All our volunteers live in the communities that they serve, a proud fact and it’s really wonderful to see so many parents stop us on the high road, in the supermarkets when were getting our shopping and even on the commute home from work. It’s nice our work is recognised and parents can entrust us to open cordial and friendly dialogue.
However recently, the desperation of some parents have led to some unexpected events whereby parents, pram in hand have followed volunteers home to ask for additional baby support, the latest knock being at midnight. This has happened on 4 separate occasions.
We’ve had parents approach off-duty volunteers in supermarket car parks, retail spaces, in take-away shops, at bus stops and demanding immediate support for their children. Only to be turned down and redirected back to the office and in some cases things became heated up and our volunteers unfairly had to respectfully listen to the abuse and just report it. But did it leave an emotional scar, indeed it did!
The worst incident being a parent holding her baby carrier, baby asleep running through oncoming traffic to request additional support because she can’t be bothered to go through the process of applying for support.
Incidents of this nature are undeserved, our volunteers are the lifeblood of the organisation and without them we cannot deliver our services, so acts of invading our privacy or abusive behaviour of any kind cannot be tolerated and parents will sadly become blacklisted immediately even if they are referred in the future.
We’ve also sadly decided to temporarily not wear our uniforms for a while in public and to hide our badges on breaks and when there not needed as extra precaution.
So please by all means, your more than welcome to have a convo with us in public spaces but don’t burden our volunteers with requests they cannot approve and respect their personal spaces.
