Why is it important to be aware of your role and boundaries in relation to client service delivery?

This topic is based around the ethics, legal and moral limits, and standards which you must deploy as a professional Support Worker to protect customers and your fellow workers from physical, emotional and financial harm, ensuring you are not compromised in any way. Differing from other topics covered, there are clear parameters that need to be consistently followed and applied, therefore this session is unlike other more fluid areas covered in previous blogs.

The key focus areas include:

Privacy and confidentiality
Duty of Care
Friendships
Conflict of interest
Drugs and alcohol
Gifts
Employee pets
Sexual and intimate relationships

Please note: it is critical that you cross reference this generic overview with your organization’s policies and procedures as some may differ depending on your service model.

SupportWorker Co. will take no responsibility for your own personal actions in this domain. You are obliged to clarify expectations and professional boundaries with your employer directly. Should you be unsure of ANY of these practices, please refer to the Quality and Safeguarding Commission, NDIS Commission or other regulatory agencies who monitor and govern workplace practices, e.g., Fair Work, WHS, equal opportunities etc.

Underpinning every choice, action, and decision you make should be the NDIS Code of Conduct and their 7 principals which are:

act with respect for individual rights to freedom of expression, self-determination, and decision-making in accordance with relevant laws and conventions
respect the privacy of people with a disability
provide supports and services in a safe and competent manner utilizing care and skill
act with integrity, honesty, and transparency
take prompt steps to raise / act on concerns about matters that might have an impact on the quality and safety of supports provided to people with disability
take all reasonable steps to prevent and respond to all forms of violence, exploitation, neglect, and abuse of people with disability
take all reasonable steps to prevent and respond to sexual misconduct.

For more information please refer to: NDIS Code of Conduct (NDIS Providers) | NDIS Quality and Safeguards Commission (ndiscommission.gov.au).

To simplify how you can ensure that you always adopt professional boundaries, consider these 3 key areas of application:

Being under involved with your customer, which essentially suggests you are not present, (on your mobile phone too much?), being neither observant, considerate nor responsive to their needs. This could result in allowing them to engage in high risks activities which may be harmful.

It could mean you are being neglectful, (e.g., not encouraging the application of sunscreen which may result in painful sunburn at the beach or elsewhere), abuse in your personal language, style, tone, or loose talk in front of others in relation to you personally engaging in illegal activities.

These are obviously extreme examples, but over time these actions can subtly creep into our daily working life, therefore it is important to self-check regularly and be vigilant, particularly if you are fatigued or dealing with challenging behaviors.

Doing the right thing – focus on the person, not their disability. Determine their preferences, foster their potential, and help to enable growth. Encourage independence whilst minimizing high risk strategies therefore enabling a higher quality of life, accessing their choices whilst promoting their inclusion in decision making within their social groups. Monitor and help to manage their health conditions and overall wellbeing.

Over-involved – when the lines between you providing a paid service and your own personal care for the customer become blurred, it can be deemed inappropriate and sometimes dangerous for both of you.

This may include becoming involved in their life in an unprofessional manner, e.g., ‘being their friend’ as opposed to being friendly, meeting with them outside of scheduled hours etc. It is critical to ensure that the relationship between the employee and customer does not take priority over service delivery and our duties within.

Neglecting this could be highly risky and may cause confusion and anxiety to the customer should the Support Worker leave or does not engage more fully over time (which he/she should not). This can quickly lead to upset and emotional distress.

This type of approach is intrusive, exploitative and could be deemed abusive and controlling in nature. This may translate to a NDIS reportable incident, or even become included in the Royal Commission’s investigation process.

It is critical that you always “keep to your role parameters (swim lane)” and “do the right thing”. Do not deviate to ensure both you and your customer are always protected from unwarranted and inaccurate allegations.

How does this work in practice? What are the hints and tips related to this?

Privacy and confidentiality – never discuss or share your customer’s personal information with ANYONE without their permission, (or their guardians), but only to those who are privy to this information for support purposes only. Never discuss your customers details with friends and family- this is both inappropriate and illegal under the Privacy Act.

Duty of Care – Always act in ways that will not expose others to an unreasonable risk of harm, be it physical, psychological, or financial. Your role as a Support Worker is to protect others from risk of harm or injury which could be foreseen and anticipated.

This requires of knowledge of the person, their abilities, limitations, and any planned activities. Never provide advice or expertise outside of your scope of expertise. If you become aware of an issue related to duty of care, always report this issue using the process of your local organization.

