Early Help Support Service – Privacy Notice

Details

  • Name of Service - Early Help - Family Centre and Family Support Programme and Intensive Family Support Service
  • Directorate - Children, Families and Lifelong Learning
  • Date of Issue - 29 April 2021
  • Date of current version - 11 July 2024
  • Date of review - 11 July 2026

Notice

The reasons why we use your personal data

This privacy notice applies to the functions of the Council's Early Help Services which comprise a range of services that offer universal, additional, intensive and specialist support to children, young people and families. We work in an integrated way with other children's services teams in the Council and with partner organisations to ensure we deliver the best possible outcomes for children, young people and families in Surrey. Early Help Services include our Family Centre and Family Resilience Services and our Intensive Family Support Service (IFSS).

The Family Support Programme works with families with children aged 5-18 that are most vulnerable, delivered in accordance with the National Supporting Families Programme and the Surrey Supporting Families Outcomes Plan.

Family Centres and Family Resilience services will provide whole family one-to-one work or group work (depending on the family's needs) for families with children and young people that have multiple needs aged 0-18 years (up to 25 years for those with additional needs).

Family Centres are commissioned by Surrey County Council and work in an integrated way with other children's services teams in the Council and with partner organisations to ensure that we deliver the best possible outcomes for children, young people and families in Surrey and so that they can access help as early as possible.

The IFSS team provides intensive support for families in Surrey where there are interconnecting needs affecting the whole family. IFSS work closely with other children's services teams and partners to provide a team around the family approach. IFSS works to the national Supporting Families Outcomes Framework.

In order to carry out the Early Help work, Surrey County Council and the service providers need to collect, record and store personal data about children, young people and families. This ensures that we can commission services needed in the right places to meet need and that delivery is appropriate.

If you consent to working with us then we will need to collect and use your personal information in order to ensure you receive the right support at the right time. We will use your information to enable integrated working with other teams and organisations, plan and provide the most appropriate level of support to you and your family and evaluate and quality assure the services we provide.

What processing of personal data is undertaken by the specific service

We will collect information from you and your family to help us complete your Early Help Assessment. The information will be stored securely on Surrey County Council systems and the service providers will be able to create, edit and access the records.

This will include information about you, your child and other members of your household. We need this to enable us to do the assessment of your child and your family's needs. This will allow us to carry out our statutory responsibilities under the different legislative frameworks and to provide Early Help services.

In addition, we process personal data for the following purposes:

  • Service delivery
  • Service improvement and planning
  • Prevention and detection of crime/fraud
  • Research
  • Statistical analysis and reporting including fulfilling the requirements of the national Supporting Families Programme
  • Safeguarding
  • Vital Interests

What Information do we collect?

  • Name
  • Address
  • Date of birth
  • Gender
  • Marital Status
  • Contact details
  • Financial information
  • School attendance/exclusion information
  • Health details including details of any special educational needs for young people
  • Details about race and ethnicity
  • Religious beliefs
  • Sexuality
  • Criminal offences

Any additional personal information that is necessary to enable us to provide you with the correct service. In some circumstances this may require us to hold information on adults within the family.

We may in some circumstances also check what previous services have been offered to you and your family.

How we are allowed to use your personal data

We need to process your personal data to perform our public task under various UK legislation including but not limited to :

  • Working Together to Safeguard Children 2023
  • Children Act 2004
  • Children Act 1989
  • Education Acts
  • Part 5 of the Digital Economy Act 2017
  • Crime and Disorder Act 1998

We process special category data and data related to criminal offences where it is necessary in order for us to provide health and social care, for reasons of substantial public interest and to carry out our public task as required by law.

Consent

Where we use consent to process your personal data, we will explain to you what we are asking you to agree to and why. If we have consent to use your personal data, you may remove it at any time. If you want to remove your consent, please contact us at the following email address childinfogovernance@surreycc.gov.uk and we will deal with your request.

Who we share your personal data with

In order to deliver our services to you we store your information on Surrey County Council's systems and your information will be shared where it is necessary and lawful to do so with:

  • Teams within Surrey County Council working to improve outcomes for children and young people
  • Commissioned providers of local authority services
  • Partner organisations where it is necessary and lawful to do so. This includes schools, charities, districts and boroughs and health organisations
  • Government departments including Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and the Department for Education (DfE)

There may also be times when the people working with you may need to share information with other parties without your consent, such as when it is felt that a child or adult is at risk of harm or to prevent crime.

Retention of data

We will hold your personal information securely in SCC systems and retain it from the child / young person's date of birth until they reach the age of 25.

Information relating to safeguarding or that is required for statutory purposes may be retained for longer in accordance with SCC countywide data retention schedule.

Other information

Family Centres - The commissioned Family Centre will act as data controllers along with the Council.

Supporting Families Programme - More information about the programme is in the Children Services privacy notice.

Our core data protection obligations and commitments are set out in the council's Children Services privacy notice.

For further information on our privacy notices, please see information and privacy.


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