You have just run a night-time youth event. After staff have packed up the venue, you find a lone young person who had been at the event, hanging around outside. The young person lives about 5km away, wants to go home, but says that there is nobody who could come and pick them up.
It is midnight, it is dark (obviously!), it is an isolated area and there is no public transport - not even taxis at that time.
There is no MissionBeat, Salvos, outreach or "youth bus" type service in the district.
Your agency does not normally transport clients, and the event advertising had said that young people would need to arrange their own transport home. However several staff have their own cars there, and one staff member offers to drop the young person home.
You are the boss - what do you do?
The logical first step would be to phone his/ her home or someone he/ she knows and trusts to come and get her. If truly stuck for a solution, I'd drive the kid home- with him/ her in the back seat, ideally with another person in the car, and with a conversation with the parents when i dropped him/ her off.
ReplyDeleteI would say do it. But the boss does it. That comes with the territory. And then have a meeting next week / next time as to how to avoid this happening again next time.
ReplyDeleteIssues happen and we deal with them then and there or we plan for them. Obviously there was no planning with this one and therefore you accept the consequences.
Policy and procedure stops this happening and it is always reviewed, improved and updated.
Sorry to be an OH&S stick in the mud but this one is simple to fix.
I'd say it gets more complex if you were to say, drop the kid off and then find the family not there or it be a place where you would not feel happy to drop the kid off..then what do you do? Call protective services? Where does ya job stop for the day eh? :-)
I'll leave that thought with you.
This is a situation that, as youth workers, we have probably all been in at one time or another.
ReplyDeleteAs the first poster said, the logical first step is ALWAYS to try calling the parents. In some cases though, the parents might not know or even care where their kid is (in fact, if a young person is left there with no way of getting home, this becomes a lot more likely). But at the end of the day, there is no way that i am going to drive off into the moonlight with a young person left alone at night. I would take the young person home because I believ that when a youth worker holds an event, our duty of care necessitates that we ensure all young people get home safely.
On the point of planning - all the planning in the world will not stop this situation from happening. Even if you have a run of bus pick-ups, you advertise appropriately and you co-locate with public transport options, etc. There's always a last train/bus/shuttle bus cycle and nothing you can do to force young people to take those options. Having said that, we should be planning to ensure that the situation does not NEED to happen.
But yes - at the end of the day, whether you're the boss or the event organiser, the duty of care for young people in attendance means that you CANNOT leave a young person with no way of getting home, especially at night.
couple things,.. firstly whether you have a duty of care or not. if you clearly make it known that the event required own transport, and the event finshed at a reasonable time where public transport was still accessible, you notified bus companies of the event, police were notified of the event etc. then there may not be a duty of care issue. The event finishing at midnight, is quite different to the event finishing at 10pm with a few hours to pack up. What would you do if there were a group of friends, say 12 of them who all needed lifts in different directions? What happens if a young person refuses to go home and runs off? You need to take reasonable steps to ensure yp get home safely, and that's all you are required to do, and usually all you can do.
ReplyDeleteAlso, your assessment would need to include whether you have a previous relation with the young person, age, gender of the yp and gender of the worker, apparent dynamics of the yp, etc. You dont just transport a young person without making some form of assessment of course.
as someone else said, i agree if you could call ahead to the home it would be useful to notifiy parents etc. who's response would also add to the assessment.
You'd also need to ensure the car was appropriate. An extreme example just to make a point, if a worker's car had porn in the front passenger seat, it would obviously be innapropriate. Beer sitting on the floor maybe, personal things, i dont know. Just something to consider.
If a worker was to drop the yp home, i would ask that the worker phoned or texted you to confirm once completed, and i agree that two workers in the car would be best practice.
I agree that two workers in the car would be a priority. It ensures everyones safety and then if there is a duty of care issue when you arrive at the young person's home, there are two workers there to address the next issue (and again ensure everyone's safety!)
