Although we aren’t all necessarily
parents, we have all been teenagers. Almost
everyone I know has had at least one time when they stayed out much too late
and their mum and dad were a combination of worried and livid.
When
I was growing up, there was a very unfortunate incident involving my sister and
the headmaster’s daughter (aged 18). My
mum was woken up at 6am by the headmaster’s wife asking if she knew where the
girls were. They were on their way home
after a particularly fine school play party.
My mum was a combination of very worried and also highly embarrassed
that she hadn’t noticed my sister wasn’t there.
Outed as a poor parent by Mrs. Hitchin.
My sister had brought shame on our family. There was a meeting…
Two
weeks ago, a woman in her 70s came into Providence Row. Her son was missing and she was looking for
him. She had been up since 7am and
travelled from her home in Wales
to London. With a laptop to help her gather information,
she was working her way around homelessness charities in London to see if she could find her son.
Our
Local Team Manager spent some time with our visitor. She explained that we weren’t able to tell
her whether her son had come to the centre, due to our responsibilities under
the Data Protection Act. However, we
could take her details and pass on a message to him and let him know she was
looking for him. The manager spent some
time speaking to the mother, finding out more about how she felt, her anxiety
about the wellbeing of her son and his state of mind.
Our
responsibility to maintain confidentiality for clients is sometimes a double
edged sword. There are times when, for
very legitimate reasons, clients do not want to be found. There are other
times, such as this, when we would like nothing more than to facilitate a
reunion.
It
was interesting that, no matter how old the son was, his mother was still
worried about him. She was a concerned
and motivated parent and, although we don’t know what has happened in the son’s
life to cause this estrangement to happen, she desperately wanted to find him.
Situations
like this remind me that whoever comes through our doors, no matter how
dishevelled, unwell, or unhappy they might be, they are always somebody’s son
or daughter, or a father, uncle or niece.
An
estimated 250,000 people go missing in the UK each year[1]
. If someone you love is missing, or if
you are not in touch with your family and would like to pass on a message, you
can contact the missing people helpline freefone 116 000 or email
116000@missingpeople.org.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment