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Dealing with Issues of Confidentiality

This page may be particularly relevant for adults involved as volunteers in Guiding, and is written from a Guiding perspective.

Often it is difficult to know what to do if someone opens up to you about a mental health problem, as there is such a taboo about it in society. A good way to decide what action, if any, you should take is to think about the illness being something else – such as food poisoning. If a girl came to you in a meeting complaining of all the symptoms of food poisoning, you wouldn’t rush to the District Commissioner to tell her, and unless you were at a camp you probably wouldn’t even have to phone the child’s parents. If, however, you were to find out that the reason the child has food poisoning was because a parent or close relative had force fed them mouldy food, you may be concerned for the child’s safety, and would then have a just cause to go to your District Commissioner to discuss what to do.

Try to relate this to a mental health condition – if the child has confided in you, the last thing you want to do is instantly break that confidence, as the child may well lose faith in you and not talk to anyone – often far worse. The point is this – the illness itself may not be a reason to consult other people in the child’s life, although the causes might be. For example, if you were to discover that a child was being abused then of course you would need to tell someone, and the Guide Association is clear on such issues in its policies.

If you were to feel that you needed to talk to someone, but didn’t want to break the child’s confidence, one option is to ring some of the help lines listed in the Help! section. These can provide confidential advice and ideas from how to help the child in the short term to gain more trust in you, to helping them find more permanent solutions to their problems. Going back to the food poisoning analogy, this is like you giving the child something to help settle their stomach, or just letting them lie down in the sick room for a while so they can rest.

You can get further advice on dealing with sensitive issues and confidentiality in the GirlguidingUK Safe From Harm document.

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