To not want them in my home?

[decorativecushions]

Ok I'll try to keep this short

I have a 10 month old baby and I'm under the perinatal team due to history of OCD and depression. Worth noting i am absolutely fine on the whole! No one has ever raised concerns over my parenting or anything like that.

As well as the psychiatrist team I have a support worker whose role, as i understand, is to provide less medicalised support and a person to talk to.

The first time we met up we had the meeting as a home visit at my house. I'm not a massive fan of having people i don't know that well in my house, especially health professionals. My house is a safe place for me and I would always prefer to meet at a children's centre or out for a walk. Growing up my family had to have visits from health professionals due to my sister being unwell so it makes me feel like my privacy is being invaded and I'm being 'watched' if that makes sense. Basically it makes me really on edge! I explained all this to her.

Anyway, i was hoping to continue doing walks and meeting up with my baby out of the house but the support worker now seems insistent that there needs to be more home visits??! She mentioned that she wanted to visit at home and I told her I'd prefer to meet elsewhere so we arranged a meet at the local park, but when I arrived she called me saying she was at my house and where was i?! It was very confusing. This evening she's texted me saying that she and 'a new care coordinator' would like to visit me at home next week. I've replied back once again asking if we could meet at a park or even the local children's centre as I'd find this easier and more helpful. No reply yet.
As I said earlier there's never been any safeguarding concerns. I live with my husband and our baby. When the support worker visited the house was tidy and well presented. No one has ever raised any concerns and I'm doing absolutely fine aside from occasionally having obsessive thoughts and being a bit low.

Can anyone shed any light on why the support worker is being so insistent on meeting in my house even though I've made it clear on several occasions I'd rather not?

Thanks x

Do you feel like these workers are more helpful than harmful for your mental health? I'm assuming you could choose to disengage with them if you feel like they are have a negative impact on your mental health. Perhaps traditional in-office counselling would be more helpful for you?

What did the support worker say when you asked why she had changed the meeting place from the park to the house without telling you?

OP they have no legal right to enter your home, you are no obligated to engage with them. I would continue to engage with the support. But you could consider asking them bluntly why they are so keen to visit you at home. They are likely there for you support but if they are linked to MH postnatal support they would likely be half assessing your parenting too, as they will need to report any concerns. But ultimately you don’t need to let them in, but should recognise that they may escalate if they do have any concerns. But if that happens and a duty SW contacts you you can explain this to them and cooperate and if everything’s fine at home, they wouldn’t progress anyway

She just said she must have got her wires crossed

I imagine that having a chat about how you’re feeling etc is generally easier at home with a cup of tea. Arranging to meet in the park when it’s cold & rainy is probably not as comfortable in her eyes. Especially if you have a small baby that is going to need feeding & changing.

Also meeting at home means she doesn’t have to worry about private conversations being overheard, as they might be if you went to a cafe.

I understand about not wanting strangers in your safe space, but how about limiting them to the kitchen for example. Keep your lounge door shut & private.

Well I'd try to give her the benefit of the doubt this one time and continue to schedule the visits where you find most appropriate. If she starts insisting on home visits get it in writing via email what that reason is.

If the support worker has been arranged by the psychiatry team could you speak to them about your preferences for sessions with the support worker to take place at a neutral venue?
(Apologies if this sounds naive.)

Well YANBU to not enjoy having them in your house and to dread their visits but YABVU to expect that you can call the shots here and it not have some sort of negative impact on you in the long run. If you keep insisting on meeting them on your own terms and gatekeeping your home it's just going to ring alarm bells for them and make them probe further, or turn up unannounced if they think you are giving them the runaround. You've clearly give them serious grounds for concern to trigger that level of support and intervention, so don't rock the boat and just cooperate for goodness sake.

Surely you understand why it's important to see you in your home environment?

They probably have a tick box to say home is clean and safe. The more you refuse I think they will wonder why.

Enabling irrational anxiety isn’t something support workers are told to do. Doing so isn’t supportive. Anymore than it’s supportive to hold a bulimics hair back while they vomit. Crude comparison but that’s the reality.

