Confidentiality has been a concern since the beginning of evaluations. It has been a concern for both clients and assessors. Everybody agrees that the respondent’s identity must be protected. The $64,000 question is how? In the past this confidentiality issue was confined by the limited number, distribution and circulation of "psychological reports." A frequently used procedure for insuring a client’s confidentiality was to blacken out the client’s name when it appeared in reports. A more intricate procedure was to assign each client their own unique number and then to only use that number in place of the respondent’s name. These approaches to ensuring client confidentiality are still used today. Yet one of the most effective ways to insure test respondent confidentiality continues to be controling report distribution.

With the advent of Risk & Needs automated (computer scored) assessment instruments a new confidentiality-related concern arose. When the tests on a Risk & Needs diskette (or CD) are used, that diskette (or CD) is returned to Risk & Needs for inclusion of demographics and test data in that tests expanding database. Nobody, including Risk & Needs staff, wanted client names to be on returned diskettes and CD’s. Consequently, Risk & Needs developed a proprietary "delete all client names on a diskette or CD" software program. Before returning a used diskette to Risk & Needs, all client names are removed with a few keystrokes. Once a clients name is deleted it is gone and cannot be recovered. This insures client confidentiality. Deleting client names does not delete demographics or test data, which is downloaded into a tests expanding database for subsequent research analysis.

The topic of "respondent confidentiality" is important. All screening and assessment programs must have a solution to this concern. This is particularly true when you think of all the people that are assessed in a variety of state programs, adult and juvenile courts and hospital settings. And in mental health programs along with probation, corrections, etc. this dramatically magnifies these numbers. Risk & Needs software "confidentiality" program has met this need. With a few keystrokes staff insures that the confidentiality of their patients, clients and offenders is protected.

As always, additional information can be provided upon request. Risk & Needs telephone number is (602) 234-3506, its fax number is (602) 266-8227 and its e-mail address is hhl@riskandneeds.com.