Topic: Confidentiality Breaches

Question: I am wondering how other Youth Courts have dealt with breaches of confidentiality. A breach of confidentiality has just been brought to my attention. My program has a steering committee of 5 youth and they will be very involved in solving this, so any guidelines I can give will be helpful. Other than all the obvious problems this creates, this particular YC member really needs YC—it’s probably the one positive she has going in her life. Any input would be very helpful.

Responses from Coordinators:

Kitsap County Youth Court
Saeed Saber
Coordinator
Kitsap County Juvenile Department
1338 Old Clifton Road, SW
Port Orchard, WA 98366
(360) 337-5443
Fax: (360) 337-5404
ssaber@co.kitsap.wa.us

We have opted to have our YC open to public by having the defendant sign a release. This decision was made by our YC Committee which involves one of our judges, court commissioner, chief juvenile prosecutor and dept. director. This way we alleviate the issue of confidentiality, however we continue to stress the importance of respecting privacy. Pros and Defense advocates are given police reports a couple of weeks in advance. We emphasize confidentiality with those students. Consequences include not utilizing those who breach as active members of YC.

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Otsego Youth Court
Joseph Stepp
Coordinator
1518 County Highway 10
Laurens, NY 13796
Phone: (607) 263-5334
stepp@wpe.com

The Otsego County Youth Court views a breech of confidentiality very seriously. It is written in out by-laws that the accused will be brought before the Steering Committee for a hearing. Dismissal from the Court is one option of the Court.

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Wright County Teen Court
Nathan Miller
Probation Officer
Wright County Court Services
10 2nd Street, NW, Room 141
Buffalo, MN 55313-2154
Phone: (763) 682-7712
nathan.miller@co.wright.mn.us

A family group conference might be appropriate between the juror who breached the information and the person who's information was shared. That way the juror would be able to see how her actions effect others and face the person who was most immediately effected. A family group conference would also allow the "victim" to be involved in determining the consequences.

Only two times have I had to face this problem, and both times I visited with the police officer at that school, who investigated along with me. We were able to impress the teen with the severity of the situation with no further action. Our policy states they can lose their privilege of Teen Court, as well as volunteers can lose the opportunity to volunteer. But these 2 occasions did not warrant expelling.

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Jeanie Lyles Mitchell
Administrative Office of the Courts
100 Millcreek Park
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Phone: (502) 573-2350
jeaniel@mail.aoc.state.ky.us

Since ours is a court based program the juvenile judge has the option of charging the one who broke confidentiality oath with a class d misdemeanor! However, I might add this has never happened in any of our 30 courts in the past 10 years. Another option which might work is requiring the juvenile to do so many hours of community service themselves.

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Teen Court of Brown County
Jill Diedrick
Coordinator
P.O. Box 22308
Green Bay, WI 54305-2308
Phone: (920) 436-4360 ext 1392
Fax: (920) 432-5966
fsteencourt@familyservicesnew.org

We have had only 3 known cases of confidentiality breaks. Two were by past defendants serving jury duty and they were not allowed to complete Teen Court and sent back to the municipal judge for sentencing with a notation that confidentiality was broken. Although it would be nice to keep them involved, we felt that if others knew that the confidentiality was broken and the people were still allowed to participate, the oath would become meaningless and a joke to everyone.  We had a volunteer break confidentiality and we asked her no longer to be a volunteer.

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Bethlehem Youth Court
Marjorie Maniccia
Director
261 Elm Ave.
Delmar, NY 12054
Phone: (518) 478-9544
Fax: (518) 439-2144
BYC261@empireone.net

We have a code of conduct that all youth court members must sign, that includes a statement about confidentiality. If there are any breeches of conduct, we have a disciplinary team, headed by a member of the Board of Directors that investigates and then makes a recommendation to the Director.  Especially if this youth is young and the breech was not too egregious, then the committee might find an appropriate resolution short of termination of membership status.

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Art Impact Middle School Teen Court
Bo Miller
Community Youth Leader
c/o Holy Name Family Center
143-155 East Patterson Avenue
Columbus, OH 43202
Phone: (614) 263-6198
Fax: (614) 447-9192

When I do my primary interview with the student/parent I stress very strongly the importance of confidentiality and explain to them that if there is a breach that they will be returned to Juvenile Court to stand trial for the original crime. Maybe we should bring the offending student back into Teen Court to be retried for breach of trust.

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Seminole County Teen Court
Richard Harbaugh
Teen Court Coordinator
c/o Prosecution Alternatives for Youth
190 Bush Boulevard
Sanford, FL 32773
Phone: (407) 665-5364
Fax: (407) 665-5365
rharbaug@co.seminole.fl.us

Have all youth court members sign a confidentiality agreement.

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Clinton County Youth Court
Kimberly Barrows
Youth Court Coordinator
137 Margaret Street
3rd Floor Old Courthouse Building
Plattsburgh, NY 12901
Phone: (518) 565-4522
Fax: (518) 565-4750
barrowsk@co.clinton.ny.us

Ironically, I too had a confidentiality breach this week. It has been decided that this individual will be released from our program. I am also thinking of implementing a new policy, I want members to sign (along with their parents) a form stating that if they breach confidentiality the repercussion will be that they will be forced to go through youth court themselves and be sentenced by the other members.

