Private and confidential?

Chris Clark is Professor of Social Work Ethics and Dean of Postgraduate Studies in the College of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Edinburgh.Janice McGhee is Senior Lecturer in Social Work in the School of Social and Political Studies at the University of Edinburgh. Her research interests primarily lie in child welfare policy and law.

• Part one: Professional confidentiality revisited: Personal information and the professional relationship ~ Cynthia Bisman; Confidentiality, trust and truthfulness ~ Chris Clark; Confidentiality in practice: non-western perspectives on privacy ~ Ian Harper; Ethical practice in joined-up working ~ Ian Thompson; Part two: Balancing individual privacy with the right to information: The right to privacy and confidentiality for children ~ Lilian Edwards and Rowena Rodrigues; Public protection in practice: Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) ~ Hazel Kemshall and Jason Wood; The right to information in practice: adoption records, confidentiality and secrecy ~ Gary Clapton; Part three: Working together: Confidentiality and information sharing in child protection ~ Janice McGhee; Working with children and young people: privacy and identity ~ Peter Ashe; Working with adults with incapacity ~ Susan Hunter and Lisa Curtice; Working together? Sharing personal information in health and social services ~ Val Baker; Conclusion ~ Chris Clark and Janice McGhee.

" This collection of essays is a timely and excellent contribution to the debates about confidentiality and information sharing....iIt offers a wealth of ideas....and it is thus essential reading...a major contribution to stimulating and informing the needed debate among professional groups about how to respond to the new challenges while maintaining their ethical standards in relation to users." Eileen Munro in Ethics and Social Welfare Vol 3:1