Friendships: The role of a Support Worker is to enable your customer to build, support and strengthen social, family and community connections, not “be their friend”. You are there to provide a paid professional service, therefore it is inappropriate to foster friendships with their family members as there are risks in blurring the boundaries of a professional relationship as stated in a previous paragraph.

This MUST be handled with sensitivity and common sense, otherwise you may be faced with unreasonable demands and expectations leading to undue stress, challenges with objectivity, behavior management and possible grief and loss for the customer. Fundamentally, your role is to assist your customer in become independent, not dependent on you!

Conflict of Interest: This area could render a Support Worker unable to be impartial, thereby being compromised in acting in the best interests of their employer/customer. This could create tension or conflict which again could blur the lines of professionalism.

This could incorporate financial or other interests which may compromise your duties, decision making, complaint handling or applying policies of privacy breach. If in doubt, speak to your team leader in relation to this, e.g., having a support worker’s family member report to them, being employed by another conflicting employer, declaring interests in a supplier, e.g., shares etc.

Drugs and alcohol: It is highly inappropriate for a team member to be involved in the purchase / consumption of alcohol or illegal drugs at any time whilst supporting a customer.

Sexual and intimate relationships: It is contrary to the NDIS Code of Conduct for any Support Workers to engage in a sexual and/or intimate relationship between customers and/or family members. Should this occur, it would be mandatory to relinquish your work immediately, and resign as this action would be subject to instant dismissal.

Summary

There are number of areas critical to maintaining your professional boundaries as a Support Worker and it is imperative that you always “do the right thing” from an ethics, legal and best practice perspective. If unsure at any time, please liaise with both your employer and the appropriate professional body, ensuring you have been given clarity on the parameters of your role thereby minimizing the risk of you or your customer being compromised.

Effectively managing boundaries in youth peer support programs requires giving adequate attention to the issue of role management. A role boundary is a clear definition of the duties, rights and limitations of facilitators, volunteers and program participants. Clearly defining the purpose of the program as well as the program facilitator’s and the peer volunteers’ roles and responsibilities (inside and outside the program) is important to avoid confusion or misperceptions among all of those involved. This includes what each of these roles encompasses and also what their limitations are. It should be ensured that these are well understood by the peer supporters themselves, as well as the service users and anybody else involved in the program. Role boundaries are crucial for the development of positive and effective relationships between facilitators, volunteers and participants; reduces the potential for harmful relationships and helps to ensure the mental and physical health of those involved.

Example

Situation: Struggling to maintain clear role boundaries was experienced in a drop-in peer support program for sexuality/gender diverse young people. The program was facilitated by one coordinator whose role was compromised when she attempted to provide support for some group members who apparently required more support than other clients due to lacking social support networks accessible to them.

Issues: While the program coordinator felt it was her responsibility to help the clients, building up these relationships took up a lot of her time in terms of attending to emails, calls, and meetings outside of program hours, which consequently lead to exceeding the scope of her official role.The challenge experienced by the coordinator was to not push the clients away while at the same time maintaining the professional role boundaries of her position.

Response: The issue was managed by encouraging the young people to access other services that could help to broaden their social networks and increase the number of people they could ask for help.

Managing role boundaries

Establishing and maintaining clarity of roles will prevent a young person feeling pressure to take on something they are not experienced in or comfortable with. While peer supporters play a valuable role in providing help for other young people to deal with a variety of issues, dealing with certain problems should always involve the guidance of an adult supervisor responsible for the service. These include circumstances where a serious possibility of harm to the person seeking help or another person can occur, such as sexual or physical abuse, suicide threats or attempts, serious self-harm and mental illness.1

The introduction of a volunteer manual may assist in the process of defining roles; however, continuous communication with volunteers and participants is equally essential to serve as a reminder for both service providers and service users throughout the program.1 Regular communication and debriefing after sessions will help forestall any blurring of the boundaries, especially as empathy and relationships develop.

The Induction process should be formal and include provision of :

clear written position descriptions;
volunteer manual;
clear outline of training requirements;
completion of initial training (external provider);
clarirty around position of service regarding social networking sites ;(eg: recent issues with teachers and Facebook);
regular supervision;
ongoing training; and
regular updates of PD’s, volunteer manual and training regimen.

Read about how to manage relationship boundaries.