Current through Register Vol. 39, No. 6, September 16, 2024
(a) The agency
shall develop and enforce a policy on confidentiality that:
(1) identifies the individuals with access to
or control over confidential information;
(2) specify that persons who have access to
records or specified information in a record be limited to persons authorized
pursuant to law, including:
(A) the
client;
(B) the parents, guardian,
or legal custodian if the client is a minor;
(C) agency staff;
(D) auditing, licensing, or accrediting
personnel; and
(E) those persons
for whom the agency has obtained a signed consent for release of confidential
information;
(3)
requires that when a client's information is disclosed, a signed written
consent for release of information is obtained from the parent, guardian, legal
custodian, or client if age 18 or older;
(4) provides for a secure place for the
storage of records with confidential information;
(5) informs any individual with access to
confidential information of the provisions of this Rule;
(6) ensures that, upon employment and
whenever revisions are made to the policy, staff sign a compliance statement
that indicates an understanding of the requirements of
confidentiality;
(7) permits a
client to review his or her case record in the presence of agency personnel on
the agency premises, in a manner that protects the confidentiality of other
family members or other individuals referenced in the record, unless agency
personnel determines the information in the client's case record would be
harmful to the client;
(8) in cases
of perceived harm to the client, documents in writing any refusal to share
information with the client, parents, guardian, or legal custodian;
(9) maintains a confidential case record for
each client;
(10) maintain
confidential personnel records for all employees (full-time, part-time and
contracted); and
(11) maintain
confidential records for all volunteers and interns;
(b) A child-placing agency for foster care
and a residential maternity home may destroy in its office:
(1) the closed record of a child or resident
who has been discharged from foster care or residential maternity care for a
period of three years unless included in a federal or state fiscal audit or
program audit that is unresolved, in which case the agency may destroy the
record in its office when released from all audits; and
(2) a record three years after a child or
resident has reached the age of 21, unless included in a federal fiscal audit
or program audit that is unresolved, in which case the agency may destroy the
record in its office when released from all audits.
(c) All individual children, birth parents,
and adoptive family records shall be permanently retained by the agency. After
a period of seven years, the files may be microfilmed or scanned in accordance
with provisions of
G.S.
8-45.1, following which the original files
may be destroyed by a shredding process. The adoption agency may destroy in its
office the closed records of applicants who were not accepted or who did not
have a child placed with them three years after the date of their application,
unless included in a federal or state fiscal audit or program audit that is
unresolved, then the agency may destroy the record in its office when released
from all audits.
Authority
G.S.
131D-1;
131D-10.3;
131D-10.5;
143B-153;
Temporary
Adoption Eff. February 1, 2002;
Eff. July 18, 2002;
Amended Eff. August 1, 2017; October 1, 2008;
Pursuant to
G.S.
150B-21.3A, rule is necessary without
substantive public interest Eff. October 3,
2017.
