View Full Version : Concerns about security now being more lax at day centre
Yesterday when returning to my day centre at lunchtime after nipping round the corner to buy a sarnie for lunch, I found the front entrance door wide open seemingly for no apparent reason (it wasn't me that left it open/unlocked) and when I informed the manager about it she said that there were no clients there yesterday who were at risk of escaping/wandering off, and I said 'what about Dunblane back in 1996?' and she replied that Burton on Trent is hardly Britain's 'crime capital' and that Dunblane, as tragic as it was, was only just a 'one-off', and she believes that society has become disproportionately paranoid about pretty much anything and everything over the past 30 years or so.
Am I being excessively paranoid myself or are the staff at my day centre being negligent regarding security?
LittleLionMan
22-02-24, 14:00
You’re being excessively paranoid dude.
You’re being excessively paranoid dude.
Perhaps I am.
However I was always under the impression (rightly or wrongly) that ever since the Dunblane tragedy there has been some kind of security protocol in place in establishments occupied by vulnerable individuals. I know many schools throughout the whole of Britain have (for better or worse) become increasingly fortified post-1996, and I kind of assumed the same thing may have also applied to adult day care centres and the like, though I could be wrong, of course.
On a similar but related note (as I already mentioned in another thread on here a while back) , my day centre manager also believed that a lot of the zero tolerance policies against challenging behaviours from clients back in the late 90s and 2000s were often excessive, unwarranted and a consequence of paranoia and moral panic over something that was never really a major issue in the first place, but of course she had no choice but to go along with such policies back in the day as they were part of a protocol drawn up by Staffordshire County Council, who actually owned and ran the premises (as a day centre for elderly persons) up until the early 2010s, after which time they sold off the premises and they were then taken over by the independent organisation who runs the current day centre in conjunction with another site near Uttoxeter, but both the main manager and deputy manager of the Burton site which I have attended since 2017 worked there for many years in its aforementioned previous guise.
Perhaps they both believe in being a bit more liberal and going against the grain (within reason and through common sense, of course) as opposed to excessively strict disciplinarian and authoritarian regimes, of which I personally believe can be a greater recipe for animosity between certain staff and clients, which I've been privy to at various other places I've attended in the past.
I don't think you are being overly paranoid. If anyone can just walk in off the street into the building that is a security concern especially if there are vulnerable people in the day centre on certain days/times of the week.
I don't think you are being overly paranoid. If anyone can just walk in off the street into the building that is a security concern especially if there are vulnerable people in the day centre on certain days/times of the week.
My day centre manager did say that risk assessments have been carried out (in conjunction with the local police and council) and no specific security threats to the place have been identified within the area.
She also added that in the vast majority of cases the perpetrators and victims of such extremely rare atrocities tend to be known to each other in some form or another (which I think was the case with Dunblane), but the manager can't really see what some random nutjob sidling in off the street and violently turning the place over willy-nilly is really likely to gain from such activities.
But then again, I suppose if my day centre was in a high-crime area of a big city, then the place being more fortified would obviously be far more justifiable.
LittleLionMan
22-02-24, 17:52
I mean it’s OTT to jump straight to the Dunblane massacre because a door was left open.
The manager said there were no people she was concerned about in the building so she’s made a judgement call. I can’t see a problem with that, to be honest.
I mean it’s OTT to jump straight to the Dunblane massacre because a door was left open.
The manager said there were no people she was concerned about in the building so she’s made a judgement call. I can’t see a problem with that, to be honest.
I agree I probably did jump the gun a bit with the Dunblane thing (no pun intended) as it was an epically extreme example of a 'worst-case scenario'.
I've read that the 'fear of crime' is often thought to be disproportionately greater than the actual 'threat' of crime for the most part in this country, and that we're generally at no significantly greater risk from the likes of burglars, muggers, murderers, rapists, paedos, terrorists, rioters, etc, now than at any time since at least the end of the Second World War, despite the plethora of instantaneous 24/7 rolling media over the past 25 years or so forever beaming unsettling imagery into our faces from virtually every corner of the world.
LittleLionMan
22-02-24, 18:54
Yeah, there’s an interesting video on it on the Therapy In A Nutshell YouTube channel. It could actually be really beneficial to you, as you seem to struggle to be rational (or more so concerned) with media influences? I’ll try and find it for you later, but it explains why the media do it, it’s not just that the world is inherently bad, it’s because negativity and threatening headlines grab your attention more than positive or neutral stories.
It's not just that the world is inherently bad, it's because negativity and threatening headlines grab your attention more than positive or neutral stories.
