Care worker who gave child alcohol struck off

A residential child care worker who poured alcohol into a 15-year-old service user’s soft drink and applied fake tan to another child’s torso has been struck off for breaching professional boundaries.

Christine Dickson met both service users while working for Front Line Response in Dumfries, Scotland, between January and October 2010.

In July 2010, Dickson accompanied the 15-year-old, known as service user P for legal reasons, on a visit to a caravan park.

During that stay, she allowed P to refer to her as “mum” in the presence of other people, added alcohol to the girl’s drink and bought her clothes and accessories, the Scottish Social Services Council’s conduct sub-committee heard.

She also allowed P to visit her father unaccompanied, even though Dickson knew or ought to have known P’s care plan prohibited any contact with him at all.

In relation to the other service user, the sub-committee found that, in February 2010, Dickson applied fake tan to his upper body.

Dickson was also found to have lied about her reasons for leaving a previous social care job, where she had been under investigation for allegedly abusing a service user.

The sub-committee said it was “satisfied that [Dickson’s] misconduct was of an extremely serious nature,” adding that her behaviour displayed a “mode of conduct that pervaded her work in the social work and residential care environment”.

Read the full notice of decision

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