So I work in a carehome and am relatively new to it, previously worked in dom care. I (M) was doing a double up with another carer (F) and we moved the resident (F) from her chair to her bed and cleaned her up, changed her pad, dressed her then we were repositioning the resident and when they were rolled towards me they put their hand on my back.
I thought nothing of this as I thought she was just supporting herself as the bed had no side bars for her to grab on to.
We had to once again reposition them and they went back and forth between me and the other carer as her clothes were difficult to adjust, I noticed that they only “steadied” themselves on me and not when they were rolled towards the other member of staff, my thinking was this may be due to a multitude of things such as weakness on her right side or pain etc.
However once we had her comfortable and ready for bed (no reason or need for her to steady herself on me), she placed her hand on my hip, random hand flailing or maybe trying to hold my hand in an endearing manor, but then she moved round my hip to my butt.
At this point I thought this is properly something not serious but because of my conscious nature regarding SA and similar things I’m thinking it’s malicious/overthinking.
But then she squeezed my buttock quite firmly although her wrists didn’t have much strength and I moved to the side a bit as a reaction.
The other carer did not notice this to my knowledge, I feel alright, I am quite capable when it comes to dealing with this kind of thing due to past experiences and reckon I could still treat this resident on the assumption this was nothing.
On the other hand I feel if it was malicious and I was aware enough to realise this continuing to treat them is just opening myself up to further potential abuse from them.
I am new to this job and am enjoying my role immensely however I feel I may be misreading the situation and that it’d be unwise to report this.
The staff would 100% support me however I haven’t made up my mind on what the situation actually was and if I feel if I continued to treat the resident it’s almost like I’m checking if a car is coming by sticking my arm in the road if that makes sense, like I’m still providing that specific care almost to see if it or similar events happen.
What are your thoughts on this?
This is a hard one. Given that it seems you’re caring for someone who is incapable of caring for themselves, I personally wouldn’t feel right putting them in a position that could make things harder for them. At the same time, no one should be forced to deal with ongoing unwanted sexual behavior. Perhaps your employer would be willing to keep you away from that resident specifically?
This seems like the best move