mobiles and detached

I have been working on a project with some skaters and bikers in chard around getting lights and a path put in at the skate park. Yesterday at short notice the local paper wanted pictures. Whilst I dont keep record of young peoples mobile numbers, the fact they did have them made life easier. As soon as I saw one young person on the street they sent the word around and we had a good crowd within 20 minutes. The idea of being front page helped but it also meant I wasn’t going around rounding people up, and if I had not seen anyone we would have missed a really good opportunity.

As a rule I have not kept yp mobile numbers as recommended by some recent good practice guidelines, but it would make life easier. I amwondering if we should change the policy and am considering asking for consent to have the details once the young people are at stage 6 in the detached process. I wonder if with the ad hoc nature of detached projects there is more of a case. If there are other detached workers out there it would be know your policy.