Talking to children and young people about confidentiality

You may have already developed your own way of discussing confidentiality with adults in your professional life, but how do you broach this important subject with children and young people?

In the video we talked about the principles and below are some suggestions as to the words that you may use. Remember to take the time with the child or young person, these are not conversations to be rushed; they may want to tell you things that they are ashamed of, embarrassed by or just don’t want others to know.

“I want you to feel you can talk to me about anything you are worried or upset about and if you don’t want me to tell other people that we have talked, then I won’t, but, it is my job to keep you and other people safe, so sometimes I may have to talk to other people to get you the right help and keep you or others safe. But I will always try and let you know if I am going to have to tell other people what we have been discussing.”

“I want you to feel you can talk to me about anything and trust me. If there are things that you don’t want me to share with your parents, then let me know. But it is part of my job to keep you, and other people, safe … so if you tell me something that makes me worried, I might have to share our conversation with other people to get the right help and support for you. But whenever I can, I will let you know if I need to share our talk with others, and let you know the reasons why I have shared it.”

Remember to always be mindful of the developmental (emotional and cognitive) age of a child or young person as well as their chronological age (in actual years). Consider whether you need to adapt your language and communication style to better help them understand what you are sharing about confidentiality within your relationship.

When working with older young people, it is important to hear and respect their opinions and feelings about the care and services they do/do not receive. Practitioners need to consider the young person’s opinions and feelings whilst balancing the thoughts and requests of their parents or carers. When deciding whether a young person is mature enough to make independent decisions about their care and received services, practitioners can be supported through this decision-making process by considering the ‘Fraser guidelines’ and ‘Gillick competencies’.

You might find it helpful to reflect upon this guidance across a range of situations, including if a young person is explicitly asking you not to tell their parent or carer about something. As always, any safeguarding or child protection concern will override any requests or demands by the young person.