Always have done to a certain extent, and like I said yesterday in the thread 'Do you ever get the impression people just don't care' within the 'Misc' subsection of this forum, the 6-year period spanning from 2005 through 2011 seemed to be one of the worst for me during my adult years in terms of traumatic headlines and people concurrently being more uptight and angry than what seems to be the case now, despite further unsettling headlines and general perceptions of various issues over the past 8 years in particular, but most ironically (and for better or worse) people don't seem to express their outrage and indignation at the current state of this country in public, as in everyday conversation, or at the more extreme end of the spectrum, on the streets like they used to up until the early 2010s.
Not that I'm in any way gagging for a lot of the apparent public disquiet of the 2005-11 period to return in the same form all over again, but I'm just rather pleasantly miffed as to why there hasn't been widespread rioting like August 2011 as one could be forgiven for thinking that many of the prevailing conditions since then have been the perfect recipe for further disturbances of such nature during the intervening period. I'm also rather pleasantly miffed as to why people hardly seem to have intense discussions about feral youngsters now like they did back then, especially in response the fairly recent knife crime 'epidemic' and all the 'kids today...blah blah blah' stuff which seemed to be relentless right up until the early 2010s.
I reiterate I'm not gagging for repeats of all the above, as a lot of it was unpalatable and unsettling enough at the time but I'm merely just surprised as to how such issues don't appear to be as openly discussed nowadays.
LittleLionMan
22-02-24, 20:25
I think your bar for bad behaviour is particularly low, and I don’t know how old you are, but describing the youth as ‘feral youngsters’ has been happening for generations… as people grow up they always think ‘the youth of today’ are worse than their generation was, when it’s all pretty much the same mixed bag as ever. I think most of us would accept we weren’t angels as kids, and the youngsters should be allowed to experience life and express themselves, it’s just knowing where that line is.
I actually agree that I’m massively surprised there hasn’t been major uproar over recent events, but different to you, I actually wouldn’t mind seeing it, to see people care. The one thing stopping it, I think, is that people have voted for most of the sh*t that’s going on, and can’t face being angry at their own decision… Brexit Means Brexit, remember.
I think your bar for bad behaviour is particularly low, and I don’t know how old you are, but describing the youth as ‘feral youngsters’ has been happening for generations… as people grow up they always think ‘the youth of today’ are worse than their generation was, when it’s all pretty much the same mixed bag as ever. I think most of us would accept we weren’t angels as kids, and the youngsters should be allowed to experience life and express themselves, it’s just knowing where that line is.
I actually agree that I’m massively surprised there hasn’t been major uproar over recent events, but different to you, I actually wouldn’t mind seeing it, to see people care. The one thing stopping it, I think, is that people have voted for most of the sh*t that’s going on, and can’t face being angry at their own decision… Brexit Means Brexit, remember.
I am almost 47 years old (in July this year).
As for a lot of the crap that goes on of late vs a lot of the crap that went on in the 2000s and early 2010s, it does seem that over the past decade or so many people have simply become more blasé about a lot of things that many previously expressed greater indignation against.
I can't really decide as to whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, but it does seem that the UK (at least) reached peak 'moral panic(s)' and the like in general during the 2005-11 period, as I pointed out upthread. And most of the teenagers I tend to notice these days whilst out and about generally seem to be a lot tamer and less boisterous compared to back then (and also back when I was a teenager myself), even though they will always still be the odd exceptions of course.
LittleLionMan
22-02-24, 21:47
Yeah, so you’ll see what I mean.
I’m 38, and my generation were far worse than what we see now, I think. Someone who know’s more please correct me if I’m wrong, but todays younger generation seem to have swapped the pub for the gym and live far more sensibly than my generation did, and at a guess, I think they probably feel downtrodden, and unheard. You think of the housing market, the Brexit the youngsters (correctly) didn’t want, the general feel of a government that just doesn’t speak for them (or for me), the way the country is generally on its knees, they probably feel a bit defeated and lost. I don’t think I could be as professionally successful in this current climate as I have been 20 years ahead, no chance. The doors aren’t open for a large percentage of youngsters. It has to be hard for them.
Just a thought: in the college I work at, yesterday I was verbally abused by a student and a couple of others came over a couple of times afterwards to make sure I was okay. The abusive student was in her 40s and the concerned ones were teenagers.
Just a thought: in the college I work at, yesterday I was verbally abused by a student and a couple of others came over a couple of times afterwards to make sure I was okay. The abusive student was in her 40s and the concerned ones were teenagers.
Wow, it does seem that my generation and LLM's generation (roughly Gen X and Y) were/are among the biggest 'yobs' of all then, even though both myself and LLM aren't actually 'yobs' per se.
