My Policy on this site re disclosure

[Veritee]

Hi Everyone

I have written the following on my personal policy on disclosure on this forum, by women with PNI of things that other organizations might feel they would have to act upon in some way.

I do not feel I have to act on anything anyone says on this site, but I am often asked to justify this viewpoint by professionals and workers in the field who look at the site from time to time. I will be incorporating this into the aims and objective for the forum which I am currently writing up.

I have put it in too parts as it is too long for one post:


I initially started this site as a place where women with PND could open out, especially when they are unable to seek help or tell anyone about their thoughts, feelings and sometimes actions. Over the years I have had women disclose many things, some that as a professional youth worker I would have had to have gone straight away to my line manager and they would have set the whole child protection and or mental health ball rolling.

However much of what is said and disclosed is not of this nature at all. If the person concerned actually told a GP, Social Worker etc what would happen would be helpful. I.e. more resources put in to help, more offered to the family.
But many are not ready for this step or are embarrassed to speak about things that actually are not in others eyes very difficult – but is for them. Many if they thought they could be traced via this forum would not speak about some things they need to. It is this reason I feel it is essential to keep this forum as a place whereby women ( and men affected by PNI) can speak out about anything they need to and anonymously if they feel they need to.
While I am looking into funding, if anything jeopardizes this basic criteria, I will refuse or send back funds.





As to whether you can be traced while using this site. I am now a web designer and to my knowledge, while it is remotely possible to get a fix on your IP address of the PC you are using, this is very very difficult, and as this address, if you use a dial up and not broadband, changes every internet session you have, it is logistically a mammoth task to trace someone using a web based forum - this is why I use a web based solution rather than a newsgroup. If you are on broadband and have a fixed IP address you can get software that will mask you and change it periodically, in fact anyone could install masking software - if anyone has any more info on traceability, and please let me know.

Even if you register it would still be very difficult to find out who you are especially if you used a hotmail or other web based mail account and made sure you put in false details when you signed up for this. You are asked for phone numbers post codes etc when signing up for free web mail but - I am probably breaking the law here to say this - as long as it is a real post code and address – it does not have to be yours or anywhere near you geographically.


I know that many would criticize me for running such a forum, where it is possible to disclose things that are sensitive anonymously. it is often felt such a facility may stop someone who is in danger of doing real harm to themselves or others, going elsewhere for help - but I strongly disagree!

In my opinion and experience, if someone is not ready to speak out or seek help from professionals -and maybe they never will be - having a place like this where they can be completely anonymous will not make any difference in terms of preventing them to do so.
I do not subscribe to the theory that if you do not provide any other outlet, people will be forced into disclosing to mainstream professionals.

I believe that it takes time to disclose and it is part of a process. Being able to speak out about these issues to 'professional' basically state run, sources of help or even to speak at all, takes time and has to start in a small way.
Even to speak to a partner, relative or friend sometimes needs the chance to start the dialogue with a stranger in complete confidence. Child line was started on just this basis and it is still their and still works.

And there has to be places where this process can be started, somewhere where there is absolutely no chance of anything you say being passed on to anyone.

Many will say that I am being very irresponsible to provide such a place, including my ex employers, the youth service.

One of my past fundamental disagreements with my former employers was that the autonomy youth workers had as individual workers to deal with a young person disclosing abuse or abusing and other very difficult issues such as crime, drug use etc, became eroded. However I do understand why this had to be and I am grateful that organizations such as childline were able to fill the gap. This kind of service was necessary when youth workers etc became unable to work individually with a disclosure and keep it confidential until the young person was ready and able to go forward. At first there were no alternatives and this worried me greatly.

Also personally as I youth worker I found this lack of autonomy difficult to work within because I started as a youth worker when I had this autonomy and found it hard to adjust my style of working, although of course I did. It would have been better for my career if I had changed job and got one with childline or another similar organization as this suited my skills better than local authority youth service!

The issue is very complicated, too lengthy to go into thoroughly here. But while my employers often though I had no grasp, I did understand all the issues very well and understood the real difficulties, that state funded or even lottery and private charity funded organizations have in this area. I was just in the wrong job!

