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Educational psychology privacy notice

We keep this privacy notice under regular review and was last updated in January 2023.

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.

Who we are

Kent County Council (KCC) collects, uses and is responsible for certain personal information about you. When we do so we are regulated under the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018). We are responsible as ‘controller’ of that personal information. Our Data Protection Officer is Benjamin Watts.

The Kent Educational Psychology Service (KEPS) 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. They also provide statutory advice as part of the statutory needs assessment process to support decisions about whether children and young people with special education needs require an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP).

Personal information we collect and use

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)
  • schools and other setting information (such as attendance and exclusion information, national curriculum and exam attainment and progress)
  • involvement with other KCC children’s services teams from our existing records

How we use your personal information

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 interventions, such as, but not limited to, Cognitive Behaviour Approaches, Video Interaction Guidance and Paired Reading
  • 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
  • evaluate and quality assure Autism Education Trust training in Early Years, schools and Post 16 settings led by Educational Psychologists and Specialist Teachers.

Reasons we can collect and use your personal information

We collect and use pupil information to comply with our legal obligations as outlined in the Children and Families Act 2014, and to carry out tasks in the public interest. We rely on the following legal bases under UK GDPR:

  • Article (6)(1)(c) - Legal obligation: the processing is necessary to comply with the law
  • Article (6)(1)(e) - Public task: the processing is necessary to perform a task in the public interest or for official functions (task or function has a clear basis in law).

We collect personal data for Autism Education Trust training, we rely on the following legal bases under UK GDPR:

  • Article (6)(1)(a) - Consent: the individual has given clear consent to process their personal data for a specific purpose

When we collect or share special category personal data, we rely upon the following legal bases under UK GDPR:

  • Article 9(2)(b) - Employment, social security and social protection. We rely on the ‘Employment, social security and social protection’ purpose condition from Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018 when relying on Article 9(2)(b) to process your special category data.
  • Article 9(2)(f) - Legal claims or judicial acts
  • Article 9(2)(g) - Reasons of substantial public interest. We rely on the ‘equality of opportunity or treatment’ purpose condition from Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018 when relying on Article 9(2)(g) to process your special category data.
  • Article 9(2)(h) - Health or social care
  • Article 9(2)(j) - Archiving, research and statistics. We rely on the ‘Research’ purpose condition from Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018 when relying on Article 9(2)(j) to process your special category data

How long your personal data will be kept

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 or securely destroyed. For information relating to the statutory assessment process for EHCPs, we keep information for 6 years after the date of last involvement, which will go beyond the age of 25 for those young people supported between the ages of 20 and 25. After this time the information is made inaccessible to system users or securely destroyed.

For Autism Education Trust training, we keep the information for three years, which is the length of the licence KCC holds for this program.

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 informed consent in these cases.

Who we share your personal information with

We share your personal information with:

  • teams within KCC working to improve outcomes for children and young people
  • commissioned providers of local authority services (such as education services and commissioned education psychology services)
  • your child’s school/setting
  • partner organisations signed up to the Kent and Medway Information Sharing Agreement, where necessary, which may include doctors, paediatricians, health therapists and mental health workers
  • supervisors (both within and external to KCC) for professional practice.

We will share personal information with law enforcement or other authorities if required by applicable law.

Your rights

Under UK 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 decisions being made that significantly affect you
  • 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 UK GDPR.

If you would like to exercise a right, please contact the Information Resilience and Transparency Team at data.protection@kent.gov.uk.

Your right to withdraw your consent

Where we rely on your consent to process your personal information, you can withdraw your consent to our use of your data at any time.

You can do this by emailing data.protection@kent.gov.uk.

Keeping your personal information secure

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.

Contact

Please contact the Information Resilience and Transparency Team at data.protection@kent.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.

You can contact our Data Protection Officer, Benjamin Watts, at dpo@kent.gov.uk, or write to: Data Protection Officer, Sessions House, Maidstone, Kent ME14 1XQ.

UK GDPR also gives you right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner who may be contacted via the Information Commissioner's website or call 03031 231113.

Read our corporate privacy statement.