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Brian Leverenz
Community Services Administrator
New Trier Township Peer Jury
739 Elm Street
Winnetka, IL 60093
Phone: (847) 446-8203
Fax: (847) 446-1743
brianbikes@yahoo.com

The New Trier Towmship Program has not yet had a breach of confidentiality in its 3 plus year history. This is the most important requirement of the program and is constantly being impressed upon our jurors. A violation, according to our guidelines, would result in an immediate dismissal from the program.

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Valencia County Teen Court
Eugene Duran
Teen Court Coordinator
Village of Los Lunas-Valencia Co.
P.O. Box 1209
Los Lunas, NM 87031
Phone: (505) 866-8041
Fax: (505) 866-8044
durane@ci.los-lunas.nm.us

Policies should be laid out from the start. However, most of us are utilizing volunteers so we must be careful. We employ progressively intrusive penalties for confidentiality breaches. I Verbally warn the individual and re-affirm the policy and its importance on first violation. Perhaps a strong verbal warning the second time coupled with a written warning. The third time should come with consequences involving participation or sanctions imposed by the Youth Volunteers themselves. This may sound lenient but I feel many times agencies "hide" behind issues of confidentiality and in fact often violate the policy many times themselves. I am also aware that it happens more often that I know about. Still, I've had volunteers accidentally leave cases out in the open for all to see. This could jeopardize the program and must be taken seriously.

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Teen Court of Sarasota Inc.
M. Kathleen Self
Executive Director
P.O. Box 48927
Sarasota, FL 34230
Phone: (941) 951-4278
Fax: (941) 951-4277
fatc@gte.net

First, be sure it really is a factual breach of your program policy of confidentiality. Point in case:  In the twelve years I have been the director of our program I have only had three complaints of breaches of our confidentiality oath. One, the first, from a local attorney who said his client complained the news of her case was all over school and it was spread through Teen Court kids. We had not received the case in our office and had at Teen Court had no knowledge of the case so that was disproved. (Turned out her boyfriend had been talking on campus!) The second was a defendant discussing a case at a ball park during his team's particle. He was finished with our program so there was not much we could do.  The most recent complaint was when a sibling of a defendant overheard an active participant in class discussing her brother's case. The parent contacted us, we discussed this with our defendant and she was required: 1) to apologize to the court openly, 2) to write an apology; to the family, 3) she was not allowed to complete her jury duties and had to make up the time in additional community service hours. The young lady was remorseful and in the end I believe the importance of our confidentiality was stressed, not just to her, but to all participants. I would certainly allow her the opportunity to continue with us if she chose to return as a volunteer.

We do stress that the kids can talk about Teen Court and the consequences of the behavior and the things that can be learned but that comments must not be specific to one person or one case.

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LaPine Teen Court
Mary Fleischmann
Program Coordinator
P.O. Box 2035
La Pine, OR 97739
Phone: (541) 536-5002
Fax: (541) 536-5766

It doesn't happen very often but it can happen. I talk about breach of confidentiality when I do my initial intake with youth. Youth have to appear before the teen court - at the end of the court session, so it is without the rest of the cases...and go before the court and explain themselves. My court comes up with consequences , which is not necessarily to not participate in teen court. Many times it will be public apologies. I have only had this happen twice in the 6 years my court has been up.

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Thomas North
Presiding Judge
Mackinac and Luce Counties, Michigan

We tell the teen jurors that the details of the cases they hear are to be confidential and in fact that is part of the written program description we give the schools. I further explain to them that we encourage them to discuss with others their general teen court experience, including the types of cases they heard, but not to reveal the names of persons or families involved, or even any hints from which others could figure that out. However, when we started the program, I researched it and found that there is no strict legal confidentiality, and all we could do is encourage confidentiality, but no way to enforce it. We explain this to all offenders and their parents before they come to court.

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Lawrence County Teen Court
Marlene Todd
Teen Court Coordinator
P.O. Box 227
Deadwood, SD 57732
Phone: (605) 578-2065
Fax: (605) 578-2112
teencrt@mato.com

The way that we deal with breaching confidentiality is to individually address the issue with the individual who breached. We give them one chance of getting back on track and respecting the rights of others. After that, if they breach confidentiality again, as a defendant, their case is sent back to the States Attorney's office for formal prosecution, thus they fail the Teen Court program. If the individual is a volunteer, then they are released from the program and not allowed to volunteer again. South Dakota has very stringent confidentiality laws so we must act accordingly.

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Christian/Taney Teen Court
Darlene Rea
Coordinator
38th Judicial Circuit Teen Court
P.O. Box 482
Forsyth, MO 65653
Phone: (417) 546-3411
Fax: (417) 546-2110
Darlene_Rea@osca.state.mo.us

I am certain that it has happened more than once with our Teen Court.  However, one time has been brought to my attention over the past three years, as the mother of the victim of the breach (Her child was a defendant.) called me. I notified our juvenile judge (He also presides over Teen Court.). I dropped the offending juvenile from the program (He was also a former defendant) and referred the case back to the referring JO. The offender was adjudicated.

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Staci
Musselshell County
Youth Peer Court

We have a guideline that states that the first breach will be treated as a "contempt of court" situation and the individual will do 20 community service hours as their "fine" and if it happens again they are excused from our program all together. Our kids came up with this consequence to eliminate "school house gossip" about the cases we hear.

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