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Sharing of Sensitive Student Information

In meetings with the field director prior to field placement or during the field placement seminar with the faculty liaison, a student may choose to share personal information that is deemed “sensitive.”  This may include such personal matters as a felony or misdemeanor, mental health diagnosis or treatment, substance abuse history, chronic illness, disease, physical disability, or learning disability.  “Sensitive” information may also include problems in classroom performance or in a previous field placement.

In response to the sharing of student information, one must address maintaining the privacy rights of a student, while at the same time protecting the welfare of clients served in a field site, supporting the field site’s right to make an informed decision in accepting a student for placement, and allowing the school to make an educationally-sound placement selection.  A student’s permission to share sensitive information should always be solicited. 

In the attempt to balance these competing demands, each student situation must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.  The following factors shall be considered in the decision to share sensitive student information between the school and the field site:*

  1. student’s permission to share information
  2. information is labeled confidential
  3. potential effect(s) on clients being served at the field site
  4. relevance of student’s personal matter to field of practice
  5. timeframe (current or past) of the student’s personal matter
  6. severity of the student’s personal matter
  7. field supervisor’s right to know
  8. field site’s human resources policies/requirements
  9. “reasonable accommodations” as required under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
  10. disclosure of student information as defined in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA)

It should be noted that field sites might require a prospective student to be processed like
a new employee, which can include background checks, fingerprinting, and/or medical tests (e.g., TB test) as prerequisites for acceptance as a student intern. 


[*Adapted from:  Reeser, L.C. & Wertkin, R.A. (1997).  Sharing sensitive student information with field instructors: Responses of students, liaisons, and field instructors.  Journal of Social Work Education (Spring/Summer), 347-362.]