Fostering social worker struck off

ASOCIAL worker who sent pictures of herself in the shower to a foster dad has been struck off.

Lucy Bagnall, from Barry, was working as a supervising social worker and was assigned responsibility for a couple who were fostering a child, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

But a Social Care Wales fitness to practise panel heard that within weeks of meeting the couple Ms Bagnall became involved in conversations with one of the carers, known as Mr C, over social media, Skype, and phone calls.

Some of these conversations were described as being of a “sexual or intimate” nature and included photographs of Ms Bagnall in the shower partially covered by a shower curtain and in her underwear as well as images of “sexual paraphernalia”. There were also references to sexual acts and sexual innuendo.

Other examples of these messages included “I love you” and “You are literally the best friend ever, you came into my life from nowhere and that’s the work of God”.

The messages and images came to light after Mr C’s partner came across them while looking through Mr C’s iPad.

The fitness to practise hearing in Cardiff yesterday heard Ms Bagnall, who was a temporary social worker for Compass Fostering in 2018, had breached her duty of confidentiality towards foster carers and her employers, had failed to maintain a professional boundary with foster carer Mr C, and had failed to protect the interests and wellbeing of the child in Mr C and his partner’s care.

Panel chairman Islwyn Davies announced Ms Bagnall would be made subject to a removal order, which effectively removes her from the social work register for life.

He said: “We have concluded that Ms Bagnall’s fitness to practise is impaired due to serious misconduct.

“In our judgement each of the matters we found proved represented conduct that would fall short of social working practice.

“There were multiple incidents where Ms Bagnall breached her duty of confidentiality and we cannot conclude the charges found proven could be fairly considered isolated.

“Ms Bagnall repeatedly displayed a lack of judgement and behaved in a grossly reckless manner.”

Mr Davies added Ms Bagnall had sought to justify and defend her actions and had shown little insight or remediation.

He said: “There’s a real risk of repetition of the conduct we have found proven and public confidence in the social care profession would be undermined if a finding of impairment were not made.”

Ms Bagnall did not attend the hearing and was not represented.

Speaking after the hearing, a spokesman from Compass Fostering said: “Our thoughts remain with those affected by Ms Bagnall’s unprofessional conduct.”

Compass said they would be conducting a review to identify areas of improvement.