Was I right to report this man?

[Aceofbase00]

It's a community based role, and I was helping a male in his early 70s to get dressed. I know he has full mental capacity and doesn't have Alzheimer's/dementia.
Once when I went to his house there was porn playing on a computer in the background.
Anyway I went yesterday and I saw him fixated on my chest whilst I was getting him ready. It was annoying but I just tried to get him ready as quick as I could.
He was still looking. Then he said, "wow, nice top."
I looked down and saw my button had popped open, revealing my bra. I quickly fastened it and he said, "Oh you don't need to do that, I don't get a lot of excitement at the minute." He kept staring at me.
I felt so embarrassed and wish I had said something to him at the time. I just left pretty much after that as soon as possible, and reported it to my manager who said they'd have a word.
I understand he is lonely, but it wasn't appropriate at all for him to comment like that. What would you have done?

The correct response was to report him and log it as an incident. I am sorry this happened to you.

And I do believe there are sexist women here and in real life who will always blame the woman. They are the same ones who have a giggle at wolf-whistling and cat-calling and are stupid enough to consider them compliments.

Plenty of carers let themselves in. Why are you trying to convince anyone that they don’t? They obviously do on a huge number of occasions. No one said she stormed the place like a police raid, just that she could’ve entered when he didn’t realise it was on the screen or he wasn’t expecting her. Carers are often loose with their timings due to the very nature of their work and the delays that can arise.

Based on nothing other than what the OP has actually said, I stand by my comment. Obviously, if you invent your own version of events that the OP never said or indicated, I’d sound stupid. Equally, I could invent a version where OP has gone in completely naked and drugged him with viagra and in that invented story you’d sound ridiculous. We can all invent our own narratives to suit our personal outrage but maybe sticking to what the OP says would create a more helpful discussion. We know OP has behaved unprofessionally so not sure why she’s being given such credence as a paragon of professionalism here.

Escalating this was absolutely the right thing to do.

• This behaviour is inappropriate, needs addressing with him.
• Staff may need additional training, self advocacy, having difficult conversations, conflict resolution, assertiveness, breakaway etc to keep you safe if the moment and to allow you to have confidence to bring issues to management.
• A further risk assessment may need to be completed for this patient/client so he has male carers, there is chaperoning, staff trained in breakaway techniques etc
• Your employer has a duty to keep you safe and protected
• They have also entered into an agreement to work in his best interests. His behaviour could cause delivery of substandard care, making things like lack of intimate care, pressure sores more likely, there is a lot of red tape involved with pressure care area and it would leave the care home answerable.

I find it really bizarre that there are posters on this thread who think that porn playing when carers visit is acceptable!

I'm an AHP and have worked in the community for years. Whether i decide to laugh something off, document in my notes or officially report depends on a multitude of issues. But I will always err on the side of caution so document/ report as that is the safe and sensible thing to do.

Previously having porn on and then behaviour like this are red flags that build up a picture of possible risk. This has to be reported.

A persons home is a carers place of work. The carers can ask for it to be be turned off, just like they can ask a client not to smoke, and for a dog to be put in another room. And can leave if the client refuses to do that.

I'm very aware of all that but you're making excuses ,maybe he's just a man that likes making sexual suggestions to females ?

The test would be if he had male carers and puts his porn on and makes sexual suggestions to them

He grew up in the Carry On era, and while you absolutely do not have to put up with being perved on by the dinosaur he would have just got a very sharp behave yourself from me.

What a ridiculous excuse. My dad is 80 and would not dream of such creepy behaviour. He would have probably
got embarrassed and looked away. What hope is there when women make excuses for men and their lascivious behaviour. It’s not the 70s any more and this man knows it.

I think that early 70s is young enough to know that this isn't acceptable. Men in their late 80s onwards perhaps did grow up in a different era. But early 70s - they know they should have adapted.

when you work in other people’s homes they sometimes have private things in the background and you sometimes have to ask them to put them away or ignore them.

No @BedfordBloo. There is always the third option to flag them. I've worked in countless homes. Weapons, sexual stuff, drugs, money absolutely loads of things would be flagged/reported.

