Child Protection

steoin

Not sure if this is the right place for this but anywho

I received training provided by Barnardos in relation to child protection but I have an issue which I feel quite passionately about, (which I debated at the time, and since with people who would have more experience in the area) and I was wondering if people could share their thoughts on.

I can't remember the exact detail's but the general gist was that if a child in your care came to you and said they had something to tell you but would only tell you if you promised you would not tell anyone, we were advised to tell the child that we could not make that promise.

The vast majority of the time it is going to be something trivial.


My thinking is that if you promise the child that you won't tell anyone and it turns out to be serious you have a number of options.

a) Convince the child that it is serious and reassure them while encouraging them to inform someone adequately trained to deal with the situation.(the child realises that their "secret" is not right and has felt the need to inform you I'm intuively assuming it would be possible in some cases that the child would take your advice and allow you to inform someone) if not well.......


b)Break the trust and inform said someone, as far as I can see its the lesser of two evils breaking the child's trust. If it is something serious and warrants further action it boils down to breaking the trust of the child and I accept that I am in no way qualified to understand the harm breaking the trust of a child that has potentially had that trust shattered.


It just does not sit right with me that anyone could honestly say they have the interest of child at heart and tell them they cannot promise to keep a secret and potentially sending that child back into a harmful environment.

Btw I know how I would act if I ever found myself in the situation and I am not sure if I could be convinced of otherwise, but at the same time I respect that those on the other side of the fence (that I have discussed the matter with) are more knowledgeable but for the life of me I cant see why the best I can come up with is it is down to my own Idealistic perspective combined with arrogance or self-righteousness.

I would be interested to hear the thought and opinions of others especially those who work with children and related fields, and would be especially grateful to anyone that could provide articles in relation to breaking the trust of a vulnerable child.

Kooli

I don't work with children myself, so I'm sure someone who does can add more to this conversation, but it's a really interesting (and important issue).
Also, the guidelines apply to all professions, but I'm speaking as a psychologist, where confidentiality and consent are two cornerstones of our work.

Although I see exactly where your concerns arise, I still don't think they justify lying to a child to extract information from them that they wouldn't have given to you if you had been honest. Because lying and deception is essentially what you're talking about.

I imagine it would never be as simple as saying to the child 'no I can't keep a secret. So do you want to tell me?'. Depending on the age of the child, I'm sure it's possible to explain that you can keep most things secret but there are certain things you can't, particularly if someone is in danger or being hurt. You can then talk around the issue with them (what do you worry I might do? Who do you not want to know?) and answer questions they might have. You could also give examples of different hypothetical situations and what your response would be in each of them to help them understand.

sambuka41

steoin wrote: »

Btw I know how I would act if I ever found myself in the situation and I am not sure if I could be convinced of otherwise, but at the same time I respect that those on the other side of the fence (that I have discussed the matter with) are more knowledgeable but for the life of me I cant see why the best I can come up with is it is down to my own Idealistic perspective combined with arrogance or self-righteousness.

I would ask have you experience in dealing with children? I don't mean to be offensive, The only reason I ask is because when you actually say this most of the time, they will tell you anyway, they are telling you because they want it to stop or they want clarification about something. I have never had a child who refused to tell me what they wanted to after I explained that I couldn't promise to keep it secret, I've worked with 100's of children at risk, and they have told me a huge variety of things. I think the folks I worked with all had some reservation about it before we actually seen it in practice.

Honesty is always the best approach, they will respect you for it, and they deserve it from you.

Children at risk have most likely had very complicated relationships with adults, the more straight forward and clear about who you are for them, the better it is.

steoin wrote: »

b)Break the trust and inform said someone, as far as I can see its the lesser of two evils breaking the child's trust. If it is something serious and warrants further action it boils down to breaking the trust of the child and I accept that I am in no way qualified to understand the harm breaking the trust of a child that has potentially had that trust shattered.

It never needs to come to this, and I do think that betraying their trust can be damaging, like I said their interactions with adults have been complicated and most likely involve deceit shrouded by 'best intentions', they don't need anymore of that, they need honesty.

Of course they need honesty appropriate to their age and capability to understand. At this point of dealing with the child/young person support is very important, I don't mean taking over the role of a trained professional but supporting the child and being honest about what the next step will be- if that's contact your manager, social workers, schools, parents, counsellor, whoever.

steoin wrote: »

It just does not sit right with me that anyone could honestly say they have the interest of child at heart and tell them they cannot promise to keep a secret and potentially sending that child back into a harmful environment.

It is having the best interests of the child and the family without taking over, and thinking that as professional we know better. There are systems in place to protect children, if a child discloses an immediate threat to you then they won't have to be returned to that situation, they will temporarily be removed.Most likely if it is that serious and they tried to tell you, then they will tell you even though you explained it may not be kept secret.

If the threat is not immediate then maybe all the family need is the right intervention and supports to be put in place to ensure the safety and happiness of the children.

