Navigating Boundaries.

How do third sector organisations navigate the boundaries of helping roles to protect their clients and themselves?

This workshop looks at the ethical dilemmas faced by helpers in their caring roles. How can helpers best be supported to confidently make decisions that are transparent, ethical, and reasonable and in line with the organisation’s mission, without getting bogged down in bureaucracy?

The unique value of third sector services comes from their flexibility and responsiveness: the ability to tailor support to individual client’s needs without as much red tape. It would be counter productive to confine helpers with strictly defined service and role definitions. By its very nature, there are blurred boundaries around the work that community outreach services provide. Helpers may wear multiple hats and perform different roles. Clients are complex individuals with complex needs and person-centred practice demands flexibility in how to respond to those needs.

This workshop looks at how helpers and the organisations they work for:

• ensure they maintain safe and ethical practice, including avoiding unrealistic expectations or client dependency;

• make sure they keep focused and use resources wisely, avoiding mission creep.

Participants will be asked to share their experiences and knowledge, identifying the principles they operate under and how these are implemented in practice.

The content of the workshop can be tailored to identify a policy framework where this is not yet in place, or where it is, focus on how to bring policies to life in daily practice.

This workshop is for you if:

• You are responsible for providing a service to potentially vulnerable clients that doesn’t fall neatly into a particular professional ‘box’ (e.g. counselling, nursing etc) and corresponding ethical framework;

• You are in a helping role and are unsure of the boundaries of your role: when and how and who you should help or not help;

• You are in a helping role and feel that your personal boundaries or the boundaries of the service are being tested and may need adjustment;

• You feel you, or your staff, need support for working through ethical dilemmas that arise in your practice;

• You are interested in developing your organisation’s governance and bringing policy guidelines to life in your practice.

This workshop is principally aimed at third sector organisations that provide support to their beneficiaries through employees and/or volunteers, but public or private sector services would likely find it of equal interest and the content can be easily adapted to your needs.

Depending on your needs, an introductory workshop could cost as little as £50 per delegate.