Be careful what you say

Be Careful What You Say When Talking About Former Clients

By Tom Copeland, Published with permission.

Parents who enroll in your family child care program have a high expectation of privacy.

They don't want any information shared about their family unless the law requires you to share information, or unless they have given you permission.

Many child care providers have created their own privacy policy to reassure parents that they will keep confidential any information about the families in their care. See my article, "Do You Have  Privacy Policy?"

Your privacy policy should also extend to after the family leaves your program.

It's unprofessional to talk about parents (or their children) after they leave your program. It may also be illegal.

You may be tempted to talk about your past families to complain about the parent's failure to pay you, or about the child's behavioral problems.

If you say anything about a past family, you should be very careful of what you say.

It is against the law (defamation) to say something about a past family that damages their reputation in the community. If you speak it, it's slander. If you write it down, it's libel. If what you say is true, however, you haven't broken the law.

So, if you say to another provider, "Mrs. Jones is a deadbeat and her child acted like he had ADHD," you have committed slander since this certainly damages Mrs. Jones' reputation.

If you say, "Mrs. Jones left owing me $250 and I had to spend extra time managing her child," this is not illegal if you can prove that what you said is true.

As you can see, it can be difficult to avoid saying the wrong thing.

Sometimes providers are tempted to warn other providers about a parent who has left their program. You don't want the next provider to go through what you went through with the parent. Even though your motivation may be good, I don't recommend sharing any information about past families with another provider.

Providers can protect themselves against "bad" parents by asking them for the name of their previous caregiver. If the parent refuses to give you the name, don't provide care.

Regardless of a parent's past actions in not paying their bill, providers can protect themselves by following two rules: Parents must pay at least a week in advance and parents must pay for the last two weeks in advance. By following these two rules, providers won't have to worry about parents leaving owing them money.

Three Key Questions

If a parent does give you the name of their previous caregiver, ask the previous caregiver these three key questions:

* "How long did you provide care?"

* "If you had the chance, would you do it again?"

* "What can you tell me about the parent or child that I should consider before enrolling them?"

As the person asking the questions, you are not in danger of violating any defamation laws. This is because you aren't sharing the information with someone else.

However, if you are the previous provider and are being asked to talk about a past family, you are in trouble if you say something that damages the parent's reputation.

First, you should check with your licensing worker to see if it's a violation of your state's child care licensing law to even acknowledge to another person that you used to provide care for a family. (In Minnesota this is against the law). If so, you would say to the provider, "I can't answer any of your questions unless I have written permission from the parent to talk to you."

If you do have such permission, then you could answer the first two questions briefly by saying, for example, "1 year" and "no."

That may be enough information for the new provider. If you do answer the third question, be very careful to stick to the facts you can prove: "The mother paid me late three times in twelve months." Don't characterize the parent as "irresponsible" or "unstable" or "not trustworthy."

There can be a fine line between saying the right and wrong thing. Keep it simple and don't talk about other families.

Tom Copeland - www.tomcopelandblog.com

Image credit: fruitofspirit-mollye.blogspot.com

For more information about privacy/confidentiality, see my bookFamily Child Care Legal & Insurance Guide.