Report confidentiality

Original Post

by: ginnie

I recently attended an interview at Surestart for a deputy manager post, the interview consisted of an in tray exercise and a half an hour interview.

Unfortuntely i did not get the job the reason being over a child protection question.

The question that I was asked was a case scenerio, what would you do if a mother comes into nursery and tells you that her partner hit her last night, due to the mother being upset by what had happened she sent her child to bed without having eaten any food, the mother tells you not to tell anyone.


My response to this question was firstly I would have to be honest with the parent and explain with much due respect that I would have to speak to another member of staff about this due to a child being involved in the situation, secondly, to gain clarity with regards to this and offering the mother support from myself and a family worker or offer mother with confidential free contact numbers in which she can talk to.

Most importantly giving the child food and asking the mother if this siutation is a frequent if mother is willing to disclose such information.

I also told the interview panel that although we have to respect confidentiality, as childcare workers we have a duty to report matters such as these to the line manager.


Surestarts reponse was that they would not report this matter at all. I was very shocked to hear this and demanded that I spoke to the programme manager regarding this, programme manager stated that she would have done the same thing that I had done. I therefore wrote a letter to head office based in London abou this as I would be extremely worried if childcare workers and managers did not report such things and kept them to themselves.

I would like to hear your views as to what your response would be and also your views on as to whether I have gone to far in writing to head office about this.

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