This story reflects the opinion or experience of the reporter and not necessarily the views of Groundswell

 

Welcome to part 2 of duty of care.

So, let’s break down the phrase and explain what it’s meant to be about.

• “duty” by dictionary definition is a moral or legal obligation; a responsibility.
• “care” by dictionary definition is the provision of what is necessary for the health, welfare, maintenance, and protection of someone or something.

If we put the two together, we would have a sentence that sounds a little something like this:

• A moral or legal obligation giving the person or agency in question a responsibility for the provision of what is necessary for the health, welfare, maintenance, and/or the protection of someone or something.

A big barrier for homeless people, or even just financially challenged people, is technology. With universal credit, for example, you need access to the internet through the use of smartphones, tablets or laptops. Anybody with half a brain should get my point on this.

HOW CAN A HOMELESS PERSON HAVE A SMARTPHONE, LAPTOP OR ANY DEVICE CAPABLE OF INTERNET ACCESS.

Many service providers that cater for homeless people had some sort of deal with Tesco and were given “unlimited”(to the best of my knowledge) access to free sim cards that had unlimited calls, texts and data for a year.

This is a really good initiative which could really help those genuine people who are trying to overcome homelessness with so many aspects of their life. For example, claiming benefits and also building bridges with their family.

This sort of initiative is duty of care being upheld and adhered to “if” it’s being made accessible to every person who genuinely needs it. Instead I found that only those who had good rapport with support workers were seeming to be the ones receiving these Brucey Bonuses.

Another government backed scheme is the Aldi/Asda vouchers for £125. This is a really good initiative, and I’m saying that from personal experience, however the darker side to this is how I found they were distributed.

So the place in our area that were distributing these vouchers advertised that they were available from 9 am till noon. The first day I went to get one I got there for 9 a.m. These vouchers were given out on a first come first serve basis using a ticket system for fairness. So far so good all sounds really helpful. 9am I get there as advertised, and the response I got was, “there’s only 5 tickets left – we’ve been dishing them out since 8a.m.”

There really is something wrong with this picture. How can a service provider that has a duty of care to vulnerable adults, advertise certain times but then completely go against this and start an hour early? I voiced my opinion in an amicable way and eventually got my voucher, but the lady told me, “we only have 40 tickets a day but between me and you we have a buffer of 20 extra a day”. Although I was appreciative of that small bit of information it just goes to show how lapsed people are with confidentiality. I don’t see why I was told that; in my eyes that’s private info that only staff members should be privy to.

There are so many factors in both part one and part two of my article that contribute to the lack of duty of care. It’s my personal opinion that something really needs to be done about the lack of duty of care. This opinion is open to discussion though as it’s a key factor in people getting out of homelessness back into a normal sustainable life.