CONSENT FOR SERVICES
Benefits may include:
- Improvements with family relationships
- Less tension or stress in your family
- A decrease in stress and worry
- More awareness of the services available within your community
- An increased sense of control in coordination of services
- Discovering strengths within yourself and/or your family that you didn’t know were there
- Feeling more connected with community agencies
- Experiencing more hope, optimism and joy in life
- Able to function more effectively at home, school, work and with friends
- Feeling heard, respected, understood and supported in your struggles
- An improvement in your physical and emotional health.
Risks may include:
- Having to make difficult decisions about coordination of your services
- Change not occurring in/with your child or yourself even though you are trying hard
- Past issues may be brought up and discussed
- Having to wait to receive interventions for you or your child
- The involvement Children’s Aid or Dilico if child protection concerns arise
- The possibility of service providers being ordered to testify in court
As a family or child/youth accessing CSP services you have the right to:
- Be treated with dignity and respect and without discrimination
- Get help in the language that you speak
- Confidentiality and privacy
- Receive services in a safe and secure environment
- Take part in the planning and review of the coordination of services
- See your records/file and have copies of your reports as they relate to CSP services
- Tell us with whom we can share your personal health information
- Talk with us if you feel that any decision about the coordination of services is not right for you
- To alter, limit or withdraw your consent
- Complain about services
As the Coordinating Agency, CCTB is considered the “Health Information Custodian”. This means that CCTB is responsible for the storage, sharing and security of your standard CSP documentation.
Single Plan of Care Coordinators will document relevant work they are doing with you and/or your child/youth. This will be stored in the Electronic Charting system. The electronic file may also include information from other agencies that you have given us permission to contact.
CCTB will protect your file and information by keeping it locked up or by using electronic security passwords. When you are no longer accessing CSP services, your personal health information will be securely stored as required by law. Ten years after discharge from CSP services this information may be destroyed.
Although CCTB may be responsible for your health information as it relates to CSP services, the information in your file is yours. There are policies that guide how you may access your personal health information. You have the right to:
- Access and review the information that is contained in your file. However, you cannot review information about another person.
- Correct the information that is shown to be wrong or inaccurate.
- Withdraw, amend or limit consent to share information that is in your file.
- Be notified if your confidentiality is breached or information in your file is lost
Children’s Center Thunder Bay complies with the Personal Health Information Act (PHIPA), the Child and Family Services Act (CFSA), and the Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA).
Confidentiality means we will protect your information and not share it without your permission. There are two ways that we may share information about you.
The first and most common situation is when you give us your consent to share information by signing a “Consent for Information Sharing and Collection of Personal Data”. This allows us to share information verbally or through written reports. When you sign this consent you have the right to tell us:
- What information we can share
- With whom we can share the information
- How that information can be used
The second way information may be shared is under the law and does not require your consent.
We can share information if:
- We believe you will harm yourself or someone else
- Child abuse or neglect is suspected
- Sexual abuse is suspected
- The courts order us to release information
- There is a medical emergency
- Required by the provincial government
We take complaints very seriously. If you have concerns or complaints, we want to hear from you. For example:
- You may feel you are not being treated respectfully by our staff
- You are not comfortable with what is happening in meetings or in the coordination of your services
- You feel your rights have been violated
Here are the steps to take if you have a complaint:
- Talk to your Single Plan of Care Coordinator
- Talk to the CSP Supervisor.
- Talk with Children’s Centre Thunder Bay’s Executive Officer
- Talk with a member of the Thunder Bay Coordinated Service Planning Network
For more information about the complaint process please visit the website.
Remember, at any time, you can contact The Office of the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth by calling 1-800-263-2841 or e-mailing advocacy@provincialadvocate.on.ca
Unless indicated by yourself, your Single Plan of Care coordinator will contact you over the phone (cell, home at work) and send reports through the mail. In some situations, you and your Single Plan of Care Coordinator may wish to use e-mail to communicate. There are both benefits and risks when using e-mail, particularly with respect to confidentiality and privacy. If you and your Coordinator chose to use e-mail, this must be done with your informed consent, and understanding that:
- We will not send reports to you through e-mail
- We will only check e-mail during working hours
- We cannot promise that e-mail communication will be confidential
- We will only send non-identifying information over e-mail.