Privacy notice – Family Support and Safeguarding Service

Information about how and when Family Support and Safeguarding Service processes personal information about you.

What we do

Children's Social Care holds personal data about children in our care or children we provide services to. We use this data to:

support children and monitor their progress
provide appropriate support and pastoral care
assess how well the Council is doing as a whole.

This information includes personal characteristics and details of the services we provide.

What information we collect

The information we collect from you may include:

name
address
date of birth
telephone number
pertinent information that may be available on social media
ethnicity
NHS number
relationships information
contact details
health information
referral, assessment and Multi-agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) information
information from other agencies involved with you or your family
financial information
information relating to any state benefits that you receive
criminal records/police records
unique pupil number (child)
school information.

Agencies we might share the information with

We may share the information you give us with:

health agencies
police
hospitals
youth offending teams
probation
housing
local authorities
MPs
advocate agencies
independent visitors
mentors
guardians
legal
local authority designated officers (LADO)
family centres
contact centres
placement providers
fostering agencies
Ofsted
Department of Work and Pensions (DWP)
Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA)
registry office
passport office
Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS)
private psychologists
private psychiatrists
independent social workers (ISWs)
other countries both within the EU and outside
education establishments.

Sharing data with the NHS and health partners

We give health partners information to help them understand the health needs of vulnerable children living in the borough. This is used to plan, commission and develop health services.

We will share information with the NHS about children who are:

on a child protection plan
unborn and have a pre-birth protection plan
looked after.

This is to make sure that health professionals have access to information that can help them assess whether a child is at risk.

Sharing data with the Department for Education

We must pass on some information (but not the names of individual children) to the Department for Education (DfE) who use it to help with:

policy development
local authority performance management and funding
development of good practice.

Why we process your information

We use the information you provide to support your family and make sure that we meet our legal duties and responsibilities, for example to carry out a social care assessment. Your information helps us to:

provide you and your family with appropriate services
improve our services
support families
prevent harm to children
work with other agencies delivering services to families.

We then use this data to:

measure if our services are improving children and families' lives
help us develop and improve our services
complete statistical returns to government departments.

We may share data with third parties in order to:

comply with a legal obligation
detect crime
allow a partner organisation to act on behalf of the Council.

Published on: 21/03/2023