This notice explains what personal data (information) we hold about you, how we collect, how we use and may share information about you. We are required to give you this information under data protection law.
Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council (DMBC) collects, uses and is responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so we are regulated under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which applies across the European Union (including in the United Kingdom) and we are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information for the purposes of those laws. Our Data Protection and Information Governance Manager is Lewis Bourne.
Dudley Educational Psychology Service (DEPS) works with children and young people when schools and other settings need further guidance to support progress. This may be difficulties with learning, friendships, concentrating, attending, following rules or coping with difficult thoughts or feelings.
Information collected by us
In the course of providing psychological support we collect the following personal information when you provide it to us:
- personal information (such as name, address, contact details, date of birth gender)
- special category characteristics (such as ethnicity, religion, medical information)
- reasons for support (such as concerns about learning, areas that require support and change)
- assessment and plan information (such as further details of barriers to learning, strengths and needs, interventions and next steps to support outcomes)
- images, video and audio recordings, digital and paper records that support our work with you.
We also obtain personal information from other sources as follows:
- current and previous involvement from other organisations (such as paediatricians, speech and language therapists, teachers, social workers, occupational therapists, specialist teachers)
- schools and other setting information (such as attendance and exclusion information, national curriculum and exam attainment and progress)
- involvement with other DMBC children’s services teams from our existing records
We use your personal information to:
- work with the child or young person to gain an understanding of strengths and needs based on their psychological skills
- assess and advise on the most appropriate level of support
- undertake consultation with adults who work with the child or young person
- support and deliver therapeutic interventions, and other approaches such as Video Interaction Guidance
- provide schools, settings and parents with a report to inform their ongoing support for a child or young person
- evaluate and quality assure the services we provide
- undertake research to help understand and improve the quality of education for children and young people
- engage in supervision (discussions with other psychologists and professionals) to maintain and develop our professional practice.
We will hold your personal information securely and retain it from the child /young person’s date of birth until they reach the age of 25, after which the information is archived for another 25 years.
Some personal information that is stored as part of a professional training process or for a specific intervention (such as Video Interaction Guidance) will be kept for less time than this. You will have given specific informed consent in these cases.
We collect and use your personal information to carry out tasks in the public interest. For additional/specific interventions we will seek your consent where this is required. If we need to collect special category (sensitive) personal information, we rely upon reasons of substantial public interest (equality of opportunity or treatment).
We share your personal information with:
- teams within DMBC working to improve outcomes for children and young people
- commissioned providers of local authority services (such as education services)
- your child’s school/setting
- partner organisations which may include doctors, paediatricians, health therapists and mental health workers
- supervisors (both within and external to DMBC) for professional practice
- we will share personal information with law enforcement or other authorities if required by applicable law
Your Rights
Under GDPR you have rights which you can exercise free of charge which allow you to:
- know what we are doing with your information and why we are doing it
- ask to see what information we hold about you (subject access request)
- ask us to correct any mistakes in the information we hold about you
- object to direct marketing
- make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office
- withdraw consent at any time (if applicable)
Depending on our reason for using your information you may also be entitled to:
- ask us to delete information we hold about you
- have your information transferred electronically to yourself or to another organisation
- object to how we are using your information
- stop us using your information in certain ways
We will always seek to comply with your request however we may be required to hold or use your information to comply with legal duties.
Please note, your request may delay or prevent us delivering a service to you.
For further information about your rights, including the circumstances in which they apply, see the guidance from the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) on individuals’ rights under GDPR.
If you would like to exercise a right, please contact the Corporate Information Governance Team on 01384 815607 or via information.governance@dudley.gov.uk
We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed in an unauthorised way.
We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.
Please contact the Corporate Information Governance Team on 01384 815607 or via information.governance@dudley.gov.uk to exercise any of your rights, or if you have a complaint about why your information has been collected, how it has been used or how long we have kept it for.
The General Data Protection Regulation also gives you right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. The supervisory authority in the UK is the Information Commissioner who may be contacted on 03031 231113.
