Carers or suspeCts? - Manifesto Club

Institutionalising Suspicion and Mistrust / 18 Institutionalising Suspicion and Mistrust / 19
The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (Exceptions) Order 1975
detailed certain positions that were exempt from the Act and any convictions,
whether spent or not, would have to be divulged by the applicant.
In the intervening years, the number of exempt posts has grown so
exponentially that to all intents and purposes the government has effectively
undermined the original Act in both theory and practice. The
most notable change has been the addition of posts involving working
with children and vulnerable adults. The rehabilitative ideal has been
lost, and, for a significant section of the population their convictions will
never be regarded as spent.
Institutionalising Suspicion and Mistrust
Personal testimonies can also help illustrate the way in which the
present climate of distrust and the procedural measures that arise from
it inhibit the caring relationship. One of us [Josie Appleton] experienced
this first hand, as a routine trip to the physiotherapist for a sports injury
became a relationship between potential victim and predator:
When I turned up for my regular physiotherapy appointment
I was told that we would ‘have to be supervised’,
because my therapist’s CRB check had not come through.
He had already had three checks, and because he was from
China the whole thing was probably a waste of time, but
still, anybody receiving medical treatment is classified as
a ‘vulnerable adult’ and therefore requires CRB protection. 36
A routine appointment is recast as a potential abuse situation, to the
annoyance of both patient and therapist. Such a climate can also affect
worker-client interaction in care settings. The experience of the care
worker below will be familiar to many within the sector:
1st CRB needed: I teach at a college where I do a lot of
work with adults [who are not in Education, Employment
or Training…]
2nd CRB needed: I also work for a national care group who
own homes for a national care organisation.
3rd CRB needed: I work for an agency, currently working in
a sheltered village for people with learning disabilities.
4th CRB needed: I work for another agency in nursing
homes, caring for the old, infirm and dying.
The consequence In all cases, I find it hard to do my job
the way I would like to. I cannot be alone with them,
or I have to leave the door open. I cannot assist an old
lady to the toilet in many places, despite her requesting
such help so she does not have the indignity of soiling
herself. (Occasionally I do as a caring person as it
distresses me and my colleagues if we don’t, and so we
risk our jobs caring for people because we care)! 37
Perversely, procedures set up to ‘protect the vulnerable’ actually damage
the quality of care they receive. In an email to the Manifesto Club, a lady
who works in social care describes how systems for the management of
carers end up cutting off service users from potentially fruitful contacts:
Modern social care services advocate practice which
promotes participation and inclusion, and supports
people to develop social networks and natural structures
of support within their communities. However, a
dichotomy exists within the social care system, which
itself creates one of the greatest barriers to achieving
this vision: the framework of vulnerable adult protection,
and the organisational culture that it creates, means
that it is extremely difficult for people to develop informal
relationships within the community, outside of the
regulated environment of care services.
There is minimal opportunity for service users to interact
and engage with the people around them, unless strictly
supervised, and attempts by members of the public to
form a friendship with a person receiving care services