Visited parent and house smelt of weed- should I report?

[smellysaurusmum]

I work in one of the caring professions and visited the house of a family where the 7 year old daughter has severe medical needs. The house was a state, daughter was on the floor and moved around by crawling everywhere- she seemed happy and crawled over to me for a cuddle. Nothing in that home seemed like there were any safeguarding needs. However, from the minute I walked in, the smell of weed hit me between the eyes and stayed there until I left. Am I within my rights to report the family for drugs being on the premises or should I let go? I have really empathy for the parents dealing with what they are but also feel duty bound to report them. Having said that, other professionals will have been in and smelled the same and not reported the family- should I let it go?

I would report this. Follow the safegaurding procedure and have a chat with your line manager if you still aren't sure.

I'm really disappointed in your company for allowing you out without completing safegaurding training! Im a nurse and its always one of the first parts of the on boarding process

Of course you should mention to both your employer and the social worker that the house smelled of weed, and you were concerned about cleanliness and safety. You don't need to say they are drug addicts who are neglecting their kid. But it's the truth and it's part of your job to note down and report the conditions your clients reside in surely?

Report

If you are in a caring profession, as you said in your first post, it doesn't matter whether you're with an agency and thrown in at the deep end.

You will still be a trained or qualified person in order to be doing the role so you should have an idea of risk assessments, what to escalate, who to report to etc. You need to find out who that is for your new area of work, but no-one here can tell you who that is. You'll need to find that out locally

It doesn't matter if you're new or an agency worker.

You KNOW who your manager is/person you report to.

Look to them for an answer, not a public parenting website.

Im a qualified social worker. If you are in the caring profession you know this is a safeguarding issue that needs reporting.

Concerning both that you are asking whether to let it go and posting it on here.

Agency or not you know what to do. If you really don’t you need to get gone and I really hope to never come across you in my role.

This, absolutely.

As everyone else has said, discuss this with your safeguarding lead and about the house being “a state”. How do you know that no other professional has reported concerns?

and this.

I really hope this isn't real.
It is incredibly worrying that you claim not to know, and that you then don't know who to ask, at work.

Follow the protocols of your role as you've surely been trained to do?

If you have a manager, flag it with him or her.

The house is a state and the parent/s or some other adult smokes weed there - this would add up to a problem to me. FWIW...

Sending you to houses of vulnerable children with no safeguarding training is absolutely atrocious.

I would strongly recommend you look for a new job, if the agency don’t protect their clients they sure as hell won’t protect their workers. And when you’re not properly trained, the shit will hit the fan sooner or later.

Your agency must have a safeguarding lead, who is not necessarily your supervisor. But given the situation you’re in, yes I would report in writing to their social worker. Just because something is normal, that doesn’t mean it’s ok.

And don’t confuse “reporting” with “judging”. You report facts, to someone else who judges the situation. Keep that straight in your head as it makes it much easier to figure out when to report.

I agree this is a breach of child and vulnerable adult safeguarding legislation. I'd be contacting your local authority LADO to report the agency you work for, for sending you into this role, and in to someone's house, with no training.

Having someone in the family home around a child that is also vulnerable due to disabilities, with no safeguarding training, is dangerous for them. They have been put in a dangerous situation and it could happen again.

LADO - report the agency and organisation you are temping for.

Surely you wrote a report following home visit ?

Forget it

Am I within my rights to report the family for drugs being on the premises

When you say “the smell of weed hit me between the eyes and stayed there until I left”, do you mean it smelled like someone had just been smoking it or it smelled like someone habitually smokes it in the house? I don’t think you can say drugs were “on the premises” based on smell alone. It could have been a visitor smoking it or you could be mistaken and it’s just something that smells similar (if you are very familiar with the smell of weed, you’re probably not mistaken but I have come across things that could be confused with it once or twice. You can’t be 100% sure). Basically, I think you should report it but be careful with your wording.

This.

You should know how to report safeguarding concerns without needing to ask randoms on the internet.

These concerns should most likely be raised with the local authority’s safeguarding team, they will access and investigate as appropriate. But the bigger issue is that you’ve been sent straight out into home visits without the necessary, essential, training. You need to raise this as an issue (in writing) asap, for both your own protection and your clients.

You must have contact details for somebody else who is senior to you in the organisation? Or you could raise this directly with the agency.

You need confidentiality training too.

@smellysaurusmum it's really really wrong of your employer to send you out into the community alone without being fully trained and provided with clear guidelines about what to do in various situations, and who to speak with if you have a concern not covered by training and / or procedures.

Without this, you are way more at risk of getting into a pickle than whoever in that home is involved with weed.

Please focus on why they put you in this position without training as the biggest priority of all. I'd seriously suggest you reconsider working for a company that willingly puts you in this position.

Gosh @smellysaurusmum you're having a tough time here.
It's been about 10 years since my days doing a similar role and like yourself many of the staff were flung in the deep end without training.
I know of a few families in my dcs schools who have support staff go in and they're cannabis smokers so your post isn't particularly identifying. I recently delivered some of my dcs clothes to a mum locally also and the smell of weed was pretty strong.
It's sadly really common, people in shitty situations self medicating with weed and then their situations become far worse, horrid cycle.

You report this direct to your line manager, you'd be unlikely expected to personally contact a social worker.
Now I know several social workers both professionally and personally and due to the lack of resources they'd not be looking to do much with the drug use singularly, but combined with a house that's looking a bit chaotic, that might make them react more.

I think we vastly underestimate how many people actually do use weed daily. We're always told it isn't an addictive substance but when you meet habitual smokers who would rather they had enough weed to see them through the weekend as opposed to knowing their kids have enough food in the fridge, I'm personally inclined to disagree.

Agencies are always desperate for staff so I'd be looking for a job with a place that offers a decent training course prior to sending you out on the job.
Or even a company/charity type place that has their own bank staff and offer their organisations in house training.

Not knowing what to do, especially working with children and families leaves not just them but you quite vulnerable.

There are also websites you can do free online training on that you could add to your CV, things such as adversity in childhood etc, so you can market yourself with a bit more understanding of struggling families, might make you feel a bit more confident when applying for other roles elsewhere.
But for your own sake, please don't stay with a company that's not trained you in safeguarding prior to sending you out to vulnerable people.

Good luck and just as a side note, always think, rather safe than sorry when it comes to reporting. Sure, it doesn't make you popular always but ultimately safeguarding is the Job of every responsible adult, not just professionals and I'd something is concerning you/worrying you, tell your manager and do it via email so you can always prove you've done your bit.

Again, best of luck x

You shouldn't have been in the house without safeguarding training.

If you are a professional working with children you should know you have a safeguarding responsibility to report this.
You refer to children's services. If you don't know how to do this ask your manager to support with this.
Then access further safeguarding training.

Yes I would. Then it is the decision of more senior people. Cover your back.

The family already have a social worker so tell that person. It's nothing to do with judgement you report the facts that were written from your account of the visit - attend for visit to complete x. Strong/notable smell of cannabis in home or wherever it was.

They're likely already aware so your information won't be a surprise.

As a side issue is there a reason you didn't mention the smell to the family? Safeguarding is everyone's responsibility. I've lost count of the amount of times I've received information from professionals reporting worries and who haven't thought or wanted to ask about it so when the information has got to me either there is then no evidence of it or a family have been left in a difficult situation longer than needed while somebody made their mind up whether to share it. Multi agency working and information sharing across professionals is mentioned in every serious case review.

You've identified a potential worry. You now need to act on it and share it appropriately.

If I read a post from my 'caring professional' about me on MN I would report them.