My two sisters and I help to look after our elderly, disabled mum. Her mobility is poor. She independently goes to church each Sunday, and goes for various other social events every week. For a while, she has mentioned a young man who sits next to her in church and is quite attentive. He is an asylum seeker but I’m not sure from where.
Last week, she told my sister something that he had said to her. My sister is used to dealing with safe guarding issues and told mum that this was concerning. Mum said that there was going to be a safeguarding meeting at church the following day which we thought was about this disclosure.
I went to church after the service yesterday to walk mum home but also to monitor what may be going on. My other sister was there with her. I took the opportunity to speak to a church member in private, who is the designated safeguarding lead. I shared our family concerns that he may be subtly befriending our mum. I couldn’t offer any concrete examples as I have never met this man and I only had anecdotes from others. It appears that he is friendly to a lot of elderly ladies. I was asked to report any other concerns if they came up and that the safeguarding lead would be vigilant.
The DSL rang me later as he had decided to report this and some other issues further up the safeguarding chain. At that point I told him what my mum had disclosed to my sister and gave him her number to contact her.
Tonight, my sister has rung me.She is furious with me and says she feels compromised as mum does not know anything about my meeting with the DSL. She also said that neither of my sisters knew that I was going to talk to the DSL -( one of them did as I reported it all to her in person.) She was extremely rude to me and would not listen to anything I said. She put the phone down on me.
So, wise mumsnetters….. I’m planning to go to see my mum in the morning to tell her what I’ve done. She may understand or she may be furious too. Am I completely in the wrong here? I
I am upset by this fallout.