I lose track of which sort of safeguarding training I've done. I get offered it via the diocese and also as a school governor, and as both streams of training happen in the same place it's not easy to know which you're swimming in at any one time. The last lot I did was online which was a new experience; downloading my certificate just wasn't as thrilling as picking it up from a formica table.
This week I was down to do another training session, and went along wondering how they were going to repackage the same thing as usual yet again. In fact it turned out to be about safeguarding adults. Now, the legislation talks about 'vulnerable adults', defined as people of 'reduced capacity' and/or those in receipt of social support of some kind. However, the Church of England has chosen in its own guidelines not to talk about 'vulnerable adults' but 'adults who are vulnerable', thus widening the definition. 'Anyone can be vulnerable in certain circumstances', the trainer told us, which is nothing other than the truth. As is the manner of these things we were shown a range of filmed scenarios. 'Who is vulnerable in this situation?' we were asked, and eventually concluded that virtually everyone on the screen was, one way or another. Although thinking in these terms does make you alert to the ways in which people in a given situation may be hurting, or capable of being hurt, I couldn't help wondering whether a definition without boundaries was of any use as an analytical category. If everyone is potentially vulnerable, who do you look out for most?
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"If everyone is potentially vulnerable, who do you look out for most?"
ReplyDeleteThe one whose neglect is most likely to land you in a big steaming pile of trouble.
Understanding that everyone can be vulnerable is a good idea. I hope it would lead people to think about the conditions in which someone is more vulnerable. For example, are single people lonely and more vulnerable at Christmas? (It is, however, a myth than suicides increase at Christmas). People may be vulnerable at an anniversary of a death. And of course when life is tough - a job or marriage under pressure, a child who is ill.
ReplyDeleteAnd some people will be more vulnerable than others, including those mentioned in your blog.
suicides at Christmas data: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25245117