About this course
This course prepares Direct Support Professionals and other staff serving Illinoisans with developmental disabilities to protect confidentiality under the Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Confidentiality Act (740 ILCS 110). It covers what the Act protects — records, communications, and even the fact that a person receives services; the recipient's own rights to inspect, copy, and correct records; the written-consent requirements for disclosure, including the required elements of a valid consent form and the right to revoke; disclosures the Act permits without consent, including sharing within the treatment team on a need-to-know basis, emergency medical care, and protective disclosures; how the Act works alongside mandated abuse reporting under the Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act and DHS OIG Rule 50; redisclosure limits; civil and criminal penalties; and how the Act sits alongside federal HIPAA, where the more protective law controls. The course closes with applied DSP scenarios: community outings, phone inquiries, social media, family members who are not guardians, and records handling in group homes and CILAs.