 How can you keep a young person's trust without promising them confidentiality? People ask me this all the time It's a really big concern when you're just in the early stages of building that relationship with a young person They're finally opening up to you and you're really worried that saying we've got to tell mom We've got to tell dad We need to tell another teacher that this might ruin that relationship and mean they don't trust you anymore That's not the case, but you've got to handle it right The first thing is that you've got to be honest about this right from the offset This isn't something that comes up at the end of the conversation It has to be there right from the beginning tackle it bring that elephant into the room shine a light on it and talk about it Let them know look if it's really great that you want to talk about this I need to make you aware that if we have concerns about your well being we may need to talk to other adults But we'll discuss that and if you don't talk about it at the beginning. That's how you break this relationship That's where trust is lost children and young people know that we're likely to have to break that confidence And so actually tackling that from the beginning means they have a respect for you and it means that there's no surprises here number two Next one is thinking about working with the young person rather than this happening to them So this is about not you taking their information and you deciding what's going to happen with it next But rather making that a two-way conversation between you and the child concerned Lots of young people feel like they really don't have control over lots of different aspects of their life And often that's one of the key reasons that underlies things like self-harm and eating disorder behavior When they open up to us about those things and then we take the control of their information away from them And we decide what to do with it that can exacerbate the problem if however We work with them and we say okay Let's think about what needs to happen next Then actually that's a much much more positive way of doing things and they feel much more in control And there's less panic there because they know exactly who knows what and why The next thing is to think about why do we need to let other people know? So the key thing here is that the child needs to know that you're not just telling other people because it's gossip or It's of interest or anything like that. This is all about them This is about keeping them safe making sure they've got the right support in place It might be perhaps that some people need to know so that they can be a little bit more lenient about homework For example, it might be that parents need to know so that the child can be kept safe at home There's all sorts of different reasons why different people might need to be involved but have a think about why why are we sharing this information? The next thing to think about is who needs to be told so again Think with a young person about who are the people that it will be beneficial to you But them to know a bit more about this now Some of these will be people who are directly related to the young person's day-to-day life again parents teachers that kind of thing It might also be that you ask your the permission of that child for you to talk to someone that you trust within the staff So that you can think through how best to support that young person or simply so that you can have some support for yourself as well So think about who think with that young person. They shouldn't be left guessing who knows what about me They need to know exactly who is going to be told about what's going on with them And then the other thing you need to think about is what are you going to share? So this child might have opened up to you at great length and in some detail about what's going on with them You don't necessarily need to pass on all that information Instead you're going to create a kind of Summary of that you're going to take out the most salient points the things that need to be shared and you're going to share That information do agree with the child what that information is what information needs to be shared here Are there any parts of it that they particularly feel that they don't want to be shared? And if it's safe not to share those bits then you can come to an agreement on that again This can help the child to feel a bit more in control They know what's being shared with whom and really importantly why? Finally, it's really key that you have a conversation with the child about what's going to happen next So what's going to happen as a result of you telling these other people? You might also think about what happens next logistically in terms of how are these people going to be told? Are you going to ask that the child to tell those people? Are you going to do it? Will you do it together? Will you do it in person on the phone in writing? There's lots of questions here and again thinking carefully together Doing this with them rather than to them thinking about who do we need to tell how we're going to tell them What are we going to tell them and when will help the young person to feel in control and sometimes? They will be reluctant for people to know what's going on with them But once they've made that first step of opening up to you If you're able to talk with them and help them understand why it's really helpful for other people to be involved to Then hopefully you can get their kind of informed and enthusiastic Consent to move forward with this process. I hope that helps if you've got other ideas Please do share them always really good to have your ideas too. Good luck