One of my staff members works at home in the evening and sees some of the mums that use our service out of work time, despite me telling her this is unnecessary. How can I address this?
While it is laudable that she is so dedicated, she is potentially putting herself and your service at risk.
Working late into the evening will in time create stress and tiredness during the day when she needs to be alert and fully functioning at the service.
If you have told her that working late so often is unnecessary and she is ignoring you, then it needs addressing formally in supervision and ultimately to be dealt with as a disciplinary issue.
By not keeping clear boundaries with service users, she is also putting herself at risk. She is not their friend, but they need support from agencies when appropriate and she is setting unhealthy and unrealistic expectations.
She might need to develop some activities for herself that do not involve work. Have a supervision session and address these issues soon.
Answered by Jeanie Lynch, who works for Barnardo’s and has 25 years’ experience of working with vulnerable children and families
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