to be furious at Social Worker disclosing to my neighbour that I reported safety concerns about her?

[ChickenVindaloo]

You may have read my thread about being concerned for my elderly neighbour (early 90s, frequently falling, failing to wear emergency buzzer, screaming and crying in distress at all hours). The unanimous verdict was yes, report it to SW dept. I did so.

Today I got a missed call and a ranting text from my neighbour's daughter about "how dare I" report her/her mother? I was at work and could do nothing. I was scared they would be battering my door down or goodness knows what.

I phoned SW dept. They admitted they revealed my name and the full details of my concerns. They suggested I email complaints@(sw depts) about the breach of confidentiality/data protection.

AIBU to be furious and think they are not taking any of this seriously and should I report to information commissioner/press?

I am home now and all is quiet so far...I live alone.

Thanks.

Think you've had a hard time in this thread.

Op my colleagues receive death threats regularly. An office in my LA was shot at a few months ago. I have had a colleague come back into the office after her lunch break one day because she was pushed into the road whilst waiting at a pedestrian crossing. Myself and the people I work with regularly have clients and their families screaming in their face and we are vilified by the press and the general public if we both fail to act or act too 'vigorously'.

I get that you are upset, but your attitude of 'I want revenge on the person who did this' have really rubbed me up the wrong way. Either you forgot to check the correct box or someone made a mistake. Nobody acted with malice. You did a good thing by reporting, that should be congratulated. Explain to the daughter of the neighbour that you didn't report your concerns as a slight against her but out of general concern for her mother. Follow the complaints procedure if you wish, but if you start shouting about revenge and justice to any manager in a social work office you will not be getting anywhere.

It's not that the concerns aren't taken seriously, but lots of people make referrals to local authorities every day and most don't request anonymity. If the OP hasn't stated she wishes to remain anonymous then why would they have any reason to believe that this was what they wanted?

hatgirl Your manager sounds totally out of touch with the risks involved with this.

Nothing happened. You got a text message from a daughter who was probably aggravated and emotional. You've made a complaint, it's being investigated. Build a bridge. Hopefully the SW involved learns something along the way

Chicken your experience is exactly why people have limited faith in statutory bodies such as SW. You need to complain, it won't help you but it may re-educated the SW and/or help the next person.
Your neighbour does need help and it does sound as though she no longer has capacity to make safe decisions for herself. If her daughter needed challenging on this so be it.

What leanback said

SS gave my name when I reported child abuse! When I called them, they admitted to it because thy were in talks with the family and wanted to use the fact that I knew to push them into admitting it! I was under the council/social housing in a beautiful place that if spent a fortune on, but because of this and the harassment from the child abusing neighbour, we were moved to somewhere in a nicer area +bigger. They were awful the whole time and spent over 18 months sorting out the child being removed, even though he was being physically abused and neglected! The way that they treated me was disgusting, they didn't think they'd done anything wrong in revealing my name, although the council/housing felt that they were wrong enough to move us. Still gives me chills when I see their car or one similar.

I'm disappointed to hear that you have to "tick the right box" instead of expecting a professional to engage their brain when dealing with sensitive issues.

I do NOT want revenge (WTF?!). I want to ensure this does not happen again. By this SW or any other.

Again, thanks to the supportive posters. I can assure you I have acted in good faith and only want the best for people.

I feel quite bruised today actually. It was horrid being at work worrying about it. I didn't want to tell my own parents because they would worry I was unsafe. The daughter has come to my door ranting about silly things like my "no junk mail" sticker on my door. I don't really think I'm in physical danger.

The good thing now is that at least a SW manager is aware of the case and my neighbour should hopefully be treated as a priority case for a place in a nursing home or whatever is necessary.

That's shocking, mygorgeous. It's the primary reason people to hesitate to report in the first place, fear of retaliation.

YY Chicken. Its basic common sense i would have thought.

OP sorry this has happened. Absolutely do complain.

I remember your thread about the job reference; what happened there in the end? Did they refuse to disclose the reference to you?

You done good OP, I hope the daughter calms down

I don't think YABU but I don't think you really seem to grasp that lots of people have no issue with the people knowing who they are. I would always err on the side of caution and ensure anonymity but you need not make assumptions about what other people choose. I receive constant concerns from neighbours and similar who don't wish to remain anon, just to share information.

Atenco well the manager can only investigate on the basis of what has actually happened, which is that the OP is upset that their details did not remain anonymous. The top and bottom of it is though that they didn't ask for them to remain anonymous and presumably were not told/promised at any point that they would be. The manager can acknowledge the upset caused but not really uphold a complaint against a worker who has just been acting on the information they have been given.

Re the job reference: the information commissioner is investigating.

I will update that thread when I get somewhere!

My mother reported child abuse and neglect a few years ago.

Her name was revealed, the woman then claimed that my mother was actually the abusive parent (to my youngest DSis) and it became a real shitshow.

And SS did nothing.

In all fairness, my mother wasn't exactly the most stable parent (it was actually mostly fine, at least before she was accused of abusing her daughter.... which was the talk of the village).

But unlike that woman none of my siblings ever fell out of a window, were locked in the house naked ('we can't open the door, we're naked. Mummy took away our clothes and went shopping.) or went from door to door to ask for food because nobody was home when they came home from school.

But for some reason SS took the allegations way more seriously and then claimed (and thought DM was a racist...)

I have been been thorough the complaints procedure, I really would save yourself a lot of grief. Over a year for an independent enquirers report to be completed, just within the allowed time frame. Conducted by another SW.
It took no account of decisions made, just if procedure had been followed. They hadn't. Nothing happened to anyone involved.

The elderly are left in appalling situations, this poor lady sadly won't be unique. What has happened to my mother is beyond belief.

You did the right thing. The outcomes are sadly out of your hands.

I have seen a lot of disgraceful conduct from SW over confidentiality and other issues. As a pp said they do their own enquiries internally and will lie and cover up and do nothing to "learn lessons".
Some of the written items I have are unbelievably stupid and totally unprofessional.

Sadly there are some people who don't want social services poking their noses in, because it may mean the person is deemed to need residential care. and if this means the person's house being sold to pay the fees then the inheritance they were hoping for will be diminished.

Maybe not the case here, but not at all uncommon. But it was downright stupid and unprofessional of the SW to reveal her source of information.

I can't believe people think you should only remain anonymous if you explicitly state that you wish that.

Any professional with half a brain cell would see that they are putting 'informants' at risk and have no business to give out their names and addresses.

I cannot believe there isn't a default position of confidentiality. Although nothing would surprise me about SS.

When the professionals are saying that many people don't want to be confidential, it should go into some people's heads. I am not saying that what happened in this situation was acceptable but why do people make up their own little stories around the post?

I cannot believe the utter stupidity of the SW revealing you as the source of the complaint. I have worked within Child Protection and Adult Social Care referrals and our policy was to protect our sources and referral information at all costs. If I had ever revealed this information, I would expect to be suspended and probably sacked.

I don't understand your post crash. No 'little stories' as far as I can see.