Talking Therapie Services

[ThatSereneZebra]

Talking therapy service contacted school and informed them about my mental health. Can they do that without my consent? Anyone had experience with them reporting you?

A Therapist should tell you that what is discussed is confidential unless there is a risk of harm to the client/ patient or someone known to them.
If that is the case they are obliged to report this e.g. raising a safeguarding concern about a child with school.

I would have expected them to inform the OP what they were goung to do and why though.

They have not discussed or raised any concerns about my child wellbeing, yet they still pursue with disclosing information about my mental health when I clearly didn't give consent as I believe it would not benefit my child and caused more distress to me

How they can breach confidentiality without serious safeguarding grounds and indications that a child could be at risk. I had great relationship with school and now will be affected.i was looking for help from Talking therapy services and instead of helping they making things worse

Did you not discuss it, or did you not give your consent because you didn’t think there would be any benefit to raising a concern? Those sound like two slightly different things. Talking therapies services therapists have a statutory duty to report safeguarding concerns. They will try to get your consent, but in some cases will have to go ahead without it.

I had a conversation with them over the phone and I asked if they have safeguarding concerns. They answered they didn't at the moment. So on which grounds exactly they can't disclose information about me. I find it as a breach of confidentiality sharing my personal information with school.

Can *

This needs a bit more context OP. Why would you ask them if they had safeguarding concerns?

I asked them because they said they will contact School on safeguarding basis. However they didn't raise or discussed any. I just wanted to find out why they willing to contact school

That does seem strange. What did you say to give them concern though? Are you struggling to look after yourself or your children at the moment?

Do you have a contract with them?
Did they verbally say at the beginning anything about safeguarding.
If they have breached it by alerting the school when it's not an actual safeguarding concern, you can complain. Who are the therapists registered with? You can find out then complain.

The bit about them saying they have no safeguarding concerns but spoke to the school anyway is dodgy. Write down the date and time of that conversation and use it in your complaint if you make one.

You're quite right if there are no safeguarding concerns they should not breach confidentiality.

It's this bit. If this is true they shouldn't have spoken to the school. You have a right to seek help while maintaining a right to privacy.

I don't struggle to take care of my child or myself .I had breakdown because of adverse reaction to new medication for general anxiety. I shared that with them and they seen me as a risk to my child

They destroy my life by disclosing this information

If they had safeguarding concerns then the procedure would be for them to report them to your local LA service as an initial contact. They would not report concerns directly to a child’s school.

Either something has gone wrong or someone is confused about what’s actually happened.

If this is genuinely what has happened I would be hitting the roof about it and absolutely escalating it with the service. And as mentioned by a previous poster, safeguarding concerns should be raised with LA, not directly with the school.

It's talking therapy nhs services. Yes. They clearly said they have no concerns or indication for safeguarding at this time. Yet they going to contact School anyway. I will seek legal advice on this

If I could get recordings of conversation with them I could prove they clearly haven't raised concerns about my child wellbeing. Not sure how I can do that

Appalling. I’m a counsellor and wouldn’t break confidentiality in those circumstances - no good therapist would, the guidelines wouldn’t allow it.
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That’s not the bit I’m questioning. An NHS mental health service would know they need to contact children’s social care and not the child’s school.

Yep this is correct. I have worked in talking therapies for years and have never known anyone to make a direct report to a school. That seems unlikely or if it did happen, it’s not correct procedure. The correct practice would be to make a referral to children’s services, preferably with the parent’s consent, but consent is not needed if there is a safeguarding concern.
Sorry you have been upset by this OP but I hope you get the support you need.

Was it amitriptyline by any chance? My DH had a horrible experience with that.

Are you talking about the NHS talking therapies. How do they know what school your child goes to?

I recently changed medication from escitalopram to mirtazapine. Not sure what caused bad side effects. Either stopping escitalopram or starting mirtazapine or combination of both. I needed to go back on first one because I had really bad withdrawal symptoms.

They asked me about my son's school. Didn't expect they will decide to contact them. I believe if they had any safeguarding concerns they should of contact children services instead of contacting school directly. I did complain about that already, hoping that it can be resolved somehow.