Using SafetyNET for staff working in ‘Sensitive Services’

The Government has decided that services related to sexual health, mental health and substance abuse should be the broad categories defined as ‘sensitive’. The following, specific service areas are those where practitioner details will only be included with consent:

• Sexual Health - information, advice and treatment for pregnancy, abortion, contraception; sexually transmitted infections including services related to HIV/AIDS or Hepatitis B or C; rape crisis or sexual violence; sexual abuse and services related to Gay/Lesbian/Bi-sexual or Trans-Gender issues;
• Mental Health – Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services tiers 2, 3 and 4 which includes referrals to and assessment and treatment by, community based and in-patient teams dealing with, for example, sexual abuse and eating disorders; and
• Substance Abuse – information, advice and treatment for drug, alcohol or volatile substance abuse (glue, aerosols and butane gas).

It will be possible to over-ride lack of consent to record practitioner details in sensitive services if appropriate, e.g. where there are genuine child protection concerns.

There is still consultation taking place about how practitioner’s details would be displayed if explicit consent to do so were obtained by the young person.

Sheffield SafetyNET allows ‘ghost tracking’ by practitioners who are from sensitive services as named above.

• This allows a practitioner to access the SafetyNET record of a child or young person they are involved with, without other practitioners being aware of this.
• The ‘ghost-tracker’ can put the child or young person on their case list and can determine the types of information they receive from SafetyNET about that child.
• The responsibility then lies with the ‘ghost-tracker’ to discuss with the child or young person which practitioners, if any, they are happy for the ‘ghost-tracker’ to discuss their involvement with.
• It is then the responsibility of the ‘ghost-tracker’ to make contact with the appropriate practitioners also involved. They will not be aware of the involvement of a practitioner from ‘sensitive services’ and so will not be able to make contact themselves.
• However if a ‘ghost-tracker’ completes a CAF for logging on SafetyNET this will remove the ghost-tracking role of that practitioner in relation to the specific child / young person.
• A ‘ghost-tracker’ can chose which child record to apply this process to on a case by case basis