Teen Consent
The purpose of meeting with a care practitioner is to get help with problems in your life that are bothering you or keeping you from succeeding in important areas of your life. You may be here because you wanted to talk to a coach or clinician about these problems. Or, you may be here because your parent(s), guardian(s), doctor, or teacher had concerns about you. When you use Bend Health Services, we will discuss these problems and try to help. It is important that you feel comfortable talking and sharing with us about the issues that are bothering you. Sometimes, these issues include things you don’t want your parents or guardians to know about. For most people, knowing that what they say will be kept private helps them feel more comfortable and have more trust. Privacy, also called confidentiality, is an important and necessary part of mental health care.
As part of this care, you may also be asked to participate in neuropsychological testing. This testing helps us better understand how you think, learn, and process information, which will allow us to make informed recommendations about your care. The results of these tests will be shared with your caregiver to ensure they can help support you in the best way possible.
As a general rule, Bend Health will keep the information you share with us in all sessions as confidential unless we have your consent to disclose certain information or if a caregiver (parent or guardian) participates in such sessions. In addition, a caregiver will have access to the information provided or collected each time an assessment is completed. However, in certain situations, our clinicians may be required by law or by the guidelines of our practitioners' profession to disclose information whether or not we have your permission.
These include:
- You tell your practitioner you plan to cause serious harm or death to yourself, and our practitioners believe you have the intent and ability to carry out this threat in the very near future. Our practitioners must take steps to inform a parent or guardian of what you have said to make sure that you are protected from harming yourself.
- You tell your practitioner you plan to cause serious harm or death to someone else who can be identified, and our practitioners believe you have the intent and ability to carry out this threat in the very near future. In this situation, our practitioners must inform your parent or guardian and may also notify the person you intend to harm.
- You are doing things that could cause serious harm to you or someone else, even if you do not intend to harm yourself or another person. In these situations, our practitioners will need to use their professional judgment to decide whether a parent or guardian should be informed.
- You tell your practitioner you are being abused-physically, sexually, or emotionally- or that you have been abused in the past. In this situation, our clinicians are required by law to report the abuse to the state’s Department of Social Services, and our practitioners will follow their professional guidelines.
- You are involved in a court case, and a request for information about your care has been made. If this happens, our practitioners will not disclose information without your written agreement unless the court requires our practitioners to do so. Our practitioners will do what they can within the law to protect your confidentiality, and if they are required to disclose information to the court, they will inform you that this is happening.
You should also know that, by law in many states, your parent/guardian has the right to see any written records.
Communicating with other adults:
School: Bend Health will not share any information with your school unless we have your permission and permission from your parent or guardian. Sometimes, our practitioners may request to speak to someone at your school to find out how things are going for you. Also, it may be helpful in some situations for our practitioners to give suggestions to your teacher or counselor at school. If they want to contact your school, or if someone at your school wants to contact Bend Health, we will ask for your written permission. As part of neuropsychological testing, we may also send questionnaires or rating scales to your school or other individuals (like a teacher or coach) to gather more information about how you are doing in different settings. We will ask for your permission and that of your parent or guardian before doing this.
A very unlikely situation might arise in which our practitioners do not have your permission, but both our practitioner and your parent or guardian believe that it is very important for them to be able to share certain information with someone at your school. In this situation (for example, risk of violence), our practitioners will use their professional judgment to decide whether to share any information.