Over the last few months we have been highlighting key principles in safeguarding. If you emphasize the key principles behind your policies and procedures, your staff and volunteers will learn to apply these principles when making decisions for the vulnerable persons they serve, even if they don’t remember the policies verbatim.

This month, our focus is the principle of valuing confidentiality and safeguarding sensitive information. This refers to our ethical and legal responsibility to protect the confidentiality of all parties in safeguarding matters. This also means providing different levels of information to different parties and restricting access to others.



Confidentiality is a key principle in safeguarding

for several important reasons!

PROTECTION OF INDIVIDUALS ~

• Safety and Well-being: Ensuring confidentiality provides an extra layer of protection to the vulnerable and at risk. Careless disclosure of sensitive information can increase the risk of further harm or exploitation to these individuals.

• Trust and Relationship Building: Maintaining confidentiality strengthens the trust between personnel and the individuals they protect. When trust is there, individuals are more likely to disclose important details critical to their protection during the screening process, when disclosing a history of abuse, or when sharing sensitive information about children or youth.

LEGAL AND ETHICAL OBLIGATIONS ~



• Legal Compliance: Various laws and regulations mandate the protection of personal information. Breaching confidentiality can result in legal consequences for organizations and professionals.
• Canada's Personal Information Acts / General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), USA Children's Online Privacy Protection

• Professional Ethics: Adhering to confidentiality is a fundamental ethical responsibility for professionals working in safeguarding. It aligns with the principles of respect, dignity, and integrity. We should hold our staff and volunteers to that same standard.

EFFECTIVE SAFEGUARDING PRACTICES ~

• Encouraging Reporting: When people trust that information will be kept confidential, they are more likely to report abuse, neglect, or other safeguarding concerns. This trust ensures that those responsible can fulfill their legal duty to report abuse. Note: Though we value confidentiality, we should never promise to keep a secret if someone discloses abuse. Some secrets must be shared with law enforcement, Child Protection Agencies, and Senior Leadership. 

• Preventing Retaliation: Confidentiality protects individuals from retaliation or retribution by their abusers or even those in leadership who might seek to punish them for reporting issues under whistleblower policies.

PREVENTION OF HARM ~

• Minimizing Risk of Stigmatization: Confidentiality helps prevent stigmatization and discrimination, whether for victims, witnesses, or the accused. It also ensures compliance with human rights laws.

• Avoiding Unintended Consequences: Sharing information inappropriately can escalate dangerous situations, compromise investigations, or reveal someone’s location. For example, in domestic violence or child abuse cases, confronting the offender could increase the risk of harm.

• Mitigate further risks: In today’s digital age, share information only with trusted sources to prevent identity theft, fraud, and other malicious activities.

In conclusion, maintaining confidentiality and securing documentation is essential for ethical practice and effective safeguarding. Prioritizing confidentiality builds trust, respects privacy, enhances safety, fulfills legal and ethical duties, and promotes open communication. Keeping documentation permanently demonstrates due diligence in meeting your duty of care.



We recommend that all screened and training team members sign a confidentiality agreement. Find sample documentation management and retention policies and procedures and a template of a confidentiality agreement in the latest version (2022) of the Plan to Protect^® manual.



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What Have We Been Reading...

From Radiant, one of our trusted suppliers: 

Ministries: Don’t ignore ‘the largest IT outage in the history of the world’! Today, July 19th, 2024, the world witnessed a massive IT outage that has been described by many as the largest IT outage in the history of the world. This unprecedented event has disrupted businesses and ministries, grounded flights and affected various institutions across the globe. The outage was linked to issues with Microsoft Azure and CrowdStrike, two major players in the cybersecurity and cloud services industry. The repercussions of this outage have been felt by airlines, hospitals, financial institutions and countless other organizations reliant on digital infrastructure.

Read More



What Have We Been Working on...

Did you know that Twenty-five percent of our time is dedicated to researching and developing new tools, training and workshops? This is how we invest for the future. The projects we are currently working on include updating our Plan to Protect^® Training PowerPoints, Instructor Notes and Student Notes for Certified Trainers. These will be available during Q4 of 2024. We are also writing a curriculum for a one-day seminar on Preventing and Responding to Spiritual Abuse in partnership with beEmboldened.

Watch for upcoming booking opportunities

to train your leadership!



Our latest blog post is in response to phone calls and questions we receive about abuse coverage provided by insurance companies.



Help! Our insurance company

has cancelled our abuse coverage!

I feel your pain! Twenty-five years ago, I was the Executive Director of a charity, and our insurance company notified me that they would not continue our abuse coverage as we were not meeting their requirements to qualify for coverage. I can assure you that it was not due to a claim or any historical abuse that we were aware of, but … Read More



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Training bundles must be purchased during the month of August 2024.