| Abstract: | The article presents the beginning of a discussion on how the doctrine of confidentiality may have been misapplied in the area of children's protective services. It asks the reader to consider who the client is in these cases and, having answered that question, asks what is the professional responsibility? The whole discussion is linked to the difficulties in dealing with media attention in these cases and offers some experience in the form of case examples. Woven in to the matrix of the above discussion is a clinical and public educational discussion. Preserving confidentiality in its traditional sense can contribute to a preservation of the family secret, namely, child abuse. In that way, a child protection agency can actually be contributing to the maintenance of abuse patterns in a family. Also, with no capacity to speak professionally about specific abuse, the public education impact is diminished. |
