A Boy in Crisis Asked You Not to Tell Anyone. Now What?
Screenshot from Jonathon’s phone
One of the boys I work with asked if he could give my number to a friend. After school the next day, I received a text.
“Can you talk?” his friend wrote. “I need help bad, and I can’t talk to anyone about it.”
Over the years, I’ve helped boys struggling with academic problems, dating violence, teen pregnancy, online exploitation, mental health issues, depression, suicide, bullying, substance use, gang violence, parental abuse, and more.
I’ve lost count of the number of crises I’ve walked boys through. But I could probably count on one hand the number of times they wanted me to report it.
When do you keep it a secret? When do you need to tell someone?
It isn’t easy for boys to confide in an adult about something serious they are struggling with. They believe they’re supposed to be tough. Even when they do go to someone, they don’t want to lose control.
More often than not, a disclosure is accompanied by the demand: “Don’t tell anyone.”
In my early work as a frontline youth worker, this was framed as a black-and-white imperative: we’re mandated to report any situation in which a child might be in need of protection, come hell or high water.
Yet in reality it’s rarely that simple. Young people’s lives are complex, tangled and ever-changing shades of grey—and if our ultimate goal is their wellbeing, then we have to recognize a trusting relationship which they can confide in and count on as a significant protective factor.
“All young people have a deep desire to be in a positive, life-enriching relationship with others. We are hardwired for connection. It is painful for us to not be in connection. We crave it. We search for it. We heal because of it.”
That means that a decision to break confidentiality with a young person needs to be made through careful and sensitive consideration.
Of course, that’s easier said than done. According to the Canadian Mental Health Association, one of the most important tools frontline youth workers can have for ethical decision-making are clear and effective procedures and policies.
That’s why my colleagues and I developed Next Gen Men’s Youth Confidentiality Flowchart.
Graphic from Next Gen Men
The idea is simple, even if the decision isn’t easy. Whenever a member of the youth team is caught between a duty to child protection and a commitment to confidentiality, they can follow a set of questions that help distinguish their options.
The highest-order questions relate to imminent danger, abuse, neglect and exploitation. That’s when we have a duty to share what we know.
From there, however, the questions delve into the greyer area of what we call adaptations to adversity that might be cause for concern: things like substance use, non-suicidal self-injury, and other behaviours that increase their exposure to risk. The questions examine how things are changing, and how the young person perceives their situation.
Another important aspect to the flowchart is that we have several options we can turn to. Nothing is black and white, except perhaps our commitment to a supportive, dependable and professional relationship.
What do you actually say to a kid who needs to get something of their chest?
There is a lot at stake here. In many ways, relationship encompasses everything we have with young people. As Tina Payne Bryson and Daniel Siegel explain, connection is the most important thing that we offer.
“Connection means that we give our kids our attention, that we respect them enough to listen to them, that we value their contribution to problem-solving, and that we communicate to them that we’re on their side—whether we like the way they’re acting or not.”
Marshall Rosenberg’s seminal book Nonviolent Communication describes the skills of empathic listening: rather than agreeing, judging or blaming, it validates the feelings of the speaker and offers the listener the opportunity to stand in their shoes. By mirroring and summarizing what we hear, we help our young people feel heard.
In his book on trauma-informed education, Joe Brummer describes what he calls “the art of asking questions”—questions that connect, gain clarity and foster reflection. Sometimes in crisis situations with youth, we can feel ourselves wanting to grill them, or get to the bottom of things. This is about our needs, not theirs.
Young people need to be heard, and they need to be treated with the same amount of respect we treat the adults around us.
Scratch that. They need more.
There is no exact blueprint on what to say. My colleagues and I at Next Gen Men listen closely. We ask our young people to tell us more. And we communicate openly and clearly about confidentiality, our scope of practice, and the limits of what we know.
In doing so, we create an environment in which young people trust that they will be supported with empathy, attentiveness, and unconditional positive regard.
That’s written into our policy. It’s one of the most important things that we do. Sometimes it means keeping things confidential, and sometimes it doesn’t. It always means taking it seriously.