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Dealing with boundaries when working in a private home Cecily Lalloo, managing director of Embrace HR, assesses the importance of establishing professional boundaries and why they must be put in place 34
Professional Boundaries The quality of a support worker’s relationship with their client is very important. It is essential to create a warm, kind, homely and friendly environment. Sometimes, however, this closeness can blur professional boundaries and cause misunderstandings and difficulties for the support worker and the parents of the young people in their care. Many of our clients are young children and parents and family are the first point of contact on a daily basis with the support worker. It is really important that both the support worker and the parents work together to understand their roles, their limits and the employer’s policies. Professional boundaries are the rules and limits that prevent the lines between the support worker and the client from becoming blurred. These boundaries are there to help maintain a safe working environment. It is important to set boundaries from the outset. Where parents are acting on behalf of the young person (the employer) they often