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Purpose of Processing Lawful Basis
· To assess your suitability to be a foster carer
· Performance of a contract
· Necessary for our compliance with legal obligations
· Necessary for our legitimate interests
· To match you with children needing to be fostered
· Performance of a contract
· Necessary for our compliance with legal obligations
· Necessary for our legitimate interests
· To support, supervise and monitor your activity as a foster carer
· Performance of a contract
· Necessary for our compliance with legal obligations
· Necessary for our legitimate interests
· To review your continued suitability to foster at least annually
· Performance of a contract
· Necessary for our compliance with legal obligations
· Necessary for our legitimate interests
· For marketing purposes and to send you updates
· Consent
· Necessary for our legitimate interests
· To contact you
· Performance of a contract
· Necessary for our legitimate interests
· To prevent fraud
· Necessary for our compliance with legal obligations
· Necessary for our legitimate interests
· For data analytics
· Necessary for our legitimate interests
Sharing your personal data
We share your personal data with third parties where necessary for the purposes set out in this privacy notice. We may also share your personal data with other third parties, including third-party service providers, such as IT service providers, professional advisers, our regulator and/or other authorised bodies, in order to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
We may also share your data with other third parties such as local authorities, social workers and other professional advisers, to enable us to perform the contract we have entered into with you.
We may also share your data with other third parties such as the police, health services and other statutory bodies, to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
We may also share your data with other third parties, for marketing purposes and/or to send you updates about our services.
Transfer of your data outside the European Economic Area
We will only transfer your personal data outside the European Economic Area where we are satisfied that appropriate safeguards are in place.
Data Security
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.
Data Retention
We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.
To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.
In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.
Your Rights
You have the right to request a copy of the information we hold about you. If you would like a copy of some or all of your personal information, please email or write to us using the contact details at the end of this policy.
We want to make sure that your personal information is accurate and up to date. You may ask us to correct or remove information you think is inaccurate.
You have the right to request to have your personal information erased from our records.
You also have the right to object to processing of your personal data, ask us to restrict processing of your personal data or request portability of your personal data. Again, you can exercise these rights by emailing or writing to us using the contact details at the end of this policy.
You have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office if you believe that we have not complied with the requirements of the GDPR with regard to your personal data.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
We may update this privacy policy from time to time as necessary. The terms that apply to you are those posted here on our website on the day you use our website. We advise you to print a copy for your records.
If you have any questions regarding this privacy policy, please contact us using the details below.
For the purpose of data protection laws, the data controller is Fostering Hearts Ltd (FH). FH is responsible for making sure that as a fostering service we comply with our legal duties about collecting, keeping and sharing your personal data. Information relating to or queries concerning data protection should be directed to [email protected].
Use of Personal Information
We may use your personal data for different purposes; the following are a list of purposes for which we process your personal information and the lawful bases on which we rely to carry out such processing;
| Purpose | Lawful Basis |
| Direct Marketing |
Consent, where we have a record that shows you have given us express consent to use your personal data |
| Data Analytics and Online User Engagement | Consent, where we have a record that shows you have given us express consent to use your personal data. Please refer to the cookie policy |
| Process your application to foster | Necessary for the performance of the contract |
| Legal Obligation as specified in law | |
| Special Category Data that forms part of your application to foster: Processing is necessary for the purposes of Carrying out the obligations of the controller in the field of employment (i.e. legal requirements in relation to fostering) | |
| Undertaking a fostering assessment | Necessary for the performance of the contract |
| Legal Obligation as specified in law | |
| Necessary for our legitimate interest | |
| Special Category Data that forms part of your application to foster: Processing is necessary for the purpose of carrying out the obligations of the controller in the field of employment (i.e. legal requirements in relation to fostering) | |
| Criminal Offence Data that forms part of your application to foster; processing is necessary for the purpose of a contract and is also specified in law (Fostering Services Regulations) | |
| To maintain records relating to prospective foster carers, approved foster carers and children looked after | Legal Obligation as specified in law |
| Necessary for the performance of the contract | |
| Where this involves special category data, processing is necessary for the purpose of carrying out the obligations of the controller in the field of employment (i.e. legal requirements in relation to fostering) | |
| To assess your ongoing suitability as a foster carer and provide you with supervision and support | Legal Obligation as specified in law |
| Necessary for the performance of the contract | |
| Where this involves special category data Processing is necessary for the purpose of carrying out the obligations of the controller in the field of employment (i.e. legal requirements in relation to fostering | |
| Criminal Offence Data that forms part of your application to foster; processing is necessary for the purpose of a contract and is also specified in law (Fostering Services Regulations) | |
| Matching and placement of children/young people in your care (this involves assessing your suitability to looked after a specific child and provide details of the placement to the relevant local authority) | Necessary for the performance of the contract |
| Where this involves special category data Processing is necessary for the purpose of carrying out the obligations of the controller in the field of employment (i.e. legal requirements in relation to fostering | |
| Criminal Offence Data that forms part of your application to foster; processing is necessary for the purpose of a contract and is also specified in law (Fostering Services Regulations) |
Fostering Hearts will only use your personal information for the purpose for which we collected it, unless we are required or permitted by law. If we need to use your personal information for any other purpose, we will contact you to explain the lawful basis required for the processing.
