To think that if you are uncomfortable being recorded at work you should just suck it up.

[NeedsAsockamnesty]

Work wise I often deal with vulnerable people and this can occasionally be in their home,not so much these days as I tend to not do a huge amount of direct service stuff but I used to.

I have had many clients over the years ask to record meetings for various reasons sometimes it helps them follow the meeting knowing they don't need to worry about forgetting things we have talked about,sometimes it's because they want evidence of what happened. I've never refused not even once. These days the the staff who work with me have the ability to record every meeting and at the end hand one copy to the client.

I was forwarded this article today www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jun/17/social-workers-under-scrutiny-parents-camera

And I think it's a very good idea and I'm thinking that if you are in a position of such serious power you should always professionally conduct yourself as if you are being recorded and should be willing to be recorded without anything needing to be covert about it and I think those tapes should be admissible as evidence even if they are covert recordings.

I am always a bit eyebrow raisey about people who would refuse to conduct a meeting or terminate it if they became aware it was recorded and find myself wondering why

Is this unreasonable or not?

I think it's reasonable. Surely it offers protection for the workers as well as the family?

That's my viewpoint. I think it protects all parties. And sends a message to the family you are working with that says "I'm confident I'm going to behave appropriately"

You can't demand someone just trusts you because you have a formal reason to be seeing them,I think doing this would help create trust.

It's reasonable to have recordings done as your staff do them, with a copy for each party available straight away, but editing is much too easy for covert recordings to be admissible as evidence.

I would be happy to be recorded if the person recording is open about it. It pisses me off when people do it covertly though. I've seen people record with a hidden phone held out of the eyeline of the person they're recording. I've had suspicions people have left their phone recording at a patients bed space when they've not been there. I've also had people recording their relative but in an open bay so inadvertently also filming other patients and their families.
If someone said they wanted to record my interaction with them, for whatever reason, I would be fine with it as long as it was not in an area where there are other patients and families, in that situation I would not let them do it (and my workplace would not allow them to do it) due to confidentiality of other patients.
If they record me without my consent or do it covertly that implies a lack of trust in me and I would be quite unhappy that instead of discussing their concerns about the clear breakdown in our professional relationship they must have, they are trying to catch me out. It's not that I would behave any differently if I knew I was being filmed, I would just rather know these people don't trust me and get to the bottom of why they don't trust me so I can reassure them I am working in their child's best interests and being entirely open and honest with them

Yes i dont see why you would reject being recorded. Strange!

I wouldn't mind at all if all interactions with my patients and all communications with families were filmed as a matter of course. I would disagree with it being done covertly. Not because I do awful things once people's backs are turned. Just that I might be in Jimmy's bed space chatting with his nurse about a difficult social situation with billy, who we both looked after last week (I work on paeds icu, most of my patients are too young and/or too deeply sedated to be listening!) which of course would be inappropriate for Jimmys parents to hear. Or I might be in the open bay in between patient taking to one of my colleagues about her recent break-up or my mums surgery or other things I wouldn't knowingly discuss on tape

rusty

In the days before We started doing it,I also never had a problem with clients themselves recording either on request or covertly. Granted I wouldn't find out about the recording until after if it was covert but it never bothered me. In all fairness 99% of the time I would also have my own recording as I used to use a mini recorder instead of note taking that I would obviously use and announce the use of it explaining that it was important that my notes were accurate and I didn't forget to do anything i had said I would and did they mind, the vast majority of the time they visibly relaxed when they knew I was doing so.

I agree that both parties would need a copy.

My thinking about it is because the article has prompted me to remember years ago the many many occasions where colleagues would come back to the office having terminated a meeting early usually in quite bad moods because the client either asked to record or it was noticed, and they often did write on the notes that "failure to engage" as the reason.

By all mean do, I have been and I can tell you now, I am so professional to the point of robotic, I won't bother with a how is your garden coming along if you mentioned it before, as this is irrelevant .

Interestingly the only client of mine who asked and I said yes and I will record as well, I had never even heard of this so was on the back foot about 8 years ago, she Just went mental screaming a me!as apparently I was accusing her of faking the tape?

Surely the reason she wanted to tape me was because she did not trust me?
And her reaction to my tape..well was all I needed to know,

Both parties need access to tapes, so in a few years expect your GP to press the button as you enter the room.

Missing. None of us would have any issue at all with talking about a garden and not being robotic.

It's very easy to tell someone that it would be hard to use a single copy as any sort of evidence so it's sensible for both to do as as people who know nothing about either party have no knowledge as to their honesty.

Lots of workplaces use cctv. But employees and clients must be notified

Someone I know was recommended by another worker to ask to record meetings to assist them, they were nervous about requesting this so I suggested they first of all do it with the person that recommended it to start to build confidence.
The workers face when it was requested was a picture .
I think it can provide protection to both parties, it does for a few mins make you think about everything you are saying though.

That article is petrifying and contradicts the 'social workers can do no wrong/children placed for adoption are always justifiably so' posts on here I've read.

I don't think anybody has ever actually said that on a thread on her have they elder

The usual one is yes of course mistakes do happen as with every profession you will get a few who are not very good but most are perfectly good and decent.

One of the problems is you do not know what type your going to end up with and neither does the SW know if she's going to get a family who like to make up stuff.

I've seen minutes typed up months and months after a meeting that could not by any stretch of the imagination come anywhere near close to what actually happened. Most recently almost an entire case file typed up on the same date relating to contacts that happened 6 months before.

I've walked out of a CIN meeting waited over 3 months to receive minutes and when they arrived things I said were attributed to the parents or very obviously misunderstood

I myself have inadvertently made notes after a contact from hand written ones that have had to have amendments made to them as I made errors.
It can happen to anybody.

Why's it terrifying?

Well the issue is that you don't get immediate access to a recording done on someone else's phone and it's easily tampered with. If the end of the recording is missed off and your saying 'of course you must check this with someone else' - that is evidence that could win or lose a negligence claim.

Then record it your self on a device that allows two recordings to be done and hand one over straight away.