Also partly explains how the 90s and 2000s both seemed to be more violent and raucous decades (when myself and LLM respectively were teenagers) compared with those that followed; at least that's my own personal observation/perception and fully accept that I could be totally wrong.
And kudos to those teenage students for sticking up for you and indirectly giving that @rsehole of a student in her 40s what for!
Plus had I also been a student in the session at your college (at my actual age right now of nearly 47) I would have felt very tempted to give that b1tch of a student a load of verbal abuse myself in the corridor after the session had ended, and risk being sanctioned myself!
Yeah, so you’ll see what I mean.
I’m 38, and my generation were far worse than what we see now, I think. Someone who know’s more please correct me if I’m wrong, but todays younger generation seem to have swapped the pub for the gym and live far more sensibly than my generation did, and at a guess, I think they probably feel downtrodden, and unheard. You think of the housing market, the Brexit the youngsters (correctly) didn’t want, the general feel of a government that just doesn’t speak for them (or for me), the way the country is generally on its knees, they probably feel a bit defeated and lost. I don’t think I could be as professionally successful in this current climate as I have been 20 years ahead, no chance. The doors aren’t open for a large percentage of youngsters. It has to be hard for them.
Yes, it's pretty damn astounding how a lot of the current younger generation just seem to take a lot of the current crap on the chin and are also seemingly less bothered about voting in elections than previous generations seemed to be.
Back when I was their age there would have no doubt been mass anarchy on the streets of Britain, especially in response to a lot of what seems to have been crisis after crisis after crisis since about 2005 in particular.
And yes I know we did have the riots in August 2011 but they seemed to be the last real bastion of major public rebellion in this country and (for better or worse) we haven't seen anything on that scale ever since, unlike in say, France, youngsters seem to riot and rebel en masse almost every year, and have seemingly done so also since around 2005 in particular.
While I don't normally agree with such debauchery, I can't help feeling that British society in general has become a bit too soft and apathetic over the past 15 years or so, and just seems to have developed a rather apathetic 'walk on by' kind of attitude.
Back to the original thread topic.
A bit of a cliche I know, but I guess I'm probably far more likely to get run over by a bus than get shot or stabbed to death by some raving psychopath randomly sidling into my day centre through the open/unlocked front door.
Though not a security-related issue per se, I've noticed this week my day centre has now also ditched its hand sanitiser dispensers that were previously scattered around the building, with the manager saying 'they're no longer worth it'.
Yes, Covid may now no longer be the big threat it once was, but I'm sure those hand sanitiser dispenser things were already present when I first started attending there in 2017, ages before Covid first came along, and their presence might possibly have been a hangover from the Swine Flu and Ebola days?
LittleLionMan
29-02-24, 07:45
Do you work in this day center Lenco?
If not, what do you do for work?
Do you work in this day center Lenco?
If not, what do you do for work?
No, I am a client there and currently attend once per week (usually Wednesdays).
I don't actually work as I have ASD.
TBH, I don't think I could cope with having a proper job.
I'm just still rather miffed as they suddenly seem to have gone from being more fastidious about infection control in the not-too-distant past (even before Covid to a certain extent) to being relatively lax now.
I'm just still rather miffed as they suddenly seem to have gone from being more fastidious about infection control in the not-too-distant past (even before Covid to a certain extent) to being relatively lax now.
I also recall the staff at my previous day centre no longer bothering to refill the hand gel dispensers since the media and the authorities basically stopped caring about Swine Flu during the very early months of 2010, by which time said virus already seemed to be pretty much 'water under the bridge' as far as most people were concerned.
But at least Swine Flu luckily didn't end up warranting full-blown Covid pandemic-like restrictions during that particular 'pandemic' (e.g, national lockdowns, social distancing, indoor face mask-wearing, etc).
LittleLionMan
29-02-24, 15:18
No, I am a client there and currently attend once per week (usually Wednesdays).
I don't actually work as I have ASD.
TBH, I don't think I could cope with having a proper job.
I'm just still rather miffed as they suddenly seem to have gone from being more fastidious about infection control in the not-too-distant past (even before Covid to a certain extent) to being relatively lax now.
Ah right. Sounds good.
No? Have you ever worked?
Have to remember everywhere functioned perfectly fine before Covid, that little nightmare has just made us all more aware of it now, probably unnecessarily now to a certain extent.
Have to remember everywhere functioned perfectly fine before Covid, that little nightmare has just made us all more aware of it now, probably unnecessarily now to a certain extent.
Perhaps, but I did also mention a couple of posts ago that my previous day centre also did pretty much the same thing back when Swine Flu faded into insignificance in early 2010.
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