Is the risk to the young person such that referral to partner agencies requires to be made whether or not the young person consents?

No

Yes

Balancing risks and benefits

You are now seriously considering breaching a young person’s confidentiality without their consent. This is a serious step to take and one which may have wide ramifications both for the young person and for the wider community. However, you would not have reached this point without having very serious concerns about a young person’s safety and wellbeing.

If the young person is at immediate risk of serious harm, you MUST take steps to protect him or her. You should refer the case using the normal Child Protection procedures within your organisation.

Consulting with the young person

Young people have a legal right to be consulted on all decisions that affect their lives. This does not mean you will do what the young person wishes in every case, but it does mean that consultation must be real and meaningful and that young people’s views have to be carefully considered in any decision you reach. If you are to consult you must be open to giving serious and detailed consideration to different eventual courses of action, depending on what the young person says.

In any case where you have already decided that referral to partner agencies is unavoidable, you should not consult the young person as to whether or not to make a referral prior to making it. Any such consultation would be tokenistic and, therefore, unethical. You must, however, tell him or her you are about to make a referral, unless there is a very strong reason not to do so, in which case you should record your reason for not telling the young person.

However, even in circumstances where referral must be made without consent, everything possible should be done to aviod further disempowering the young person. For example, it may be possible for the young person to influence how, where or when the disclosure is made. They may wish the opportunity to inform a family member or other supporter prior to the referral being made. They should be offered support to help them through what will be a very difficult time ahead.

Alternatively, if you believe the young person is being abused but breaching his or her confidentiality would be disproportionate to the level of harm you are trying to prevent, or if further disclosure would achieve little or make matters worse for the young person or for the community, your professional judgement may lead you to providing support for the young person, including support for their sexual health, and monitoring the situation with a view to facilitating disclosure at a later date.

If you believe the young person is likely to come to serious and immediate harm and you intend to breach the young person’s confidentiality you must already have:

  • Arrived at a clear view/strong suspicion that the relationship constitutes sexual abuse
  • Sought the young person’s consent to share information with other agencies unless you had already decided the harm to the young person was so severe as to leave no alternative
  • Applied the Ethical Framework
  • Arrived at a view that the young person’s situation is sufficiently grave to warrant breach of confidentiality without his/her consent