Scenario 3

One of the staff members, Peggy, has worked at the house for over twenty years. Positive and valuable relationships between Peggy and clients have developed over that time. She knows the individual stories of the clients and has an appreciation of their life experiences. The connection is also valued by clients' families. There have been many changes in services, staffing, systems and arrangements in the last twenty years. Peggy is the consistent staff person and often the "go to" staff person when families have a concern or don't understand information, decisions or arrangements. Families and clients regard her with trust and affection.

Recently Peggy has reduced her time fraction from full time to 2 days a week and the adjustment for her and for the clients has revealed practices which now present an ethical dilemma for the team leader and the team. The long-standing relationship between Peggy and clients' families has resulted in her passing on her home and mobile phone numbers to them. Families often call her after her work hours to check on events or information, or to discuss their preferences or grievances. This has not been known or evident to the team leader until Peggy reduced her work hours to part time.

Another staff person has taken over Peggy's key worker responsibilities for Martha, a client. Martha's family have been calling Peggy and discussing their dissatisfaction and requesting changes and actions through her. Peggy is passing those communications on to the other staff informally and through team meetings. Your manager has asked you to develop a system to ensure that this situation does not occur again.

List the legal and ethical compliance requirements and responsibilities you should consider when preparing this system. List five (5) considerations.