Confidentiality and Photography – MDCPS will ensure caution is used in allowing

Confidentiality and Photography – MDCPS will ensure caution is used in allowing photographs of foster children to be taken when those photographs are accessible to the general public. Care and assessment should be taken to determine when this is feasible and appropriate due to the safety concerns it can create for the child, MDCPS specialist, or placement provider. All children in foster care should have the opportunity to experience their lives in care as would any child living in their family home and not in the foster care system. However, the family, the child’s MDCPS specialist, the placement provider, the courts and others must work together to determine when this is or is not the best interest of the child(ren). The following standards should be followed: 1. Placement providers and MDCPS employees agree to maintain personal information regarding the foster children and birth families confidential in accordance with MDCPS Policy and state statute. 2. Authorization by the Youth Court and MDCPS is explicitly required before any placement provider uses or discloses any confidential information in any manner. 3. Non-relative foster parents shall not post photographs of foster children or any other information, no matter how vague, regarding the foster child(ren) or their families on the internet or any type of public or private social networking website such as Facebook, X, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, etc. without permission of the Youth Court and/or the child’s biological parents/caregiver from whom they were removed. 4. Group Photos. Children in foster care should be allowed to sit for school photographs – a school photo in a yearbook is acceptable, as well as any other school-related activities. At no time shall a child be identified as being in foster care in any public postings of pictures, videos, etc. Foster children who are participating on teams or in extracurricular activities should also be allowed to be photographed in team photos or group pictures. 5. Consent. Discussion about photographing children in foster care, when deemed to be safe and appropriate, can be held with parents, foster parents/residential staff in the regular Family Team Meetings and the parents’ wishes should be documented. The birth parent can give their consent to MDCPS for their child’s photographs to be used on a non-relative foster parent or licensed facility’s social networking website.