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.
Of course, if you give your number to them and they ring it, usually you have their number as soon as they ring you. So the idea of not having their numbers doesn’t necessarily work out in practice – even if you then delete their number (which doesn’t prove that you didn’t record it somewhere else).
I Think there’s a difference between giving personal and work-related numbers. You still cant ever prove you havent “stolen” the numbers for your own private use, but that could be the case with any confidential details. If your work phone has itemised billing and you make your calls in the presence of another worker, then I think your covered. If your strict about when you turn your phone on, you shouldn’t have any issues with young people calling at inapproprate times. But that’s unlikely to work for everyone.