Unpacking the Realities of Support Work: Accountability, Privacy, and Ethical Dilemmas
This is a big topic, and honestly, there are so many layers to it that I think it deserves a series. So let’s start at the beginning. Imagine you’re a support worker trying to educate people on the realities of your job—not the glossy, feel-good stories we often see online, but the actual, day-to-day challenges. You post a video about violence in the workplace, highlighting that no one goes to work expecting to be assaulted. This isn’t just about the support worker; these incidents also affect other clients and their families. In this case, the setting was a day center environment, which meant that everyone there was impacted. When support workers are pulled away from small groups to manage these incidents, lower-support-needs clients can end up unfairly left behind. Support work is meant to be about skill-building, and if someone is experiencing frequent meltdowns, we have to ask: should they even be in a day center environment until they can regulate their emotions more effectively? ...