"When the police come calling - how safe are your notes?"

"When the police come calling - how safe are your notes?"
"When the police come calling - how safe are your notes?"
Thames Valley Network - Roadshow event on 5th June 2017
 For those that made the event I hope you enjoyed the evening as much as I did. My sincere thanks to Dr Jonathan Passmore who gave a fantastic workshop which allowed for some interesting and lively debate around contracting, ethics and record keeping.
This was one of the first Roadshow events that the EMCC regions have run, implementing the idea from Lis Merrick to share some of the presentations at the EMCC International event with regional members who may not have had the opportunity to attend the International conference.
 
The presentation was entitled " When the police come calling- how safe are your notes?" I must admit to wondering about the sensationalism of the head line theme however the detail of the content covered:
How clear is our contracting around our note-taking and record-keeping?

• What sort of notes do we take?
• How do we store them?
• When and how do we destroy them and do we have a stated policy?
• Are we registered with the relevant authorities for data protection in our country? Should we be? How does this impact on us?
• How do we protect confidentiality and in what circumstances might we breach this?
• What are the solid foundations we can put in place to support us? 
• Should either our clients, organisations or courts/police ask for notes?
 
Not just to mention the ethical dilemma, this topic begins to have far more relevance with the pending GDPR that comes into force in May 2018, legislation that should really not be ignored.
 
What was delivered was a timely reminder to us all who attended how we use, store and dispose of information and how this perhaps conflicts with outside influences both ethical and legislative.
We had many of our regular Thames Valley attendees at the meeting and we were also joined by members from London and one from the North West, inspired by either the topic or the opportunity to listen to Jonathan Passmore. Not that there was too much listening, Jonathan’s style of inclusiveness that encourages  debate made for an interesting and interactive evening where we were able to share some experiences and challenges on ethics, confidentiality and data retention from across private, public and third sector organisations.
I always enjoy the debates at regional events that I attend and find the depth and breadth of experience from our membership has supported my own development within coaching and mentoring. The CPD roadshows are providing another method to help participants achieve their own development and we are  looking forward to two events in September and November where well-being and our own self-reflective development  will be the theme.

Tim Anderson