Our confidentiality promise

Confidentiality

Our HelpHub Helpline is an anonymous and confidential service. We are a safe place for you to talk where you will not be judged.

What will happen when I call the HelpHub?

It’s normal to feel anxious or unsure about picking up the phone and talking to someone you don’t know. But it can really help to talk to someone who’s there to support you and understands what you are going through, in a non-judgmental way. Learn what happens when you call a helpline and how it might help you.

What our HelpHub will do

• when you call our HelpHub, one of our advisors will ask you some questions to find out a bit about you. After a brief conversation, the advisor will either support you, or direct you to one of our specialist advisors, depending on what you need support with. This might involve scheduling a time for someone to call you back.
• our HelpHub advisors are caring people who are trained to listen and understand what you are going through. All our advisors have lots of experience with autism and understand the different ways it can affect your life.

• the advisor will listen and then talk about different options as your next steps.
• the advisor will take some notes about your call but these will not be shared with anyone unless we have to (please see notes above).

What our advisors cannot do

Our HelpHub is an advice line, we cannot do the following:

• provide legal advice
• provide medical advice about treatments or second opinions
• provide financial advice.
• provide funds or grants for items or holidays.
• we won’t tell you what you should do. We won’t make decisions for you, our opinions are not important for the call.

Sharing information with other agencies

We may need to share information with others if we believe a child or adult’s life is at risk, or at risk of serious harm, or if we are instructed by a court of law. Keeping what you say confidential is really important to us, and we’ll only tell other people if we have to or if you ask us to.  If we think we might need to tell someone, we’ll try to talk to you about it first.

Breaking confidentiality without consent

We will only tell someone if:

• you ask us to
• we believe your life or someone else’s life is in danger
• you’re being hurt by someone in a position of trust who is able to hurt other people like a carer, religious leader, sports coach, police officer or doctor
• you tell us that you’re seriously hurting, or planning to hurt, another person
• you tell us about another person who is being hurt who is not able to tell someone or understand what is happening to them
• you appear to be unable to give consent, or become unconscious, and have told us where you are allowing us to alert emergency services
• you threaten the safety of our HelpHub advisors or other staff
• we’re told we have to by law, for example for a court case