Confidentiality means not telling anyone the things you’ve told us. It means you can trust that we’ll keep it private. Only sometimes, if we are really worried about your or someone else’s safety, will we need to tell someone.

Confidentiality

Opoka provides a confidential service. We do not use Caller Display Equipment and therefore have no way of tracing callers. There are, however, some circumstances where we would break confidentiality and tell someone.

This includes

• When we feel your life or some else's life is in danger and the caller has given their contact details to us.

• When you have asked us to.

• When we feel a caller is deliberately preventing us from carrying out our service.

• When a caller threatens volunteers/staff and it is felt their safety may be at risk.

• When are told we have to by law, for example for a court case.

• When we have bomb warnings or information about terrorism.

There may be occasions when a call may be listened into by another helpline support worker/staff member, to assist us in training new helpline support workers, to give support to the helpline support worker in particularly distressing calls and to monitor our service to ensure we are giving the best possible service to callers.

Emails

When we receive an email it is possible for the helpline support worker to see your email address which is confidential within the agency. We have no means of tracing you unless you give us your contact details (phone number/address).