What Does Confidential Actually Mean?

Many professionals, such as doctors, nurses, teachers, psychologists, counsellors, social workers or youth workers offer confidential help and advice to young people. This means that you can tell them things in secret and they will not pass the information on to anyone else.

However, in some situations, the law says that they have to protect you by sharing this information with an appropriate person such as your parents, guardian or GP. This is called their duty of care.

Duty of care applies to people of all ages but if you're under 18 your well-being also comes under the laws of child protection.

This means a professional might not be able to keep all the things you tell them confidential if they think

• you might be suicidal


• you might accidentally harm yourself more seriously than you mean to


• you might harm yourself in a way that could cause permanent damage to your body


• someone is sexually or physically abusing you
  
• someone is harming you in some other unacceptable or illegal way.
  

If you plan to talk to a professional, and are worried about confidentiality, ask them about this before you tell them about your self-harm.

[taken from SH.Org.UK]