In brief they have an obligation to their funders and there is always the possibility of litigation. If the service is attached to a local authority in some way the service has an obligation indirectly or directly to act in a way which represents the views of the majority of the electorate. The same applies to organizations that are directly or indirectly government run or funded such as the health service, social services, probation and youth services etc.

In addition being able to deal with disclosure is a very skilled job, it can be handled badly and if someone who disclosed actually went on to harm or was harmed, it the information was not passed on, the person who was disclosed to can carry much guilt – the organization has to protect their employees and volunteers.

However there are in my opinion ways of sharing this responsibility - as actually it is on the forum . If an individual is held under no obligation to pass disclosure on, they however can share the responsibility of this disclosure by being part of a team that it can be shared with.
In a way when we respond to someone on the forum who is disclosing, we are sharing the responsibility as a team.


This is continued below:

[Disclosure continued]

Other factors in most organizations policy of insisting that disclosures are passed on to some designated and suitably trained person and not kept confidential between the disclosee and the person they told, are the costs and logistics of training.

If any organization which works with people in a way which may lead to disclosure, allow the workers on the ground who are working face to face with people to deal with disclosures up to a point themselves.
And if such workers and volunteers are able to keep what the ‘client; hate this word but can not think of another one, says, confidential until they feel ready to take it further.
Then all point of contact employees have to be fully trained and supervised to ensure that they have the skills to work in this difficult area, even the cleaner or a secretary because it is not always people who’s job it is to listen within a helping service, that are actually confided in!
I believe that this forum by being a forum for sufferers and ex sufferers for the same and because we are in essence a team, no one person has responsibility for the response to anything said on the site. Also we do not say we are experts and we do not say that we will always get it right – just that we are here for each other and will listen without judgment and at the moment the forum has no funder and no one to answer for.

In addition most organizations who do allow some autonomy to individual workers or volunteers do so under the assumption that this disclosure will be taken further at some time.

Actually a person who discloses may never feel ready to take it further and it is possible for some that the initial disclosure was all they wanted to do with it.

This was certainly true for me. There are some things about my PNI I have never told anyone to this day, not even my husband, and others that I only told my e-mail partner in Toronto. I am a very open person so if it true for me it is true for others.

The argument against this would be what about the consequences to a third party if this disclosure is not taken further? Obviously some things do not involve anyone else. A lot of what I have not disclosed involves the thoughts I had when I had PNI. However it could be argued that while I did not, I could have acted upon them so they did involve a third party. It can be argued that as we are a social species everything we say do and even think, involves and has repercussions for someone else. However in my view this is an argument for and not against having forums like my web site where nothing is taken further, except by the person and this is done by them if they want to. It is an argument for such services because as I said before I view disclosure as a a process and also feel that you do not have to tell everything for disclosure to be effective.

What I mean by that, using my own experience as an example, is that while there are many things I never told anyone except someone the other side of the world, who culd not trace me, the process of being the dialoge with myself by disclosing to her, meant that I sought the help I needed. The fact that I did not tell anyone who knew who I was the actual details of why I needed this help, did not mater and iota.

I would further argue that being able to tell someone, as opposed to no one, acts as opening a pressure valve and is useful in itself.

I think the question that has to be asked it that while the person may be disclosing quite scary things such as that they feel like or actually have harmed themselves or someone else, even their child – what might they have done or do if they had not told anyone through fear. Fear in the case of my website on PNI, of having their children put into care, or being prosecuted and imprisoned or having to stay unwillingly away from their family in a psychiatric unit.

These fears may be groundless or not – but they are true fears just the same. I have hear them many times in the last 11 years, they stop many women seeking help and it is hard or impossible to convince women with these fears that this will not happen if they seek help.

The above is just a very potted explanation of the issues - they are much wider than this and if anyone has any doubts out there - I really do understand them probably better and more fully than most professionals or otherwise, what these issues are.

I actually have evidence of this in a research paper on risk management which I wrote when commissioned as an independent expert by the youth service to research risks for workers and organizations within the youth service and it did cover this very issue.

My recommendations were taken on board by the youth service of the time and have gone on to be expanded and incorporated into policies used everyday in the Cornwall youth service.


All the best

Veritee