[Serendipity.]

Yeah, I'm aware that it could be a positive thing for some people. However, most of the people I work with self harm, and while it could be a good thing for some of them to see a support worker with visible scars, for a lot of them it wouldn't and could be triggering or upsetting. There's also the potential that they would feel they had to censor what they said out of fear of 'triggering' me. I know that when I was actively self harming, I would have struggled to work with a support worker who had obvious self harm scars on show, particularly if they were 'worse' than mine (terrible, I know, but probably not that unusual!) Whereas on the other hand, I shouldn't *have* to have scars on show or even for clients to know that I have a history of self harm, to be able to show empathy and reassure them that it's possible to get through it. So personally I feel that the potential risks of not covering up outweigh the potential benefits.

That is, of course, just my opinion, and I'm not saying that everyone needs to do what I do! I also think that even in mental health, not every client group will be the same or have the same needs, what I've said is fairly specific to where I work.