In the conversations I’ve had with HR consultants, ombudspeople, and an employment lawyer, I continually have it pointed out that what the Community Health team does doesn’t fall into any of those categories (because unlike HR, we work with organizations outside of CEA and also put more emphasis on protecting confidentiality, and unlike ombudspeople, we try more to act on the information we have).
When I explain the difference, the external people I talk to extremely frequently say “oh, that sounds complicated” or “wow, that sounds hard”
I wonder if the external reaction suggests that CH may be asked to wear too many hats in a way that makes it more challenging to wear them with excellence. Learning that CH is sui generis—or at least very atypical when compared to other movements—potentially suggests that other movements may have learned (through trial and error, most likely) that certain functions are better off separated than merged into one group of people.
For instance, in the discussion of privacy, you suggest that a role “much more like therapists or ombudspeople” would “hugely curtail the impact we could have.” I’m sure that is true for many aspects of CH’s work, but it’s not clear to me why it would be true for all aspects. As a society, we’ve decided that it is net positive for people to be able to receive certain kinds of help with very robust confidentiality protections—hence we have priests, psychologists, and lawyers among others. With pretty limited exceptions, we have decided that when it comes to supporting people “who are dealing with personal or interpersonal problems,” those support providers should not be able to use the information obtained for any other purpose. (In many but not all circumstances, the person seeking support can consent to other uses of the information.)
As a practical matter, it’s hard for people to fully “unhear” what they have heard. Whether in recognition of that practical reality, or to reassure people considering seeking help, we normally avoid putting people in both a role of help-provider and a role that would potentially require them to somehow evaluate the help-seeker, or put information they learned as a help-provider out of mind.
One usual approach for providing support in the broader community is to have an independent contractor providing Employee Assistance Program services, where nothing that the care-seeker said (or even their invocation of EAP assistance) can make its way back to the people who could even potentially take adverse action based on that information. I think that’s probably the right track for some portion of CH’s work—it would be helpful to give people coming to CH for help with their own personal or interpersonal problems the option to receive support from someone who is strongly sealed off from any non-support-providing roles and functions.
I wonder if the external reaction suggests that CH may be asked to wear too many hats in a way that makes it more challenging to wear them with excellence. Learning that CH is sui generis—or at least very atypical when compared to other movements—potentially suggests that other movements may have learned (through trial and error, most likely) that certain functions are better off separated than merged into one group of people.
For instance, in the discussion of privacy, you suggest that a role “much more like therapists or ombudspeople” would “hugely curtail the impact we could have.” I’m sure that is true for many aspects of CH’s work, but it’s not clear to me why it would be true for all aspects. As a society, we’ve decided that it is net positive for people to be able to receive certain kinds of help with very robust confidentiality protections—hence we have priests, psychologists, and lawyers among others. With pretty limited exceptions, we have decided that when it comes to supporting people “who are dealing with personal or interpersonal problems,” those support providers should not be able to use the information obtained for any other purpose. (In many but not all circumstances, the person seeking support can consent to other uses of the information.)
As a practical matter, it’s hard for people to fully “unhear” what they have heard. Whether in recognition of that practical reality, or to reassure people considering seeking help, we normally avoid putting people in both a role of help-provider and a role that would potentially require them to somehow evaluate the help-seeker, or put information they learned as a help-provider out of mind.
One usual approach for providing support in the broader community is to have an independent contractor providing Employee Assistance Program services, where nothing that the care-seeker said (or even their invocation of EAP assistance) can make its way back to the people who could even potentially take adverse action based on that information. I think that’s probably the right track for some portion of CH’s work—it would be helpful to give people coming to CH for help with their own personal or interpersonal problems the option to receive support from someone who is strongly sealed off from any non-support-providing roles and functions.