Wandsworth Information, Advice & Support Service (WIASS) provides free, confidential, and impartial information, advice and support to children and young people (aged 0 to 25) with special educational needs or disabilities (SEND) and their parents. A young person in this case is defined as an individual over compulsory school age (16) and under the age of 25 years old.
We are committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected including any information you give to us.
This privacy notice is written to explain how we use and protect any information that you give to us in accordance with the UK General Data Protection (UK GDPR).
Information collected about you, your child, and/or young person
When you contact our service for the first time, we will ask for your verbal consent (permission) first, to collect and record relevant personal information about you, your child or young person.
We are not permitted to collect information we do not need or will not use.
When you contact our service for the first time, we will ask for your verbal consent (permission) first, to collect and record relevant personal information about you, your child or young person.
The information we ask for is:
- Yours and your child's or young persons name
- Address
- Telephone number
- Email address
- Date of birth (child’s/young persons)
- Nursery/school/college/training setting
- Reasons for contacting us
We will also request more sensitive information (known as special categories of personal data), including:
- Your child’s or young person’s SEN and/or disability (SEND)
- Stage of SEN support
- Ethnicity (yours and your child’s or young person)
We will also keep concise and factual records of the discussion (including email contact between us or on your behalf) we have had with your child, young person and/or you. We will also add any follow up actions we agreed with you and by when.
If you agree for us to open a file in your child’s, young person’s name and to include the above information. We will tick a box on our confidential case management secure system, to confirm that you have given us permission to hold this information.
We will also record who you have given us permission to contact on your behalf.
Our website
Our website does not collect or store any personal information (e.g. your name or address) so this data cannot be used to identify who you are.
Our webpage contains links to other websites of interest. However, once you have gone into these links and left our webpage, you should note that we do not have any control over other websites. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites.
What we do with the information we collect
We use this information to provide you with a better service, for our record keeping and to help us monitor service activities and local trends.
We also use your information for statistical and reporting purposes, for example, when writing our annual service report. However, all information in this report is anonymised and does not identify a specific person.
Data sharing
Your personal data and notes we have made about your contact with us, is not shared with other services/ organisations or other people, unless you give us your explicit consent (permission) or there is a legal duty for us to do so.
For example, we have a legal duty to share your information if:
- There is concern about an individual (child or adult) being harmed or there is a child or adult at risk safeguarding issue.
- The information relates to criminal activity
- The court orders that the information is shared
How we store and retrieve your data
With your permission we will store personal information and documents (letters/reports/EHC Plans etc) that you have provided to us or given us permission to obtain about your child and young person, on our secure confidential case management system.
All WIASS files including the service case management system is stored on a secure confidential network and can only be accessed by WIASS staff and no other council service.
How long we keep your information for
We will only keep your information for two years after your last contact with us, including the purpose for which we have collected it for. Following this, all information will be made anonymous and case notes (what we have discussed and documents) will be deleted.
We review all the information we hold on a yearly basis.
Accessing the information we hold about you
You have the right to:
- Access the information, we hold about you at any time
- Make changes to the information we hold about you if it is inaccurate or out of date
- Ask for us to delete all the information we hold on you as long as there is not a legal requirement for us to keep it
- Withdraw consent for us to use your information
- Object to us using your information for certain purposes
You can request for data to be amended, deleted or held for longer than necessary, by emailing the WIASS Manager at wiass@wandsworth.gov.uk, with full details and verification of who you are (i.e. proof of address and ID).
Your request will be processed as quickly as possible, with the aim to provide the information requested within one calendar month from the date of the request being received and proof of identity.
Data protection officer
WIASS shares a Data Protection Officer (DPO) with Wandsworth Council.
Wandsworth Council’s Data Protection Officer (DPO) is Katrina Waite.
The DPO is responsible for informing and advising the council and anyone who is engaged to process data on the council’s behalf of their data protection responsibilities and ensuring compliance.
Katrina can be contacted at, dpo@richmondandwandsworth.gov.uk.
Changes to this privacy notice
We will review our privacy policy every year or sooner if there are changes to the law and amend the policy where appropriate.