District Offices and Lobbies

Numbering System in District Offices

To preserve client confidentiality, it is necessary for district offices to utilize a numbering system when calling clients from the lobby. Workers must extend their voicemail greeting to include: “Due to client confidentiality, if you are in the lobby, please take a number and state it on the voicemail message along with your name and case number.”

Clerical Staff

Clerical staff will no longer call clients by their name. Instead, clerical staff will call the client to the appropriate window using the numbering system. District Office procedures must be followed in order to process the particular request.

Eligibility Staff

Eligibility Workers (EWs) and Department of Employment and Benefit Services (DEBS) staff must page clients to the designated area using either:

The number the client has selected, or
The client’s first name or last name, not both, or
The process is established in the respective district office.

Note: There may be a variance to the numbering system in each district office, as policy is established using SSPM discretion.

Confidentiality in Office Lobbies

As part of the DEBS Program Improvement Plan to ensure the safeguarding of confidential information, the Lobby Identification Form (SCD 2377) is to be used in office lobbies. This form replaces the interactive verbal request of personal information needed to identify the case in reception areas.

The process associated with the form is as follows:

Client approaches the reception area based on order, such as through kiosk-assigned number.
Instead of front desk staff verbally requesting client Personal Identifiable Information (PII), the SCD 2377 is given to the client to complete.
Front Desk Staff utilizes the PII on the form to assist clients as per current procedures (i.e., researches CalSAWS or other systems, etc).
Upon completion of current procedures, the SCD 2377 is placed in the locked bins for destruction of confidential information.

Recording Activity in Agency Lobbies

The use of cameras or video equipment is strictly prohibited in Santa Clara County Social Services Agency. This applies to the recording of other clients and/or agency staff. Any use of these devices will result in the removal of the individual from the office.

Signs have been created and posted in district office lobbies in English, Spanish, and Vietnamese languages. All staff should remind clients of this policy when necessary.

Voice Recording Devices

Clients requesting to audio record an interview with his/her worker or any other Social Services Agency (SSA) staff should be granted permission to do so. Audio recording of an interview without asking prior permission is not allowed. Our Agency will not furnish the recording device. The client must provide his/her own recording device and be informed that he/she is responsible for the safekeeping of the information within the recording and that the Agency has no legal responsibility for the information recorded. When the interview/office visit involves DEBS/CWES case actions, the worker is to document in CalSAWS Journal Entry that a recording took place. Staff is to conduct the interview/office visit per existing business process.

Confidential Documents Policy

In-Office Policy

Documents containing client information are strictly confidential and must be treated as such. Under no circumstances are documents containing any source of client information to be disposed of in regular trash receptacles. The Social Services Agency provides locked bins for every office (in the absence of a paper shredder).

To protect client information, confidential information or documents cannot be left out in the open. Staff is to do the following with documents containing confidential information:

Shred the documents, or
Place the documents in one of the locked bins provided in each district office.

There are no exceptions to this rule. Under no circumstances is staff allowed to leave at the end of their shift without having taken one of the above actions with confidential documents.

Outgoing United States Mail Policy

In accordance with Government Code Section 11019.7, staff cannot send any outgoing United States (U.S.) mail that contains PII, such as the client’s telephone number, driver’s license number, or credit card account number, unless that PII is contained within sealed correspondence and cannot be viewed from the outside of that sealed correspondence.

Outgoing U.S. mail includes correspondence sent via a common carrier, including, but not limited to, a package express service and courier service.

Beginning January 1, 2023, staff cannot send any outgoing U.S. mail to an individual that contains the individual's SSN unless the SSN is truncated to its last four digits, except in the following circumstances:

Federal law requires the inclusion of the SSN;
The documents are mailed to a current or prospective state agency employee;
An individual erroneously mailed a document containing an SSN to a state agency, and the state agency is returning the original document by certified or registered U.S. mail;
The Controller is returning documents to an individual previously submitted by the individual under Chapter 7 (commencing with Section 1500) of Title 10 of Part 3 of the Code of Civil Procedure; or
The document is sent in response to a valid request for access to personal information under Section 1798.34 of the Civil Code.

Note: The sharing of information or data between state agencies does not fall under this description.