not the right team in the house and to put the support worker to actually work as it’s not an easy job being a support worker in a Sil house situation.

There is a lot of balancing going on and from what I am seeing that there is not right or wrong answer to what  I described above  and the housemate was also dragged into this situation by no fault of their own and blamed for daring to ask for help/ demand help from the support worker when they  had told the client that a support worker isn’t your house keeper, maid or mother so the person mother did step in and ask the very logical question then why did she qualify for a Sil house what help can you give her as the mother put the daughter at risk due to asking her community access agency to help and we see that people need, to be aware that you need to ask to have another agency in the house due to “ insurance reasons.”

It came to a head when the mother of the “higher functioning client was in the house when they had a “house meeting” this was going to never be a democratic meeting but a telling off of the clients in their own home. The client realised this and contacted her mother and I see that the manger isn’t used to coming off second best and getting called out in that the support workers weren’t doing what they were paid to do, resulting in the house and the client that can be very manipulative having a very low level of hygiene, and not understanding the risk that this put not her in but the whole company and at potential of leaving both clients without a home.  The higher functioning client would have been able to go home but the other client wouldn’t.

The higher functioning client got “caught” having the other agency in the house and things where arranged “on the weekend, “to keep her house hygienic without her consent or considering that she is very engaged into the community.  As well as being challenged of undermining what they had arranged to as there was arrangement for someone from the housing agency to come into the house on a day when her  house mate wouldn’t be home, she re arranged her schedule to accommodate this and when no one turned up she just started asking for it to be done on a weekend, or doing it her self-causing her to get physically sicker than she all ready was at the time.

This seems to be a bit of a resolution but it’s not great that this even happened and that the clients had to go through this, I know that life isn’t all unicorns and rainbows but this is beyond the pail of what is acceptable in why did the house get to the stage where the higher functioning client was physically sick because of a lack of hygiene and when the support team was forced to do a deep clean they found human waste where it doesn’t belong and no one because of the lower functioning house mates past behaviour was willing to take the risk to help her or to make her clean it up.

I know that this can be an issue in any share houses just look at the new season of queer eye and the college fraternity house, but there comes a point when you do really need to take accountability for the people who you are caring for.

 So, what happened in this house is still on going but we see that this is the “emotional cost of the help given in the house so, if possible, it is so much better to be able to interview the clients or to go into a new Sil house where there is a say in the routine and who supports you.

 This situation doesn’t have any easy answers but what is happening is a gradual change to the team and that the “support team is being educated on what is good support,” and that the management team that isn’t related is doing drop ins when people are home to make sure that people are doing their job and doing it well.

All of this could have been prevented so I am going to end this post with the question of if you where anyone in this situation how would you have handled it too prevent this situation? As it has been analysed and there is a level of fault in everyone’s role, in the “higher functioning client” not speaking up” and recording things.

However mostly I see that the support worker and the agency where at fault in not doing a full investigation or preventing the situation from happening and I am talking about having someone so another person who doesn’t support the people come in and talk about it and the clients know that they won’t get into trouble  but they will be believed as this is something that I have discovered in more common than I thought in this industry that people climbing the ladder forget that we aren’t just a shift we are a person and that we need to be believed when things happen.

As this support worker from all accounts all round has set this client back as manipulation was all she new in how to get her unmet needs met, and a positive behaviour support plan would have been much better for this client in the long run, and I will talk about what they are and the danger in having too much “privacy” for it to work.  Let’s start the conversation around support and how it could be better delivered preventing things like this from happening as the support worker in question because of familiar relationships was able to “adjust” the roster to suit her needs and didn’t realise how much this would really create a disruption to a well-functioning household.