Ethics

Don't Tell: Confidentiality and the Volunteer Situation

The Samaritans are a UK-based charity that provides confidential emotional support to those who are depressed or suicidal. Volunteers provide this service through 24-hour crisis-lines and e-mail response centers. One of the keystones of The Samaritans philosophy is that their service is absolutely confidential. Their belief is that clients will be more likely to seek Samaritan services and freely express their state of mind if they feel that their conversation is protected from disclosure. In October 2003, a volunteer for the UK branch of The Samaritans, encountered a difficulty in keeping to this promise of confidentiality.

One of his callers confessed to a murder of a young girl.

He reported this to police, who then, with the cooperation of The Samaritans, tapped further conversations between the volunteer and his caller and eventually arrested James Ford for the murder of Amanda Champion.

The Samaritans then terminated the volunteer, citing his breach of the Samaritan confidentiality policy.

As you might expect, when this became public knowledge it ignited a bit of a debate in the UK over whether asking volunteers to remain silent about such matters is a good idea. After all, allowing confessed murderers to run around free doesn’t seem like the best service to the public.

While this is clearly a worst-case scenario, this situation prompted us to make a few comments about client confidentiality, volunteers, organizational responsibility, and the implications of the debate.

 

Join the conversation online
To add or view comments

Ethics and the Hydra

Most of us have seen board members separate their collective, decision-making role on the board from their individual, working role in other volunteer capacities. And we know that board members who fail to make or remember the distinction can be very problematic. The level of potential ethical dilemmas can escalate greatly in organizations where board members play many related external roles as well.

Volunteers with some self-interest can be very valuable to an organization. If the success of the organization is important to your hopes and/or your business, you may be passionate about the mission and willing to work hard as a volunteer. Unfortunately, such multi-faceted volunteers can also be a Hydra – a many-headed monster – if not guided by ethics. People of personal integrity are needed who are willing to abide by organizational values as well.

This article explores the concepts and issues of ethics and conflict of interest as they affect volunteer service on a nonprofit board of directors.

To read the full article

"Diversity Continuum: Indicators of Success"

e-Volunteerism enjoys making discoveries. Periodically we find material that was produced by an organization originally for in-house purposes only, but which is of such quality, uniqueness, or interest to warrant sharing more broadly. We will seek permission to reprint these "Tools You Can Use" to spark the creativity of our readers to adapt great ideas pioneered elsewhere.

In this issue, we present a notable tool for assessing how an organization ranks when it comes to diversity. This "Diversity Continuum" was developed last year by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, whom we thank for permission to publish excerpts. First, we applaud PPFA for integrating standards for volunteer diversity alongside the same standards for employee diversity! Second, we think this grid does an outstanding job of delineating different levels of diversity.

To read the full article

"Supplementing or Supplanting?" The Mystery of "Volunteer" versus "Paid Employee" Right to Work

If there were a Ten Commandments of Volunteer Management, one of them would surely be the statement "volunteers should supplement, not supplant, paid staff." Drilled firmly into the head of every new volunteer manager is the fact that staff support is dependent upon relieving fears of replacement by hordes of unpaid volunteers and accordingly work done by volunteers should never impinge upon or threaten the jobs of paid staff.

Now, neither Steve nor Susan is opposed to paid staff keeping their jobs, so please don't interpret what follows as an attack upon full employment.

Join the conversation online
To add or view comments
Subscribe to Ethics

Privacy Statement

Engage: The global voice of leaders of volunteer engagement
ISSN: 2767-7397
Susan J. Ellis Foundation Philadelphia PA 19118
Copyright © 2000