I've just found this on the Royal College of Psychiatrists website:

Where can I meet a perinatal mental health service?

Most services try to see women in convenient and child friendly locations. These include:

Antenatal clinics
Children’s Centres
Health Centres
Your home
Maternity wards

Nowhere does it say it has to be in home if you'd prefer it not to be, I think they may prefer to push for your home instead of agreeing to meeting outside in winter so as long as you are happy to offer an alternative indoor location there should be no reason why that isn't acceptable to them!

Maybe when the weather is nicer they will be happy to meet up outside somewhere instead?

I wondered this too. Meeting in freezing cold or rain isn’t fun :) the childrens centre is a good idea!

You not wanting them there would send a massive red flag to them-
They would wonder what you are trying to hide!

Far better to cooperate with them and continue allowing them in to support you .

As I said earlier there's never been any safeguarding concerns

You trying to avoid having them come to your home will be a safeguarding concern.

I think you are quite entitled to ask to meet out of the home. The support worker is supposed to be there to help. I'd want to know why, if they have no safeguarding concerns, they are so keen to pursue a location that makes you uncomfortable.

You can also just decline the care. It sounds like it's causing you more stress than help.

I recall when mine were small with HV visits, just wanting to be left along to get on with looking after my baby. That's quite normal I think.

How often are you seeing your support worker? Which authority do they work for / report to? (SS?)

Surely they have already said the reason it needs to be a home visit on this occasion is because the "new care coordinator" needs to see you at home? Although I'm a little confused about the recent visit. Did this not happen in the end as you were in different locations?

I may just live in a shit London Borough but people who tend to have this level of involvement with perinatal / psychiatry at this stage are deemed as still being quite poorly. Are you as well as you say?

Would you agree to one home visit and then revert to the out of house visits?

I do think the insistence of the park visit could potentially be deemed as a bit of a red flag?

It does sound like it's because you are so insistent that they don't come.
Even though they've been before, you being so adamant that they don't come again will be why they're pushing it.
You could always ask why it's so important to them to see you at home and what it is they are worried about.
Re showing up at your house when you'd arranged to meet elsewhere, it could be crossed wires or it could be an attempt to see what your house is like when you're not expecting them.

Either way, be direct. Tell them you don't like it and ask them to tell you exactly what the issue is.

I think some have misunderstood the role of the support worker OP and this thread is likely increasing your anxiety. After a traumatic time I had PTSD and would have a shock response to emails, phone calls and deliveries at the door. Support workers shouldn't be triggering you. Unless the support worker is overstepping they have no reason to see inside your home. It is more likely that due to budget cuts they find booking a meeting room hard and don't want to be outside in winter/walk far. But it is not your job to make the support workers job easier, they are there to support you. Adding anxiety to a new mums life isn't going to help that.

Are you mocking OCD?

YANBU. I totally get it. I'm autistic and can't stand home visits. My home is my safe space. I have been treated with suspicion around it in the past, but I just stick to my guns and nothing has ever happened because of it.

An email along the lines @CatG021024 suggests seems a good way forward. Her behaviour might not reflect concerns about your home environment. It could be that the standard practice is for 'support' visits to be carried out at home, the support worker doesn't have easy access to a private office without a complicated booking process and it's too cold for the park. This doesn't mean that you have to agree to home visits though. I worked in MH services (tho some years ago & not perinatal). It used to frustrate me that the assumption was that home visits would be more convenient for the client, without checking this. I wouldn't be afraid of opening up a conversation about this with the support worker or the perinatal mental health team. It shouldn't cause a 'flag' of concern if you explain fully the reasons for your preference to meet away from home in writing. The purpose of her involvement would usually be to support you, not check up on you, but asking about why she has suggested home visits allows her to clarify if there is a concern.

To be fair, she may have forgotten, genuinely. She may have written your name in her calendar and driven to your house without thinking. This is definitely the sort of thing that can happened to overworked people!

It's really not going to do any of that.

No, it won't, and it shouldn't be

No, it won't