Our confidentiality promise

If you tell us that you're being abused, hurt or treated badly, and tell us that it’s also happening to your younger brother, sister or other young person, we'll want to do something to keep you all safe. Sometimes this means telling someone like an adult who could help you. For example, the police, ambulance or social services, so that you can get help and support.

Examples of when we'll need to break confidentiality or tell someone about your situation to get you help:

• ‘My dad threw my 3 year old brother across the room.’
• ‘My mum is not feeding my young sister who is 2 years old.’
• ‘I am 10 and my younger brother has been left at home all night by himself. He’s 4.’
• ‘My older brother left a bottle of vodka in his room and my six year old younger sister has been drinking it.'
• ‘I’m being sexually abused by my father and I also think it’s happening to my younger sister, she’s three.’
• ‘My grandfather had sex with me and he also had sex with my sister who has a learning difficulty, she’s got down's syndrome.'

We'll be here for you and we want to support you and your brothers or sisters. Sometimes this means telling someone even if you don’t want us to. We'll do this to keep you safe and help you in the best way.

We'll always try to tell you if we need to tell someone else. If we can't reach you after and you've contacted us online, we'll try to contact you afterwards to tell you what's happened. If you're worried, you can always talk to a Childline counsellor.

If you tell us that you or someone else is being hurt or feeling worried about the way a person in a position of trust is treating you, we'll want to help you. A person in a position of trust is someone who's responsible for children, for example, a teacher, sports coach, religious leader, police officer or doctor.

We will:

• listen and want to try to understand what is happening to you
• ask you questions because we’d be worried about you and other children
• want to find out if other young people were in danger, or were being hurt, so we could find a way to get them help.

Examples of when we may need to break confidentiality or tell someone about your situation to get you help:

• ‘A head teacher hit me.’
• ‘A sports coach touched me on my private parts. ‘
• ‘A doctor kissed me on the mouth.’
• ‘I saw my friend being kicked by a form tutor. ‘
• My friend told me that he’d been having sex with a teacher.’

If we think we might need to break confidentiality, we'll always try to tell you first. We'll support you with whatever you’re going through and we’d want to keep you and other young people safe at all times.

If you contact us online and we think you're unsafe, we may send you an email to your Childline locker and ask for more information so we can understand your situation.

If you say you'll come back to us and let us know how you're getting on, and you don’t get back, then we may have to tell someone who can help, like the police, ambulance or social services.

We may need to tell them what you've told us already, even if you didn’t want us to. We would do this to make sure you get help and to keep you safe.

It's really difficult for both you and the counsellor when this happens. It can feel even more worrying if the chat cuts off while you're talking about concerns for your safety.

Things you can do to let us know you're safe:

• try and talk again with counsellors soon after you get cut off. This way it’s unlikely that they'd break confidentiality
• phone our free number 0800 1111 to let us know you're okay
• if you know the name of the counsellor or base that you’d been speaking to, it's useful to mention this
• it’s better not to send us an email or send a message board post as it can take over 12 hours to get the message to us, especially late at night
• if there's anything you can do to help us know you're safe, then it’s a good idea to try and get back in contact.

If you told us that you or another young person was in a dangerous situation or was worried about safety, we'll help you.

Things we'll do:

• ask you questions about your situation and try to find the best way to keep you safe
• help you to think about the best way to keep yourself safe or get support
• if we're unable to ask you enough questions, or don't feel that you're able to keep yourself safe. For example, if you were drunk, had a weapon or were out by yourself, then we'd want to contact emergency services to get help to you. We would do this even if you asked us not to tell anyone. This is to make sure you get help
• we'd support you and carry on helping you with what you're going through.

Examples of when we may need to break confidentiality or tell someone about your situation to get you help:

• ‘I’ve got a bottle of tablets and they're on my bedside table. I’m not going to overdose but I’m keeping the tablets next to me.’
• ‘I’m feeling suicidal and wanted to jump off a bridge. I’m not going to jump but I’m standing on the edge of a bridge now.’
• ‘I’ve run away from home and I’m lost. I think I’m safe but it’s almost midnight and I think two men are following me.’

We'll always try to keep you safe and help you understand your situation better. Sometimes people might not realise how much danger they're in.

If it’s safe to, we’ll always try ask your permission before we tell someone else, or tell you if we need to break confidentiality.

If you tell us anything that leads us to believe that you'll seriously hurt someone else or commit a crime against someone. And that you'd not be able to stop yourself without help, we may need to find a way to protect the person.

This could be:

• if you were planning revenge on someone, another group  or gang because you have been attacked
• if you're being bullied and you were planning to seriously hurt the person who bullies you
• if you wanted to kill someone.

Things we would do:

1. ask you some questions to better understand your situation and support you
2. help you think about what might happen if you did what you were planning
3. help you think about your future as well as how certain things could affect you and your family or friends.
4. listen to you and look at ways to support you
5. find ways to help and support the person you've told us about.

Examples of when we may need to break confidentiality or tell someone about your situation to get you help:

• ‘I’ve had enough of being beaten by my stepbrother, I’m going to kill him’
• ‘I want to have sex with my neighbour but she doesn’t want to, I’m going to make her have sex with me.’
• ‘My teacher doesn’t do anything to stop the bullies so I’m going to attack my teacher after school.’
• ‘My four year old sister won’t stop crying, I’m going to hit her.’ 

If it’s safe to, we’ll try to talk to you first if we think we’ll have to tell someone what you’ve said.

If you told us anything about yourself or someone else that involves weapons like knives or guns, we'd want to make sure that you and other people are safe.

Things we would do:

• we'd listen to you and try to find out more about your situation
• we may need to tell someone about what’s happening even if you asked us not to. This is to get help to you
• in some cases we may call an ambulance or the police. We'd only do this because we'd want to keep you safe.

Examples of when we may need to break confidentiality or tell someone about your situation to get you help:

• ‘I’m worried about a friend, her boyfriend has a gun.’
• ‘I’m worried about being stabbed at a party because there’s a knife in my friend’s bag and he has been threatening to harm me.’
• ‘I’m fed up of being punched by my stepfather. I’m going to hit him with a brick,’
• ‘I’ve been forced to keep a gun in my house and the gun was used in a crime.’
• ‘I’m planning on getting revenge on my friend’s killer. I’m going to strangle him.’

Remember that we'll always try to support you and help you in the best way to keep you safe.

If it’s safe to, we’ll try to talk to you first if we think we’ll have to tell someone what you’ve said.

Very rarely, we might be told that we have to share what you've said by law. We'll always try to ask for your permission first if this happens, or tell you about it so that you're aware.

There are different reasons why this might happen. For example, if something goes to court because of a crime or because social services want to keep you safe.

If the people involved in the court case know that you've spoken to Childline, they might ask the judge to make us share what you've said. By law, we have to do this if a judge tells us to.

We will always try to do what's safest for you. If you're ever worried about whether we'll have to tell someone, you can speak to a Childline counsellor about it.