Compassionate Use of Information-Confidentiality vs. Disclosure
Portland (Maine) Friends Meeting, NEYM

Difficult questions of confidentiality arise whenever conflict or abuse occurs within a community. Who needs to know what? Who has the right to privacy that should be honored? How do we strike a balance between the need of various individuals or groups for privacy and others' need for disclosure? Most cases of conflict will require an evaluation of these questions-a process which is related to but also beyond the consideration of the conflict itself.

When a question of confidentiality versus disclosure arises, Friends might consider, at a minimum, the following:

• Is anyone's safety at risk? If so, how is his/her safety best insured-by what degree of confidentiality and what degree of disclosure?

• Is anyone's psychological well-being at risk? If so, by what degree of confidentiality or disclosure is her/his well-being best protected?

• What is the need of any individual or part of the community to know certain information? Is that need of greater importance than the need for confidentiality that some other individual or group has?

• If there is a need for the community as a whole sometime to know something of the matter, how it's processed, or its ultimate resolution, can publication of what needs to be known be done in a way that respects the individual's need for confidentiality?

• Is there a need to contact the police, a government agency, an outside psychotherapist, mediator, lawyer or other professional, perhaps because of a legal requirement, a concern for safety, or a felt need for bringing to bear of professional services from beyond the Meeting? If so, and if that outsider might feel compelled by the facts and applicable law to commence legal action against a participant in the Meeting or in some way involve outside agencies in the lives of a Meeting participant, are we as Friends ready for this step and how do we need to adjust or maintain our Quaker processes in the face of such developments?

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