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Running Into a Client: Tips for Protecting Your Client’s Confidentiality
By Betsy Cauble, PhD, MSW

Social workers support individuals and families through some of the most difficult times in their lives. While taking such a meaningful role in the community is a highlight of the job, it also comes with unique challenges for social workers entrusted with highly personal information. Social workers serving in rural areas face particular difficulties as the close-knit nature of small communities can complicate the preservation of client confidentiality. Navigating these situations isn’t easy, but keeping these few key principles in mind will protect you and your client.

Principle 1: Set Expectations Early
Establishing clear guidelines before working with a client is key to lasting success. Ensure your patients understand what to expect if you encounter each other in public. A client who feels unexpectedly shut down by you could damage the relationship. Set clear expectations beforehand by letting them know you will be friendly but are not their friend.

For example, explain that you will not approach or greet them unless they do so first. Clearly state that you will never discuss anything from a session outside of a formal session or tell anyone that you are their therapist.

Laying a strong foundation of mutually agreed upon expectations is an essential part of maintaining healthy working relationships with clients in all circumstances. While it may seem constricting, it ultimately builds client trust in knowing that you will respect the relationship and their privacy.

Principle 2: Consistently Enforce Boundaries
Sticking to those guidelines can prove difficult if a client pushes back or social events bring you together often. Standing by your boundaries is nonnegotiable, however challenging it may be. Don’t be afraid to politely tell your clients that you can’t talk about something outside of a session for fear of compromising their privacy. Staying kind but firm is vital to preserve the boundaries that protect both of you.

Regardless of the setting, remember that this is a client. Whether you run into them at your children’schildren’s soccer game or in the grocery store, the client-practitioner relationship remains. Though it may seem innocuous, compromising this relationship can have significant implications for the effectiveness of your services and for the future of your career.

Principle 3: Remember Why It Matters
Protecting client confidentiality is the social worker’s responsibility, not the client’s. Even when clients are interested in initiating a friendship or crossing professional boundaries, adhering to the preestablished guidelines is essential.

Blurring the lines in your professional relationship not only puts the client’s confidentiality at risk but also compromises your work and the benefit you can provide. Slipping into a friendship with a client diminishes the effectiveness of your treatment. Social workers who cross those boundaries can quickly find themselves giving advice, rather than helping a client establish their own path forward.

Social workers can put their clients first by maintaining clear boundaries that protect their confidentiality. While it can be a difficult balance to maintain, an effective professional relationship that helps clients succeed more than repays the effort.

— Betsy Cauble, PhD, MSW, is a board member at Preferra Insurance Company RRG, a behavioral health liability insurance company overseen by social workers, and the retired department head and associate professor of social work emeritus at Kansas State University.