Assignment task: You are employed as a support worker in a service that provides support to clients in their own homes. While visiting your client Yvette, you notice some changes in Yvette's home environment. Yvette is 84 years old and lives independently in her own home. On this day, you came to drive Yvette to the pharmacy to receive her medications, which the pharmacist would make and pack for her.
As you arrive, you notice there are items dropped across the floor, dirty dishes piled up in the kitchen, and loud music coming from one of the other rooms. You help Yvette get ready for the drive to the pharmacy. While travelling, Yvette explains that she is tired because her adult grandson has come to stay with her. She has been cooking his favourite foods, doing all his laundry, and is not getting enough sleep. When you ask about this, Yvette says she loves that his being there and being able to all these things for him. She says that it does not matter too much to her about the loud music, as she will get more sleep another night.
While getting in the car, Yvette bangs her arm and grazes her ankle. Yvette says she must have tripped because she is tired from all the extra work, excitement, and lack of sleep. You attend to her injuries and take her home.
What legal considerations must be implemented when a support worker is going to drive a client in a car?
1. When at the pharmacy, what ethical requirements should be considered, e.g. maintaining confidentiality?
2. When Yvette tripped and was hurt, which organisation policies and procedures should be followed, and how would you access the policies and procedures, e.g. incident report?
3. How could you support your client in maintaining the security of her personal items and her property?
4. Which aspects of what you observed or were told by Yvette could be possible indicators of abuse or neglect?
5. Why would these aspects be possible indicators of abuse or neglect?
6. According to organisation policies and procedures, what would you need to do in response to these indicators?
7. To which government program could this service belong, e.g. DVA? Why would it be part of this government program and what services should be provided?
8. How would you support Yvette to feel empowered using person centred strategies and customer directed assistance?