Like most systems in Ireland these are prone to problems, and there is no certainty that it will work.

This is the Children's First Guidelines, they have a list of articles that they used for their research to draw up the guidelines. I would imagine there would be some in there about why they feel it's best to inform children about not keeping secrets.


http://www.dcya.gov.ie/documents/child_welfare_protection/ChildrenFirst.pdf

sambuka41

Kooli wrote: »

I imagine it would never be as simple as saying to the child 'no I can't keep a secret. So do you want to tell me?'. Depending on the age of the child, I'm sure it's possible to explain that you can keep most things secret but there are certain things you can't, particularly if someone is in danger or being hurt.

Sometimes I have been that blunt!!:p usually that's when they are taking the p**s. You can get a vibe about what is about to be a serious conversation and what is going to be messing.
Also some kids attention spans dictate that you have to be super blunt, because they can't tolerate a long explanation about why you can't kept it secret.

But it's never been an issue with the kids that I worked with.

Kooli

sambuka41 wrote: »

Children at risk have most likely had very complicated relationships with adults, the more straight forward and clear about who you are for them, the better it is.

This times a million.

neemish

Honesty is the best policy - explaining the limits of confidentiality to a child is the best way to go.

It's all about how you say it - I don't think anyone would advocate saying to a child "well, under current Child Protection legislation, i am now obliged to forward your complaint..."

But its about explaining that no matter how a child feels, it is in his/her best interest to get some further help. One way is to say that the help is for you, as well as for the child (I'm really glad that you felt able to tell me this. We need to get some advice on this because i wouldn't like you to stay in this situation)

"keeping secrets" can be such a negative for a child. in my experience, some ADULT survivors of abuse find it difficult to talk because they were told to keep it a secret.

btw, you never know how you will react in a situation until you're in it.

Odysseus

Thankfully I don't work with the under 18s anymore, but as we all know we need a therapeutic relationship in order to do our work and we must protect that at all costs. When I used to see under 18s I alway went through examples of where I may need to contact another professional.

Letting them know that say with something like SI that I would only inform another profession if I felt they where in geniune danger between sessions. Or if they informed me of an abusive situation that I would have to report it.

Like with adult patients I will only breach the relationship if any of "The Big Three" come up.
i. Harm to self.
ii. Serious harm to another.
iii. A child at risk.

I explain how I work with people who have strong SI but I do not contact anyone unless I consider them highly likely to carry out the act before the next session. The same with harm to another that telling me "I am going to kill X" does not mean I will be on to my Clinical Director/Consultant.

So when a child brough up that type of question I reminded them of the above conversation and asked them what did they thought would happen if they disclosed this "information".

After that it could be exploring why they where afaird to tell me and what they thought might happen. Therefore trying to negate or validate their fears. Like others though If they child got that far I found that in general that was the pre-amble to them telling me. Does that make sense OP? I apologies if it doesn't as I'm off sick at the moment and only got a few hours kip last might, so I'm a tad groggy today

Musefan

Hi, I volunteer in childline and this comes up quite a bit. Ususally, since it is not face to face, then I would let the child know at the beginning of the call that their call is between them and the service unless they tell us something we are concerned about. Thus they have to refrain from giving personal details.

In extrapolating this to one to one work, I would have imagined you would say "Look, while we are chatting today, I want you to know that I am here for you and to look after your rights and to make sure you are in a safe and comfortable place. So if we begin chatting about something which is a bit concerning or worrying, I will have to let someone else know about it. This is to make sure everything is safe for you and I will let you know what information I may have to pass on. If you are not comfortable talking about things I might have to pass on, then please let me know about this, and we will chat about your concerns to see how you are feeling and why you feel this way. Is this okay for you and do you understand what I mean?"

Sometimes when I tell the child on the phones about mandatory reporting and how this is connected with their rights, it often emerges that they have no understanding of what a right is, so some exploration around this is also useful.

steoin

Sorry for not getting back sooner and thanks for all the replies
@ Kooli yes I agree trying to come around it is the best approach some good examples of how to broach the question and yes @sambuka no I have next to no experience with dealing with children 3 times a year for a weekend for the last number of years, and I would not expect the scenario to come up in my own situation as they are not children at risk, well it’s quite reassuring that a child would tell you anyway which is what I would assume but the thought of telling a child you cannot keep a secret if the Childs welfare is at risk doesn’t rest easy with me, but I realise that people working in the area would have a much more informed opinion than I would, I also realise how unlikely if there was an issue and they did approach someone in this manner they would more than likely say it anyway but on the off chance they would not is where my concern lies. Also its kids under 8 I deal with so I feel that would also influence me in regards taking on a more nurturing role. I had a few gripes with the training which I felt was overly concerned with protecting the interests of the organisation as opposed to the welfare of the children, but once again that’s probably down to youthful Idealism.
Once again thanks for all the replies they were all excellent.

Dubbhoy

Hey guys

Looking for help if you are looking to teach child protection course what qualification is required ? Anyone any idea ?