Many of the confidentiality laws that apply to North Carolina’s social services agencies, mental health facilities, healthcare providers, local health departments, and substance use disorder treatment providers permit disclosure of confidential information with client or patient consent. However, these confidentiality laws and regulations use different terms, create different restrictions, provide different exceptions to those restrictions, and apply to different types of information or different entities. These differences make it challenging to draft a single form by which a client may authorize multiple agencies or organizations to share confidential information about that client with each other.
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Tag: social services
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The 2024 Adult Protection Multidisciplinary Team Booster Shot Series: Key Takeaways
*This post was written by Adult Protection Network Director Kristy Preston.
Earlier this year, the UNC School of Government’s Adult Protection Network held six training events known as the “2024 Adult Protection Multidisciplinary Team Booster Shot Series” in regional locations across North Carolina including Transylvania, Alexander, Guilford, Robeson, Onslow, and Beaufort counties. The series aimed to foster collaboration, share resources, and address common challenges faced by adult protection multidisciplinary teams (MDTs). An MDT is a group of professionals in a geographic region who commit to working together toward a common goal. An adult protection MDT works to find ways to prevent and respond to adult abuse, including physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, self-neglect and caretaker neglect, and exploitation, including financial exploitation.
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Child Advocacy Centers, Child Medical Evaluations, and Multidisciplinary Team Information Sharing: New Law Goes into Effect on July 1
Across North Carolina, there are 55 child advocacy centers (CACs) providing services to children who have experienced maltreatment, including physical or sexual abuse. County departments of social services and local law enforcement agencies often coordinate with CACs to conduct child medical evaluations and forensic interviews in investigations of child maltreatment. On July 1, 2024, a new law goes into effect that regulates CACs, creates new mandatory multidisciplinary teams involving CACs (with statutorily prescribed membership requirements), authorizes information sharing between members of a CAC multidisciplinary team, and provides new confidentiality protections for a child’s CAC records and information. Read on to learn more about how Session Law 2023-96 affects cases referred to a CAC by departments of social services or law enforcement agencies.
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Adult Protection MDTs: New Project Underway (and Help Needed!)
Over the last several years, the School of Government has developed new and exciting resources to support local multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) involved with protecting adults from abuse, neglect, and exploitation. An MDT is a group of professionals in a geographic region who commit to working together toward a common goal. An adult protection MDT may include, for example, social workers, law enforcement officials, prosecutors, legal services attorneys, guardians or guardians ad litem, representatives from community nonprofits, financial institutions, and area agencies on aging.
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