Rethink Resources

In my experience, confidentiality means something much more extensive to youth than it does to adults. For adults in the social service world it can mean that as long as the information stays inside the agency, it’s kept confidential. Most of the youth I know expect that, with the requisite exceptions, something I tell one staff person should not be shared with another.

It’s complicated because, in bigger agencies with a number of staff people, information sharing makes it possible to cover the needs of youth. But sometimes the information sharing goes beyond what’s necessary and starts to look like story sharing. Even this I can see because we, as adults who work with youth in really difficult situations like homelessness and health crisis, need a place to talk it out. But there’s got to be better ways than putting youth’s stuff out there.

In collaboratives with many agencies working together, I’ve witnessed dedicated staff talk with each other about the same young person without knowing it because they were careful to leave out certain details. So it’s possible to do it differently. We can support, get feedback and educate each other without focusing on specific youth.

Of course where a youth has consented to sharing information, that’s different. But it really needs to be followed to the spirit of the agreement and make it really possible for a youth to be able to stop it by withdrawing consent when they want.

Like confidentiality, consent is another word that we toss around like everyone has the same idea about it. But clearly we don’t or a lot of people don’t really know what it means.

And in the case of talking with a meeting designed to support youth workers it’s important to be able to explain exactly who you’re talking about and refer to the history. But that kind of information is supposed to stay in that room.

Way too often youth have told me that they disclosed being involved in the sex trade to one staff person and then suddenly everyone knew. This is not helpful. Perhaps that adult staff person thought that other staff members needed to know or could help. But youth make conscious decisions about who they choose to tell about their experiences. Not only can be overwhelming to know that all the staff know but honestly not all staff take the information the same way.

More problems come when observant youth members pick up on information that adults are sharing with each other or hear it directly from the adult staff person. So now everyone knows what you originally told a counselor or your (formerly) favorite staff person. Not good.

We just don’t live in an environment yet where youth disclosures about being in the sex trade are welcomed with love and respect. This can be cultivated I believe. But it’s not common at all.

So I err on a youth-centered idea of confidentiality and ask all the time before assuming I can say something. I’d rather someone get irritated with my persistent asking “Can I tell this person?” than to have shared what was given to me in confidence. Information definitely travels slower this way. But I still find that once someone tells me something, they are more likely to share it with others in their life. Saying it once out loud and seeing what that’s like makes telling others more possible.

I even do things on this blog for confidentiality purposes. Sometimes a conversation or an experience will make me think of something to write and instead of talking about it right away I’ll wait and I’ll also talk about it in more general terms to put some distance between the idea and specifics. I’ve chosen to post news items available to everyone to address issues that come up in the sex trade instead of referring to the hundreds of situations that I know about personally.

I hear a lot lately about assessment tools and figuring out which youth are in the sex trade. And I always wonder what about confidentiality? How will this be protected as communities think about ways to identify youth and help somehow? It’s a real question that I don’t hear addressed enough.