Because a basic premise of health and safety is not walking past. Escalating sexual behaviour is a risk. A very serious risk. Whether that's of a deterioration in MH or an escalation in offending likelihood it's serious either way.

Private like someone's diary or dirty washing including underwear or other innocuous things, great. This is not innocuous.

Anyone who thinks elderly men can't be deliberately sexually aggressive is dreadfully naive. I once worked on a unit for elderly male sex offenders, and a significant number of them were still very much a risk to females. Some of these nasty old perverts were well into their 80s, but they were fully compos mentis and knew exactly what they were doing.

You’re right, OP could’ve flagged it. But she didn’t, presumably because when a grown adult of sound capacity watches legal porn in their own home then that’s not a health and safety risk. Given that you hold this opinion, why aren’t you calling the OP for not flagging it as a concern when it happened and just keeping it in the back of her mind until more things happened so she could make a complaint? Either you think it’s a safeguarding risk so OP should’ve flagged it (which she didn’t, so OP was negligent in her role) or you think it’s not a safeguarding risk so shouldn’t have been used like this.

You did the right thing @Aceofbase00 , absolutely, and like many others I cannot believe how some are trying to blame you, especially @BedfordBloo ! Being in someone's home or a community setting is a vulnerable situation and safeguarding is extremely important, either to stop his inappropriate behaviour or flagging up a change in him that may need medical review, so well done!

Of course the porn is relevant, its totally inappropriate, he obviously got a kick from the carer witnessing that , what anyone chooses to watch in private is their business but anyone entering someones home should be able to do so without feeling uncomfortable or threatened .

How dare you! I absolutely did not do that in any way shape or form. That did not happen. I said that, if PP believes that watching porn is a health and safety risk then they should also think OP was at fault. I never said OP was to blame, I implied the exact opposite! I was saying that OP didn’t report it at the time because it wasn’t a health and safety risk (as PP asserted). Please do not make accusations of things that I have not done simply because you have a different viewpoint.

@BedfordBloo if PP believes that watching porn is a health and safety risk then they should also think OP was at fault.
Why is op at fault because the client is watching porn? The gymnastics you are performing to simultaneously allievate this man from any wrong doing while blaming the op is mind boggling and quite concerning really!

I said “if”, didn’t I? I clearly DISAGREE with the statement that they were saying. They were implying OP did the wrong thing and I disagreed.

I'm not sure it's worth bothering.

We should all just accept that men can be gross, pervy arseholes making women feel uncomfortable as much as they want and women are to blame.

Where's my hair shirt?

I didn’t say that. I said she was right to report. But go ahead and invent a reason to be pissed off, I’m sure it makes you feel superior to imagine I’ve done something wrong that never happened.

Whatever point you're trying to argue now @BedfordBloo, this comment is uninformed and incorrect.
And i can't see where the OP has said she didn't report the porn?

Those who are defending the man’s behaviour - how would you feel if it was your 18 year old DDs first job. I bet you would be on the phone to the agency as soon as she told you.

agree

Of course you should report him, it's disgusting. So many men seem to be like this, they don't deserve carers.

No wonder people won't do your job, why should women put up with it. There are plenty of other jobs as well, if not better, paid.

To all those men trolling on here - hopefully eventually women will just completely stop doing these jobs and then you'll have nobody or another man looking after you. Serves you right!

The PP who posted saying that they deal with complaints in this area literally agreed with this so clearly it’s not as uninformed and incorrect as the outraged like to point out. Guidelines are very clear that you don’t go on the internet (even anonymously) and disclose this kind of information because the man or his loved ones or OP’s employer could easily pick it up. It’s unprofessional. I don’t know why that causes such offence.

You’re correct that OP may have reported it but it seems unlikely seeing as she didn’t mention it and explicitly says that the only other report she’s made aside from the one about yesterday was about someone else. So, she may have done but I’m taking her on her word.

Hear hear.

Men expecting care from the fembots but they also want to be able to harass them.

Let them wait for a male worker. About a year between appointments considering the dearth.