Dealing with confidential information in day care programs

Abstract

The Evanston day care program is a highly developed system of services. For eight years all federal funding has been channeled through the 4-C's, which purchases care at, or subcontracts with, all local day care programs. Home care is available as well. School programs are separately contracted with the State, but central services are purchased from the 4-C by the School district. More than half of the day care slots in Evanston centers are Title XX funded. Care is available for children from infancy through fifth grade; families needing care apply at 4-C for all programs. Eligibility is determined at 4-C, where social work staff is available to all centers and families. Directors of all programs have been meeting together monthly since 1973. They have developed close relationships which facilitate movement of families and their children as needed. An issue that has arisen from time to time has been that of confidentiality: how much information about families passes from one center to the next? Some policies have been developed, but new aspects of the problem present themselves from time to time. The following is information derived from a meeting organized by the 4-C, to which we invited directors. David Weinstein, a lawyer with Cook County Legal Assistance Foundation, presented information on confidentiality and responded to questions. An agenda was set to focus the discussion. While this kind of discussion is more likely to occur in a closely coordinated system in which individual center directors have built a trusting relationship with each other, we feel that the issue exists elsewhere, and the conclusions might well apply in many situations.