To feel guilty and worried about this?

[TeaJunction]

My job involves helping community members set up volunteer groups. Recently I've been seconded to a project that involves older and vulnerable people. Through this role I have been working closely with a guy I'll call Robert.

Robert has physical and mental disabilities and despite my role with him being purely about helping him volunteer, he has become quite emotionally reliant on me. He calls me several times a day (I don't answer them all to discourage this) and has made some vaguely inappropriate comments around us being in a relationship/friendship. He has also confided in me some information that makes him a safeguarding risk.

I recently had to disclose this information to management and they are escalating this through the safeguarding channels. It has been decided that I should no longer support him which I am relieved about and feeling guilty about in equal measures.

Being on this project has really really helped him but he is now messaging me saying that he doesn't want to do it anymore if he won't be working alongside me and he misses me. He has been offered alternative support but doesn't want to take up the offer.

I know this is the right thing to do but I feel terrible for him. His life circumstances are so shit and I feel sort of responsible for him even though it is way out of my remit and job spec. Things were improving for him which is why I feel I have failed although in hindsight I realise he was getting more and more inappropriate and I didn't deal with it directly enough (I hoped he would get the subtle hints - I guess I haven't been trained well enough to deal with these kind of situations).

Management have all tried to reassure me that I've done nothing wrong and that this has to happen but I know he will probably fall between the gaps now when he could have carried on in the project if I'd handled it better. I feel so bad about this. I guess I'm not sure why im posting really - I just want to let go of the worry and guilt I suppose .

Sounds like you've done everything you could and dealt with it sensitively and appropriately op. It's not your fault this person has become attached to you, don't beat yourself up about it.

You have done absolutely the right thing

You can't win 'em all.

You were kind to him. Sometime, if not now, perhaps later, that will really help him. He'll know he can find people in life who are good to him.

And don't worry about him. Chances are that the next support person he is introduced to will become his next focus. You are not unique. He will get over you. His life circumstances have been nicer for having you in and will be as well served by the next person he attaches to.

I know that sounds harsh, maybe even unlikely, but it happens a lot to people who work with vulnerable groups. They are the new 'thing' and,a s such, are very attractive to some people. This is just your first personal experience of it. Don't grow a thick skin, that would be unfortunate and would probably ruin the work for you, but do keep your eyes open to the possibilities and continue to do as you have here... report up and on as and when necessary.

Give yourself a break, it really isn't something you could do any differently. xx

You have done the right thing. Of course you have. I understand you feel guilty and worry about him passing up an opportunity, but he is in charge of what does and does not want to do. If that is his decision it is he who will have to live with it, not you. You aren't responsible for his happiness. You are a lovely, compassionate person and you took the best course of action.
It might be he'll take other opportunities in the future. It might be he'll be persuaded by someone else to hang on to this one.
Have a

There's nothing else you could possibly have done. I'm always really envious of women who can firmly put this kind of behaviour in its place, who have the kind of natural authority which stops vulnerable people getting out of hand. But I've only ever met a handful of women like that - it's a very rare quality, and it usually comes with age and lots of experience. Your experience with Robert will help you with the next person who comes along - just think of it as something which is helping to make you an even more amazing person

You must realise this is an occupational hazard of your job and that if you hadn't reported it and agreed to be separated from him like this, you would have been acting very irresponsibly. If he had carried on working with you and increasing his dependence on you, it would inevitably have fallen out further along the line, but far more messily and with much more investment on his part.

You did the right thing. You can't rescue everyone. You would have harmed him if you had acted any differently. Not all vulnerable people are your responsibility.

And what Blanche says is true...he'll focus on someone else. x

And they will deal with it accordingly.

You need a proper de-brief, do you have a supervisor you can talk to?
To me it doesn't sound like you were very supported as they should have stepped in as soon as you found him inappropriate, this wasn't fair on you nor on him.
You did the right thing by reporting any safe guarding, you had no choice so don't feel guilty.

Did you have to give your private number to a client? If not don't ever give it out.

Don't be down on yourself, you played a part in helping now it's someone elses time. You do get as used to it as much as you can OP after awhile, you don't stop caring you just learn, you need the care/kindness to be able to work so don't get 'hard'.
I've worked with some of societies most venerable people who have done themself very real damages etc and you do care as much as you can but you have to protect yourself first and foremost.

Working with vulnerable groups has lots of challenges and blurring of boundaries are really common. I made a similar mistake to you with one of my first clients and I felt like a years worth of hard work had been wiped out by a bad ending that I managed badly. My mistake meant that a vulnerable person was left hurt by my actions.

Tutt is right, you need a debrief where you can go over what happened and discuss a better way to manage boundaries in the future with things like acting immediately to those inappropriate comments and the numerous calls and NEVER give out your private number.

We all make mistakes, no one is perfect. Next time you'll make a different mistake. Secret is to keep learning and keep moving on.

Please don't loose that caring nature of yours, it's really needed!

Thanks so much everyone, you're all really helping me to understand this better. I'm sort of relieved to hear that I'm not the first to make this mistake.

Fortunately he doesn't have my personal number but he is friends with me on my work facebook account and has my email and work number so he is using all three to try to contact me. The content of his messages are a little distressing and making me worry about him but I've been asked not to contact himself as management are dealing with it.

I realise I am not the first professional he has done this to as he has hinted about it in the past and seemed to know that I wouldn't be able to go to dinner with him and such like because of the client/professional code of conduct. I realise I'm unlikely to be the last as well but ineed has hit the nail on the head - I feel like the months of work have been wasted and for now at least, he's in a worse position because he is distressed at no longer being able to have contact with me. He's likely confused as well because I'm guessing he won't really understand what went wrong.

The management has been shockingly bad throughout this project. My immediate manager wanted me to stop working with him months ago but higher level management wanted me to continue as he was our best 'success story' and has been used to secure future funding. I'm at fault too though because I thought I could handle it, I thought he would calm down and get the message but as I've said, I have little training in dealing with this. Incidentally, this isn't the first time something like this happened but I suppose it wasn't as bad because the people in question weren't quite as vulnerable as Robert.

i think my feelings about this are tied up with my desire to leave the project but feeling like I'm letting everyone down - both the team and the service users but it's been so poorly managed that I don't think I can feasibly stay.