ReplyDeleteI've been in this position many times.Depite the fact i always asked parents/carers to collect YP at conclusion of events on promo material. The big question of when does the duty of care end, at the conclusion of the event or when the YP gets home? We always attempted to ring a parent or responsible adult to collect them but have driven many YP home. Always with 2 staff and best with one the same gender and a suitable car i.e. insured, road worthy etc. Bottom line it will always happpen as sadly many parents simply don't care.Amazed at the number of times we would ring a parents mobile only to discover they were at a club and intoxicated. We have at times even had to ring Police when unable to raise anyone by phone and trying to assist 1 or more F/M 13 to 15 Y/O.
ReplyDeleteSo 'duty of care' is only defined by law? Just because you have made the necessary provisions does that mean "there may not be a duty of care issue"? Can we wash our hands of responsibility because we have taken the 'required' practical steps?
ReplyDeletei would first ring parents or carers and see if they could come and get the young person, if they couldnt and i had their permission i would drive the young person home to ensure the young persons safety , but i would make sure a work collegue came with me so i have a witness that all legal responsibilities were taken , and i would speak to the parents when we got there and let them know this was not an ideal situation and next time they must arrange to pick their child up or arrange appropriate transport home .
ReplyDeleteIn this situation I feel that you need to look at your policy and procedure and see what it says. I know that could not drive away knowing that a young person that attended your event was left there alone I would need to make sure that they were safe. The first thing you need to do is to contact their parents/carer to come and collect them. If this was not able to be done then with another member in the car take them home and speak with parent/career when you get there, or ring the police to handle if there is no answer. The way the place that my children go to is that the parent/ career must sign them in and out for their safety, I know this is doesn’t always work but it’s a start.
ReplyDeleteUsing your policies and procedures and the safety of the young person, i would firstly ring a family member to see if someone was able to collect the young person.If this does not pan out i would then inform the supervisor .the supervisor and another staff member of the same sex could transport the young person home .Once home there could be some communication with the parents or parent about the sistuation .
ReplyDeleteFirstly I believe even though it has been made clear what time the event finishes we still have a duty of care to this young person and are responsible for their safety and well being until they are in the care of the appropriate care giver. I would exhaust any avenues available to contact home and if unavailable any emergency contacts. if unavailable i would have to contact community services. if i could contact someone and they were unable to come and pick he/she up i myself with another staff member would then transport them home. I would review policy on this as i would with any situation that arises.
ReplyDeleteIn this situation, I would give this child a lift home. As youth workers we have a dute of care and getting our clients home safe is one of them.
ReplyDeleteI would contact their parents or care givers to see if there was anyone to pick this child up, If not I would take this child home myself. To make sure we don't get any legal issues I would ask one of my workers to accompany me. For the future I would be looking into getting funding to get a bus so this was not to happen again.
Give the kid a lift... It’s midnight and without a ride from you they will be left there all alone...If this is a big issue to your work place policies and procedures maybe they need to be reviewed and updated. There are times when the only thing that matters is “The best interest of the child”. How would it make you feel to be left all alone in the dark late at night in an isolated area because nobody cared about you or they couldn’t because it crossed a boundary on their work place practises? You are still basically working and I would like to think you wouldn’t step out of your role as a youth worker until the event was fully closed down... It’s all good and well to say the event should have been planned better with transport, parent knowledge etc. This time it wasn’t. At some point it could be reflected upon so it hopefully won’t happen again. However Right now this young person needs a lift and you are responsible in your duty of care to give it to them.
ReplyDeleteIf all other avenues had been tried and no success than I cant see why there is an issue with giving the young person a lift home. Even if you got in contact with the parent or carer and they had no means of transport, permission off them would also be helpful. Having 2 workers in the car is definately needed. Have the process written down and it all signed by all those involved including the young person,to cover all basis if there were a legal issue to arise.
ReplyDelete1. Refer to policy of your company
ReplyDelete2. Attempt to call the YPs family/gaurdian
3. TWO-THREE youth workers take the YP home together.