You have the right to request access to your personal information, request correction of your personal information, request erasure of your personal information, restrict the processing of your personal information, object to processing of your personal information, and data portability. If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please email [email protected] We may need to request specific information from you in order to verify your identity and check your right to access the personal information or to exercise any of your other rights. These rights are not absolute and there may be certain circumstances where we are unable to comply with your request; in such cases we will explain why we cannot comply with your request.
Employees (including independent workers) of Fostering Hearts will have access to your information for the legitimate purposes set out above. Additionally, we may share your information with third parties in certain situations: to undertake checks and references (i.e. medical assessment, DBS checks, personal/employment references) as part of the fostering assessment and ongoing suitability assessment, and only where you have explicitly consented to this; with members of our fostering panel at the time of your approval and at subsequent reviews; with local authority commissioning services when they are considering whether you might be suitable to foster a specific child they are seeking to place; with external inspectors (i.e. Ofsted or Local Authorities) when they are inspecting the fostering service as required by law or contract; with Ofsted when we submit notifications in accordance with Regulation 36 of the Fostering Services Regulations; with the Independent Review Mechanism if you ask for a review of any decision by the fostering service about your suitability or continued suitability to foster; where required, we will pass information we hold about our foster carers to organisations such as Fostering Network to register you with them as a member of our agency; where required, i.e. in relation to a claim, we will also share the relevant information about our foster carers with our insurers; and with other fostering/adoption agencies when providing written references and only where you have provided consent to this.
We have a range of policies and controls in place to try to ensure that your data is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed. We have a system to ensure that your information is accessed only by individuals authorised by us to do so in the performance of their duties. When we share your information with third parties, we are obliged to check that those third parties have systems in place to protect your information with appropriate security measures and that they will not disclose your information to others. If there is a data breach, where we ‘lose’ or wrongly share any of your personal information by mistake, we will inform you of that, and tell you what action we are taking.
The law is very clear that personal data should not be kept longer than is necessary, but in relation to fostering we are required to hold data for a set minimum period of time. For approved foster carers, the case record must be kept for a minimum of ten years from the date on which you ceased to foster. Fostering Hearts’ policy is to retain personal information for up to twenty years. Where a person has applied to foster, but for whatever reason has not gone on to be approved, the case record will be held for up to four years from the date when it was decided that the application would not proceed. Where a person has enquired about fostering, but for whatever reason has not gone on to apply to be a carer, the records of your enquiry will be kept for up to 24 months from the point of your last contact with the agency.
You can ask to see what personal information we hold about you. This is sometimes called a subject access request (SAR). We will provide this information to you within 40 days, and there is no cost for this. If you want to see the information we hold about you then please contact the data controller whose details are provided earlier in this notice. You do not have to give any reasons for why you want to see this information.
Applications for employment, where a person has applied (unsuccessfully) to work for Fostering Hearts, will be retained for a period of up to 2 year in the event that we may contact you regarding future roles at Fostering Hearts. After this period the application form shall be deleted.
Fostering Hearts personnel files contain personal information in line with Ofsted’s Schedule 1 compliance regulations. This includes details of identification, work history, references, health, address, nationality etc. In addition personnel files contain information in relation to your tenure at Fostering Hearts, this would include supervisions, appraisals and performance related documentation where applicable. Furthermore, in order to allow for payment of salaries, Fostering Hearts hold information on National Insurance Numbers and Bank Account details. All personnel files are held securely with access limited to HR and Management. Employment Regulations suggest that personnel details should be retained for a minimum of 6 years. It is Fostering Hearts’ policy to retain personnel files for up to 7 years. A full reference will only be provided to prospective employers during this period if written consent is received from the employee either generically at the point of resignation or individually for each reference request received thereafter. Post this period we shall only retain details of your name, dates of employment and reason for leaving. All other information will be deleted. Any reference provided will be based on the limited data retained.
Cookies are small files of letters and numbers stored on a person’s computer (or tablet/mobile phone) which allow us to recognise and track users of our website. For a full and up to date list of the cookies Fostering Hearts use please visit the following the link;
https://www.fosteringhearts.co.uk/cookiespolicy/
For more information on managing Cookies, please follow this link;
https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/online/cookies
The only circumstances where we may transfer data outside of the EEA (European Economic Area) is in relation to external websites (like Survey Money) that transfers some data to the United States. We always ensure that external websites have Privacy Policy in place which is compliant with GDPR.
Our website sometimes include links to other third party websites which are not within our control. Once you have left our website, we cannot be held responsible for the content of these third party websites or the protection and privacy of any information which you provide to those websites.
If you have any concerns or comments about how we use your information, we would like to hear from you. Please contact the Data Protection Lead whose details are provided earlier in this notice. Alternatively, you may contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (www.ico.org.uk) for guidance and advice, or to lodge a complaint.