A residential child care worker from Wrexham has been removed from the Register of Social Care Workers after a Social Care Wales hearing found her fitness to practise is currently impaired because of serious misconduct.
The hearing was told that, between January and February 2020, Rebecca Spencer took photographs of young people in her care without their consent and sent the pictures on with inappropriate comments.
Ms Spencer also told another person that she used recreational drugs, inappropriately shared confidential information about the young people in her care and acted in an abusive way towards them.
In addition, Ms Spencer failed to tell Social Care Wales that she had been dismissed from a previous job when she applied to be on the Register of Social Care Workers.
After considering the evidence, the panel found the charges proved and concluded that Ms Spencer’s fitness to practise was currently impaired because of serious misconduct.
Explaining its decision, the panel told Ms Spencer: “The proven misconduct is unquestionably deplorable, given that it involves multiple acts of humiliating and degrading abuse perpetrated against vulnerable young people, who you referred to in the vilest of terms in messages to [another person].
“You breached the trust of your then employer, and the trust of the young people concerned. Both were entitled to expect you to observe confidentiality.
“In your messages, you further humiliated and degraded the young people in the way you spoke about them. You named them, sent pictures of them, and – in one instance – sent [another person] a photograph of a young person’s care plan. In another message, you referred to your desire to use recreational drugs whilst caring for the young people.”
The panel continued: “There is no evidence of any actual insight before us, nor is there any evidence of you taking any steps to remedy the actions which led to the breaches of the Code of Professional Practice for Social Care that we have identified.”
The panel decided to remove Ms Spencer from the Register, saying: “There has been an exceptionally serious departure from the relevant standards set out in the Code of Professional Practice for Social Care. We do not consider that any lesser disposal would protect the public, given the lack of both insight and remediation to which we have already referred, and the finding of dishonesty we have made.
“Dishonesty, particularly when associated with professional practice, is so damaging to a registered person’s suitability and to public confidence in social care services that removal may be the only appropriate disposal.”
The four-day hearing took place over Zoom last week.