DO NO HARM

Familiarity breeds complacency

 

Just the other day, I was involved in a near-accident whilst driving. Not so much an accident that could have affected me, but one that could have actually caused the life of a pedestrian. I was making a left turn at a junction, without paying due attention to my near side to see whether someone was crossing the road. With only a glance, I confidently attempted to turn only to see myself narrowly missing the shocked dude who was crossing the road. 

For a time, I was wondering how such a thing could have happened. This was because I considered myself a safe driver (though some of my friends might beg to differ), and normally would take mental notes to myself about not speeding too fast, keeping appropriate distance from the car in front, etc. I guess that as we grow more familiar, that's when the complacency sets in. 

Familiarity is comfortable, and it makes us feel secure and comfortable. As a social worker I have already spent 5 years working with a myriad of cases, and with a sizable number of crisis cases. I tend to think that nothing much would be able to surprise me anymore.

But perhaps, it is in familiarity that danger lurks. Because in familiarity, we tend to blind ourselves from the nuances that could actually be critical to our clients welfare and safety. We fool ourselves with past templates that could fit our clients' experience, making them more similar than unique. 

For indeed, all families are similar, 

But also, all families are different. 

How Can I help You?

 

It has been a busy month of conducting networking meetings and outreach for this new programme that I am currently involved in. We have been going around several organisations in order to identify potential resources for our clients in the community. 

I met several providers of financial assistance, and was struck by certain commonalities in the perceptions of help seeking and provision of social assistance. Many help providing organisations were quick to stress on the need to ensure that "the client is not cheating us".

This would be done through the use of extensive databases (to check what other assistance someone is receiving); requiring ALL the relevant documents to be submitted before the process of assistance can even begin; making multiple checks at the different organisations in the community to ensure that client is not "telling lies"; and more.