North Somerset Council is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office for the purposes of processing personal data. For full details of how we use personal data, please see the privacy section on the our website.
What are advanced parenting groups?
Advanced parenting groups are all evidenced based meaning they employ tried and true methods based on research that demonstrate positive outcomes and are most likely the most reliable way to approach parenting. All our groups are free to attend and run by trained facilitators, most can be accessed face to face, online or a hybrid of the two.
Further information on the various groups can be found on our online directory.
Processing your personal data
We capture personal information directly from you when you complete our registration form to attend one of our parenting groups and as part of a review and feedback process once you have completed a group session.
We ask you to provide personal information to enable us to understand your family situation and the challenges you face so that we can ensure that we place you on the course that most closely aligns to your particular circumstances.
We ask for feedback on your group experience to help us improve the services we offer going forwards.
Within the UK General Data Protection Regulation, we are permitted to process the personal information we gather because:
- we feel that the processing is necessary for the performance of a task that we carry out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in us as a local council
- section 10 of the Children Act 1989 requires local authorities to work in partnership with other agencies to improve the well-being of children, including offering parenting support as a preventative measure
- the Children Act 2004 underpins the Every Child Matters framework which emphasises support for parents as a key component of promoting children's well-being
Some information we capture is classed as special category personal information and we tell you about this in the next section. The UK General Data Protection Regulation permits us to process this information because:
- processing of ethnicity information is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest. The UK Data Protection Act establishes Equality of Opportunity or Treatment as a basis for processing special category data such as ethnicity. Being able to demonstrate equitable access to our services across the different ethnic groups is a task very much considered to be in the public interest. This processing is lawful under the provisions of Article 9(2)(g) and Section 8 of Part 2 of Schedule 1 of the UK General Protection Regulation
- processing of the other special category information you provide is necessary for the purposes of the provision of health or social care or treatment. This processing is lawful under the provisions of Article 9(2)(h) and Section 2 of Part 1 of Schedule 1 of the UK General Data Protection Regulation
The personal information we process
During the registration process we will capture the following personal information about you as a parent:
- full name
- date of birth
- contact details, including postal address, telephone and email address
- whether or not you smoke and, if so, whether you would like support to help stop smoking
- first language
- ethnicity (optional)
- whether you consider you have additional needs, e.g. through a disability
- whether you consider yourself to have ADHD or ASD even if undiagnosed
- whether you are pregnant
- whether you are bringing up a child on your own
We will also ask you for the following personal information regarding the child or young person about whom you are most concerned:
- full name
- date of birth
- relationship to you
- details of the any disability that the child/young person may have
- gender
In addition, we will ask a series of questions which are designed to help us understand whether you have concerns in specific areas such as early years development, mental health, family relationships, abuse and exploitation etc.
We will also ask you to explain the goals you have for the group session and after the group has finished, whether you feel that your goals were satisfied. We will use this information to improve our groups in the future.
Sharing personal information with other organisations
We will only share your personal information with other agencies if we are required to do so by law for example where we are obliged to share information for the purposes of preventing and detecting fraud, if we feel that there is a safeguarding concern, or if we feel you would benefit from additional services that are offered by other teams in the council.
Your data outside of the UK or EU
None of the information covered by this privacy notice will be processed outside of the UK or EU.
How long we keep your personal information
Your personal details will be retained for a period of two years since your last involvement with our parenting service, unless you are known to social services in which case your details will be retained as part of your social services record in accordance with statutory guidelines.
Once the retention date has been reached, we will anonymise your information so that it no longer identifies you but allows us to retain the ability to conduct statistical analysis of the take-up of our service and its outcomes.
Automated decision-making processes
We do not make any automated decisions using the personal information covered in this privacy notice. All decisions arising from the information you provide will be subject to human involvement.
Your information rights in law
The UK General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act give you rights over your personal information that we process. The extent of the rights granted to you is determined by the reasons that the processing is deemed to be allowed; we have explained these reasons in the section Processing your personal data. The rights that are granted to you relating to the information covered by this privacy notice are:
- you have the right to receive ‘concise and transparent information’ about how we handle your personal data. We achieve this through the use of this privacy notice as well as other privacy information published on our website
- you have the right of access to the personal information we hold about you, the reasons it is being processed, whether it is shared with other organisations, how long we hold it for, and whether there has been a security breach involving your personal data. To exercise this right you can make a subject access request and the process for doing this can be found on our website. You do not have to make a subject access request in writing or via the web site; you can make such a request verbally if you wish
- you have the right to request that we correct any data we hold about you that is inaccurate
- you have the right to request us to restrict the extent of our data processing, for example if you believe that the information we hold about you is incorrect. You might also not want us to delete information as it approaches the end of its retention period. In these circumstances we are allowed to continue to store the information, but not use it for any other purpose
- you have the right to object to us processing your personal information in the manner described within this privacy notice. You can do this in writing or by speaking to us
- you have a right to make a complaint if you are unhappy about the way we process your personal information. The procedure for making a complaint is described in the following section
Making complaints
If you wish to make a complaint about how we handle your personal data, we ask that you give our data protection officer the opportunity to respond in the first instance, but you are not obliged to do this. You can make your complaint directly to the information commissioner's office.
Our data protection officer can be contacted at dpo@n-somerset.gov.uk.
The information commissioner is the designated regulator in the UK for all complaints relating the processing of personal information. If you are unhappy with the way we have managed your information you can seek more advice and raise a complaint via the information commissioner's office (ICO) at https://www.ico.org.uk.
The ICO helpline can be contacted either via a webchat feature on the website or by telephone on 0303 123 1113.
Finally, you can also contact the ICO in writing at:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF