Decsribe a policy in a child care setting concerning confidentiality and the sharing on information

Confidentiality is key as this is needed to make sure all children are treated equally amongst the nursery but some parts of confidential information needs to be shared for the child’s safety such as allergies, so therefore if a child has eaten something which they wasn’t supposed to this means all staff know what the problem was and how to overcome the problem in the best way possible. Confidentiality also puts faith in the practitioners as the parents tell all important information in complete trust and they expect the information not to be shared with anyone else.  But on the other hand some parts of confidentially information needs to be shared amongst the nursery, for example if a child is ill they will need permission from the parents to get that child a doctor or whatever they will need so this is called the ‘need to know’ basis..  All children’s records of background information should not be shared as a child’s development may be in jeopardy and no child’s development should be at risk.

At the nursery where I did my work experience all the children’s information was on a computer and this was all password protected. Only the manager and the owner had access to this computer which meant that no other employee knew the children’s personal information. So therefore all trust was put into the owner/manager. But some parts of confidential information had to be known amongst all staff incase of any emergencies so therefore the best possible care could get to the child as soon as possible. Keeping the children’s information confidential makes sure that staff treat all children the same and no segregation should take place throughout the nursery and all children should be accepted in the nursery

At the nursery where I worked all the written files were kept in a locked cabinet in the staff room which could only be accessed by the owner and the manger. So therefore parents always had to put all their trust and loyalty in the owner and the manager of the nursery. Information concerning the child’s health should always be shared amongst all practitioners as this gives the best possible chance for the child to keep safe such as allergies, so therefore children with allergies were listed on the board in the staff room therefore all staff knew exactly what each child’s dietary requirements are. No isolation was taken place at the nursery where I did my work placement as all children were treated in the same way no matter what their background, religion or ethnicity was

Information from: Text book- Kath Bulman and Liz Savory 2006, Children’s care, Learning and Development, Heinemann

And

Children’s care, Learning and Development, Sandy Green 2007, Nelson Thornes