Social worker who sent intimate photos to foster carer struck off

A foster carer supervisor was banned from the profession after she sent sexual photos to a man she was evaluating.

Lucy Bagnall, 32, messaged a picture of herself in her underwear to a man she was supervising as part of a foster couple. Within weeks she had started conversations of an “intimate or sexual nature” with him on Facebook and Skype. In one image she was said to have posed as a “seductress” where she was naked behind a shower curtain.

A fitness to practice hearing was told Miss Bagnall sent intimate photos to the man known as Mr C and shared long phone calls with him. The social worker, who had been employed by Compass Fostering in Cardiff, South Wales, last year on a three-month contract, was reported when Mr C’s partner discovered her messages.

Kerry Kane, head of fostering, said Miss Bagnall had been told to keep working relationships professional and not to befriend foster parents on social media. However, the messages were described as frequent and took place in the early hours of the morning and late at night.

Miss Bagnall, of Barry, South Wales, was also accused of failing to raise concerns about Mr C allowing the child to watch horror films. She was alleged to have failed to maintain a duty of confidentiality and to have acted inappropriately by disclosing information acquired as a social worker via Facebook messages.

It was also alleged that Miss Bagnall “failed to maintain appropriate professional boundaries with a foster carer”.

She was found guilty of misconduct in a fitness to practice hearing and immediately removed from the register of social workers.