Confidentiality

Confidentiality for Birth To Three Group Members

One of the most significant aspects of any group is to foster and promote an environment of trust. For many parents, Birth To Three groups are the only place in which they feel free to share their hopes, fears, aspirations and doubts as parents and parenting partners. These are difficult emotions to express and the success and ultimate value of your group depends upon creating an open, caring and safe environment.

In most groups, parents express strong emotions and differences of opinions. All ideas and emotions need to be able to be expressed without the fear of judgmental responses from other group members. Ideas and feelings must be accepted as valid, whether or not everyone personally agrees with them.

In order for parents to feel free to talk about their feelings, they must be sure their feelings will not be shared with people outside of the group. Ideas and feelings expressed in your group belong to that group, and not to any outside party. Each group member needs to promise to respect confidentiality.  This may be difficult for some parents but an environment of trust is crucial for the success of all groups.

It is essential for groups to reach a formal agreement about what constitutes confidentiality and include this agreement into the overall set of group agreements that each group develops.