YES Shelter for Youth and Families: Communication Protocols Part 1

The purpose of the present project was to help the staff of the YES Shelter for Youth and Families to understand when their clients' personal information is required to be shared with others, primarily those in law enforcement. To fulfil the purpose, legislation surrounding the sharing of personal information was researched, along with other homeless shelters. Privacy policies of homeless shelters similar to the YES Shelter were obtained through email and telephone interviews. Research from the legislation allows for the personal information of clients to be shared with the police when the information is used to help an investigation and to protect the life and health of a person. With the exception of one shelter, all the shelters that shared policies lack privacy policies. However, all the shelters do not permit the sharing of client information to those outside of law enforcement. Eva's Initiatives was the only shelter to have detailed privacy policies, which allow for the disclosure of client information to those in law enforcement when the information is used to protect the life and health of a person. The research gathered from the present project is being used by the YES Shelter to create privacy policies for their staff.