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I think it's about trust

The views of young people on information sharing

By Zoe Hilton and Chris Mills for the Office of the Children's Commissioner (September 2006)

I think it's about trust: the views of young people on information sharing (PDF, 379KB)

Executive summary

This report presents the views of a sample of 71 young people aged 14 and over on ways in which professionals and practitioners share information about them. It explores their views on the Government's plans for a computerised Child Index¹  to promote information sharing.

The responses presented here are drawn from seven separate focus group discussions held across England and one group held in Wales². The groups we consulted with included young people in mainstream youth settings, groups of homeless young people, young people in care and young offenders. Importantly nearly all had been in contact with various types of welfare practitioners and professionals and so had experienced information about them being shared (or not shared) by those trying to help them or providing services. The children and young people in these groups offered important insights into the issues surrounding information sharing and their accounts must be considered carefully.

The responses suggest that practitioners and policy makers still have much to do to win the confidence of children and young people in the proposed computer system. The young people we spoke to also had strong views about information sharing in general and policy makers and practitioners need to listen to their voices to ensure that arrangements for information sharing work effectively and in the interests of children and young people. Indeed children have a right under article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to have their views listened to.

Some of the children wrestled with understanding what the Index would mean in practice and found it very difficult to accept, despite the researchers' assurances, that it would not contain substantial amounts of highly confidential case record material. This suggests that policy makers need to address young people's suspicions and devise ways of communicating with them to prevent misunderstandings arising as the project is implemented.

This research concludes that there are clear implications for policy. Policies must reflect the following:

• young people's strongly stated requirement that their confidences should be respected
• young people's concerns about the quality of data information systems and their access rights to quality check their own 'files'
• young people's reluctance to share information of a sensitive nature and the fact that many may choose to forego vital services if their need for privacy in some areas is not respected
• young people's emphasis on data security and their cynicism about the extent to which IT systems can be made secure
• concerns about the possibility of labelling and problems escalating as a result of information-sharing, and the young people's view that a problem shared can sometimes grow unhelpfully
• young people's concerns about automatic sharing of information
• young people's concerns about the sharing of information within their schools and their anxiety that this could exacerbate situations where they are being bullied
• young people's insistence that information-sharing should be linked to the provision of services which they need
• young people's perceptions that information about them should only be shared without their consent if a high threshold of risk has been reached
• the view of a significant minority of respondents that many young people will attempt to avoid being recorded on the database when it is introduced because they believe that it is intrusive.

Footnotes

1. Before December 2005 the Information Sharing database was referred to as the Child Index; this term was used to describe the index to research participants and this is how it is referred to throughout this report. The new system is now being referred to as the Information-Sharing Index.

2. The Child Index currently proposed is for England only. It will be for the Welsh Assembly Government and The National Assembly for Wales to decide whether to implement a similar index in Wales. The Children Act 2004 allows for this.

This research report on the views of children and young people does not necessarily reflect the views of the NSPCC. It was compiled by Zoe Hilton and Chris Mills.

I think it's about trust: the views of young people on information sharing (PDF, 379KB)

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