Upcoming meeting with client confidant on force in care
Sorry flairs don’t work again but I’m looking for kind words/well wishes but this is mostly a rant.
TL;DR: on Monday I’ll bee meeting with the client confidant on involuntary care due to a worsening in restraint and other restrictive measures from my staff. Wish me luck!
Remember how a few weeks ago I posted about staff at my care home making me feel as if I’m responsible for their frustration? Well the situation got quite a bit worse, to the point where last Monday I was literally dragged to my room by two staff (both holding onto one arm and pulling me) for the crime of appearing slightly distressed (all I was doing was twirling my hair) in the living room when the stafff wanted to have breakfast with my fellow clients.
I do have a Wzd (Dutch Care and Force Act) agreement that says I can be dragged to my room if I’m in “phase 3” of my signaling plan. This phase includes screaming/yelling, object throwing, physical aggression and self-harm and I can totally see why for the safety of both myself and my fellow residents I should be in my room then. However, there literally never is no buildup to this and my signaling plan does include other interventions when I’m starting to show distress (phase 1 and 2). Besides, even if I am to be taken to my room, I am to have a trusted staff with me for regulation, preferably one who wasn’t involved in the buildup. Unfortunately, most staff see my needing someone else as a threat to their expertise even though I’ve like literally had problems with every single staff during the 2 1/2 years I’ve lived here and most staff have also been in the role of trustedd de-escalator.
Anyway, on Monday I was literally pushed onto my bed then told the staff would be back in 45 minutes. My door wasn’t locked but only because it’s physically impossible to lock me in right now (I’m afraid that’ll change soon). One of the staff involved has a long history of physically holding my door shut and telling others to do so, so I was too scared to try to get out of my room. After crying for about half an hour, I froze. The staff found me lying “quietly” (her words) on my bed. When I couldn’t get up quickly enough, she bluntly asked me if I wanted to stay in bed all day.
I tried to talk the situation over with her on Thursday but she just said it had been her and her coworker’s decision all along, since I’d been in the living room in slight distress about half an hour earlier too. Apparently while I was voluntarily in my room for about half an hour the two of them had conferred about forcing me into my room if I came out again. This has caused me to lose trust in the other staff, who was one of the staff who used to use the least force on me. The initiating staff has a long history of ignoring my signaling plan. Unfortunately she claimed to have discussed this with my assigned staff, my support coordinator, the team leader and the behavior specialist. This was in fact what prompts me to contact the client confidant, as all of these higher-ups have been understanding to my face. It looks like they’re all double-mouthed if that’s a word: pleasing me to my face yet giving their coworkers permission to do whatever they want with me behind my back.
I’m hoping this meeting on Monday will give me more clarity on my and the staff’s rights/obligations.