INSIST ON WRITTEN RECORDS AND FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

Today's post is once again contributed by Ray Ferris who still provides informed and supportive gratis encouragement and counsel to parents who seek him out for advice to deal with the personal crises they encounter when dealing with the social service agency known as the Ministry of Children and Family Development. Of concern today is the dispute that parents have with the representation of them contained in a social worker's documents.

Written records.

You should ask for a copy of his notes

Today I want to clarify what is a written record. The main body of the written record on the social worker’s file often consists of written material generated by the social workers and their colleagues. When a social worker records client contacts on the file, it may contain a number of things. It may be partly factual, but it can also be partly perception, opinion or conjecture. For example --- “I phoned Mrs. Jones at two this afternoon and she only answered the phone after ten rings, so I nearly hung up. I thought she sounded a bit depressed and reluctant to talk to me. I wondered if she had had a relapse into heroin use, but I decided not to ask about that, but just to ask her how she was doing and if she needed any help.” Sounds okay doesn’t it? But is it really?

The fact was that she phoned at two P.M. and it took ten rings to answer the phone. The rest was all conjecture and perception and opinion.