Privacy Policies: Staff Training is Important

It is important that all staff, volunteers and leaders are trained on an organization’s privacy policies.

When providing training, it can be helpful to consider specific scenarios. For instance, when someone calls the recovery home looking for the resident and wants to verify that they live there – this could be anyone from a parent to perhaps a potential employer – how does an organization want that situation to be handled? The privacy policy should be clear, and all staff should be trained.  

There also may be emergencies when something happens to the resident outside of the home, and emergency services contacts the recovery housing organization looking for information. Or perhaps the resident experiences a medical emergency at the house, and they need to be taken to the hospital. A privacy policy should address what will be done in the case of such emergencies.

A clear, well-written privacy policy should be able to guide staff in what they should do in these kinds of circumstances.

Draft the privacy policy and then share it with legal counsel to ensure that the policy is in compliance with all laws that are applicable to the organization.