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🛡️Our new Confidentiality Policy (explained)
JustV
Community Manager Posts: 5,579 Part of The Furniture
Greetings, weary travellers. 🧙♂️ This will be an info-packed post, so grab a drink and put some music on or something before settling in to read. It's information you do need to know!
Before I get into it, some background context about The Mix's merger with MHI.
A side-effect of this merger is that The Mix and Shout are now operating under a single Confidentiality Policy. That means the Confidentiality Policy we use in this community has changed.
What is a Confidentiality Policy?
Our Confidentiality Policy explains when we keep your information confidential within The Mix, and when we might decide to tell another agency (e.g. the police or social services) what you have shared with us. The Mix is required to do this in some situations because we have a legal duty of care over everyone who use our services.
What is staying the same?
Just like before, we will continue to inform emergency services if we believe you are at immediate risk of harm, or that you might harm somebody else.
This includes:
What's changed?
Here's the short version, but I've included more details down below.
Further details ⬇️
If we report anything you share with us, either as an emergency or a non-emergency, we will always inform you as soon as we can if we have a way to contact you.
Where possible, we will also work with you and involve you in that decision.
You will also be able to ask us any questions about why we reported your situation, what details we shared, and who we shared them with. We will happily share that information with you.
--
If you have any questions about this, don't be afraid to ask below.
If you prefer, you can also drop @TheMix a DM or send an email to community@themix.org.uk.
Before I get into it, some background context about The Mix's merger with MHI.
A side-effect of this merger is that The Mix and Shout are now operating under a single Confidentiality Policy. That means the Confidentiality Policy we use in this community has changed.
What is a Confidentiality Policy?
Our Confidentiality Policy explains when we keep your information confidential within The Mix, and when we might decide to tell another agency (e.g. the police or social services) what you have shared with us. The Mix is required to do this in some situations because we have a legal duty of care over everyone who use our services.
What is staying the same?
Just like before, we will continue to inform emergency services if we believe you are at immediate risk of harm, or that you might harm somebody else.
This includes:
- if you have a plan to end your life in the immediate future
- If you have hurt yourself in a way that puts your life at risk
- if you are being seriously hurt by somebody in a position of trust who could also hurt other young people (e.g. a teacher, faith leader, or medical professional)
- if you have taken more than the prescribed dosage of a medication
What's changed?
Here's the short version, but I've included more details down below.
- our Confidentiality Policy now treats adults (18+) and minors (under 18's) slightly differently
- the Mix will now report some things to other services as non-emergencies
Further details ⬇️
How will adults (18+) and minors (under 18's) be treated differently?
Our new Confidentiality Policy contains extra protections for minors and 'adults at risk of harm'.
An adult at risk of harm is someone aged 18+ with additional support needs that make it harder for them to protect themselves against harm. Legally, the term for this used to be 'vulnerable adult'.
What counts as a non-emergency?
Non-emergencies are things that we don't need to send you immediate help for, but that other services might need to know about in order to keep you safe in the long term.
Here are some examples:
Who might The Mix speak to for a non-emergency?
This will depend greatly on the situation. Depending on the circumstances, it could be:
Our new Confidentiality Policy contains extra protections for minors and 'adults at risk of harm'.
An adult at risk of harm is someone aged 18+ with additional support needs that make it harder for them to protect themselves against harm. Legally, the term for this used to be 'vulnerable adult'.
What counts as a non-emergency?
Non-emergencies are things that we don't need to send you immediate help for, but that other services might need to know about in order to keep you safe in the long term.
Here are some examples:
- minors who intend to end their life in the next 30 days
- ongoing abuse of a minor, or ongoing contact with an abuser
- coersive or abusive sexual contact with or between minors
- minors who are homeless, or at risk of homelessness
- if someone under 16 is pregnant and medical professionals have not been informed
- minors with caring responsibilities that have not been disclosed
Who might The Mix speak to for a non-emergency?
This will depend greatly on the situation. Depending on the circumstances, it could be:
- 101 (non-emergency police line)
- Your social worker
- Someone else directly involved in your care (like a nurse practioner)
If we report anything you share with us, either as an emergency or a non-emergency, we will always inform you as soon as we can if we have a way to contact you.
Where possible, we will also work with you and involve you in that decision.
You will also be able to ask us any questions about why we reported your situation, what details we shared, and who we shared them with. We will happily share that information with you.
--
If you have any questions about this, don't be afraid to ask below.
If you prefer, you can also drop @TheMix a DM or send an email to community@themix.org.uk.
All behaviour is a need trying to be met.
The truth resists simplicity.
4
Comments
"The way that I have found the light in my life is through the expressive arts because I know that I will be accepted for the way I am." ~ Me
"I'm going to get strong again and see you soon. " ~ Anonymous
Wish to bully me…I’m used to it
Want to talk crap about me…go on then
Want to make me cry…feel free
The field of safeguarding has also moved on quite a bit from where our confidentiality was previously, so there's some wider change in our sector too.
Wish to bully me…I’m used to it
Want to talk crap about me…go on then
Want to make me cry…feel free
So the total number of reports we make will likely go up, but the number of emergencies will go down.
Let me check on this and get back to you - good question!
What would happen in a non emergency though? Will it just take police longer to come out
So, there are a huge number of possibilities and it depends on the services involved. The honest answer is we don't know - and they may not tell us what they decide to do.
Our role in that situation is to pass the information on to the services involved, and they don't always keep us informed on what decisions they make with that information.
It might be that the police just keep that information on file in case more reports come in in the future, it may be that someone reaches out to you (like your social worker), it may be that someone comes out to you in person. I realise that's quite vague, though!
The key thing I suppose is that we'll always be transparent about our actions with you, and we'll communicate any information we have at the time.
Posts need approval?
So not all posts require approval, but sometimes posts will get sent to our moderation and spam filters for review. It's quite rare though to be fair.
There are a couple of reasons for that. 1) there's simply no way we could go through old posts, and 2) the information and risk level in old posts would likely be out of date.
When we're conducting risk assessments, we need the information we're going off to be new and current in order for that to be a useful process for the person involved.
As an adult it would be useful for me (and maybe others) to know if there’s any non emergency situations that may apply to us? I don’t see any up there, but as someone with a bit of knowledge of how shout operate their policy, I know it’s different.
A less broad definition of adult at risk would also be useful to know. As someone with a purely physical disability and no other support needs would be useful to know if i have to be careful now.
Edit: actually, I am going to drop a PM over with more questions as it goes into a few more of the specifics of the shout policy, which may be confidential in and of itself
If someone is an adult (not an adult at risk of harm) there are no instances where we would escalate something as a non-emergency. The only time we weigh in with that age group is when there is an immediate threat to life involved - a bit like our old policy.
So the broad definition is someone aged 18+ with additional support needs that make it harder for them to protect themselves against harm or danger.
Disabilities are definitely one thing that could qualify someone as 'at risk of harm' but that's not a universal rule. We take it case-by-case so we can assess whether someone's disability is actually preventing them from accessing the support they need (which may not be true). If we know someone has a disability but we still believe they're able to protect themselves against whatever danger or harm might be present, we may decide we don't need to weigh in.
I hope that helps but I know it's still not super specific! Always happy to go into more detail over DM, particularly if you have questions specific to your situation.