to think that you should get permission to use a child for a college assignment?

[HoneyPablo]

I work in a nursery and am key-person for a child with global developmental delays, currently receiving portage and further involvement with other agencies.
A member of staff is doing a course and asked if she could have a copy of the report from the portage service to use in an assignment.
Fine, I said, as long as you have permission from child's parent.
She stormed off and later told me I need to grow-up
So, as parents, would you like it if confidential information was given to a member of the staff to use in their assignment without your permission?
I know I wouldn't if I hadn't given my permission first. But would probably be ok if I was asked.
AIBU?

This is not just about referring to a child in your work though, it is about using a confidential report within an assignment which is very much a breach of confidentiality if permission is not gained.

I've been on an Ethics board - and yes this would definitely need parental approval, well done for sticking to your guns

Yes, but student teachers will be referring to such reports in their assignments and the impact they have on whole class teaching etc. They also sometimes do assignments comparing the provision given to two children in say, separate LAs who have the same diagnosis.

I think you're right, but there's also a principle involved. You made a professional decision about what you were happy to allow and what you felt was defensible, as a keyworker. Other professionals have to respect that decision because otherwise your decisionmaking means nothing - it's not a question of waving a set of rules in front of your face (not that I think she could have found a set of rules that would have allowed her to do this).

Did we decide she was an Ed student? I thought more NVQ childcare/development.

I think those who say you need parental permission are not quite technically correct. A school is in loco parentis and therefore 'the head teacher can give permission. It may be considered good practice to ask parents anyway, but as any documents would be anonymised, and it would be impossible to identify 'the child anyway, it shouldn't be a major issue.

The colleague was very unprofessional to storm off though

lovingthecoast - as a student teacher I absolutely did not have access to confidential reports of this type. The class teacher would have given me a summary of things I needed to be aware of regarding any specific needs within the class, but that would be it (admittedly I am going back a bit here!). Anything more specific than that (for more recent MA courses I 've done) and I've had to have written parental permission.

Well, I guess it must be different in education. Newly qualified teachers are quite suddenly exposed to a huge range of confidential materials from SS reports through to Paed reports and relevant safeguarding notes on whether a child is deemed at risk. It would be unworkable to not start introducing such information to student teachers especially as one of the 'tick boxes' for qualification relates to how they handle sensitive and confidential information.

ASByatt, I would say that was or perhaps now is, unusual. I've taught in countless LEAs and worked as an outreach tutor for two TT colleges. Access to confidential information is fairly standard.

She's not a student teacher, she is doing a foundation degree in childcare.
The report is one that she would not normally have access to, as she doesn't work wth the child and has no reason to see it.
I wouldn't normally let members of staff read the reports unless they were caring for the child in question and needed to see it.
I did share the report with other members of staff in my room as they are directly involved in her care.
I am sure that she wouldn't use the child's name in her assignment. I just thought it was basic manners to ask a parent if they minded a confidential report being used in this way.
The assignment is a report on inclusive practice with reference to a particular child with additional needs and will assess their needs and make recommendations. So, the whole assignment will be about that particular child.

Student teachers spend a lot of time in schools observing classes. I would have thought they might frequently write assignments where they refer to a pupil they've seen in class, referring to their difficulties (anonymised of course)
It would be virtually impossible to get permission from each parent. Surely the in loco parentis status means that the headteacher can give permission ?

Ok, if she doesn't work directly with the child then there is no need for her to have access to the report. Also, her attitude suggests that perhaps she is not mature enough to be dealing with such materials anyway.

YANBU to be cautious.

She might have the right to access the report if she was using it as part of her (voluntary) work anyway, but not otherwise I don't think.

Who is her assessor or line manager, they should be able to guide you?

When I spoke to the manager she said that she had told her to get parental permission too and she "didn't want to get involved" when I told her I didn't appreciate being told to grow up.
Too many 'hers' in that sentence

I think you can use anonymous observations that you have made yourself.

But you do need to consider that if your place of work is identifiable to any third parties (as I suspect it is, to her course authorities) and the child is the sole one there at that time and with that condition/combination of conditions, then you have actionably breached confidentiality.

To use a report held by the nursery for purpose A, for any purpose B (such as external coursework) is also an actionable breach.

Of course you did the right thing.

But the place of work would be anonymised too in any write up wouldn't it?

Yes, the nursery would not be named. I don't have a problem with her using the child or any observations that she makes herself. I just think that she should ask the parents first and not just assume that permission will be given.

Callmemrs: that's OK as long ONLY if she has no course supervisor with whom she discusses the work, and no one who reads it will be aware of where the student works. It is not just the finished report - it is the handling of the information that matters. A supervisor would count as an unauthorised third party, and informing her during discussions would be an actionable breach. Unless of course, the supervisor does not know where the student works and has no access to any college records which state that info. I find that rather unlikely.

When I did an NVQ I had to write a whole section about my place of work. So while the children's section the place of work was anonymised, it wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out. So you do need to be so, so cautious.

Yes, I see thats good practice honeypablo. But surely whoever is in loco parentis can give permission for someone who is working in a school/ nursery or training there, to have access to necessary information. And this would then be anonymised eg 'i observed Child A in educational provider B who has a learning delay ..' etc . I can't see how confidentiality is being breached there as no person or place is identifiable to the exam board

I train Research Ethics Committees (both for medicine and for HE). From what you say your colleague wanted this information for her own research not for the benefit of the child so the school cannot give consent in place of the parents. This should be handled via the institution that is supervising your colleague who should have explained to her the importance of obtaining consent from the parents and all the other special concerns with doing research on children which generally lead to requirement to get ethics approval for such research.

You did the right thing 100%!

I would think that the college has already told your colleague that she needs parental permission. I know it was repeatedly emphasised when I was doing my early years degree.
In fact, we were also told that it was also good practice to obtain the child's permission whenever possible.

Booboostoo, that's interesting. In the case of student teachers, they never need the info for the direct benefit of the child. Well, perhaps to inform better planning but it is mainly used for their own professional reflection and to better improve their practice.

I do sometimes consider the ethics of giving such information to an 18yr old first year BEd student but I'd certainly share it with a 3rd or 4th year student unless there was real doubt over that aspect of their professionalism.

loving there is an ethical distinction between knowledge about the child given to those working with the child which is likely (however indirectly) to benefit the child (as you say, better planning, being more prepared for potential problems etc) and knowledge about the child which will be used for purposes solely unrelated to the benefit of that child.

Ethics committees debate long and hard about some decisions, many of which are not clear cut, but the reason they exist is because things like this, which might seem unproblematic to the researcher concerned, actually raise huge privacy and consent issues. It's in the student's own interests to get this right as professional bodies can strike people off registers for ignoring the correct procedure. The OP was totally correct in her response.

Well when DS2 was in Primary school, the Head rang me asking if it was ok if one of the trainee teachers could use him in her assignment. I said of course. I would not have liked it if she had done this wothout my permission.

In fact it was shown to me before it was submitted and I received a copy of the end result.