Privacy Notice for adults
Dr Gemma Handelsman, practicing as ‘Handelsman Psychology’, aims to be transparent in the way she uses and stores information about you or your child. This enables you to be confident that your information is protected and secure.
This Privacy Notice describes the information that Handelsman Psychology may collect when you use Handelsman Psychology services, how the data may be used and how it is stored. It explains why Handelsman Psychology asks for personal information and provides the legal basis for processing you or your child’s data.
Handelsman Psychology uses the information collected in accordance with all laws concerning the protection of personal data, including the Data Protection Act 2018 and the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) 2020. As per these laws, the Data Controller is:
Dr Gemma Handelsman
Email: gemma@handelsmanpsychology.com Tel: 07368 184 739
If you have any queries about this policy, please contact Dr Handelsman directly. If you are not satisfied with the answers provided, or if you require any further information, you can contact the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at https://ico.org.uk referencing Dr Gemma Handelsman, ICO registration number: ZA545671.
Section One: data collected to provide Handelsman Psychology services
1. Why is personal information collected?
Personal information about you/your child is collected for the purposes of providing Educational Psychology services, thereby enabling Handelsman Psychology to fulfil their agreed obligations to you. Handelsman Psychology collects and holds information about you/your child under the legal basis identified as “consent”, as defined under Article 6 of the UK GDPR (2020). This means you and/or your child has freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous consent.
2. What types of information and data are collected?
Personal information and data about you/your child are collected in a variety of ways, including referral forms, consent forms, questionnaires, reports, by phone and email, as well as face-to-face and virtual meetings. Information may be provided by the child, their family or nursery/school staff and other professionals (where consent is provided).
Personal information collected is likely to include personal details such as full name, child’s date of birth, gender, address, telephone number, email address and school details.
Handelsman Psychology will also collect Special Category Data under the legal basis identified as “explicit consent” and “reasons of substantial public interest”, as defined under Article 9 of the UK GDPR (2020). The “reasons of substantial public interest” are further clarified under Part 2, Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act (2018) and include:
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“counselling”
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“safeguarding of children and individuals at risk”
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“support for individuals with a particular disability or medical condition”.
Special Category Data includes information about racial or ethnic origin and data concerning health, education and wellbeing. This information may be collected from, for example, observation notes, psychometric measures, details of other services involved and copies of other professional reports. This information is required to be able to form professional opinions and provide advice.
3. How is your information used?
Information collected about you/your child is used to write psychological reports or consultation notes as appropriate. Occasionally Gemma may provide written feedback to the child themselves (via their parents) in the form of a letter. If reports from other professionals or written information from schools has been provided, then this may also be quoted within reports as appropriate.
4. How is your information shared?
If parents have commissioned Handelsman Psychology services themselves, they are the owner of any written feedback and are solely responsible for determining who it is shared with. With parent consent, any information collected during a psychological assessment may be shared verbally with school staff as part of discussions.
If schools have commissioned Handelsman Psychology services, then any written feedback will be provided to the school and a copy to parents. With parent consent, any information collected during a psychological assessment may be shared verbally with school staff as part of discussions.
Written feedback will only be shared with other services or professionals with parents’ written consent, unless disclosure is required by a Court of Law or other statutory duty (e.g. Safeguarding - if there is concern a child may come to harm).
Completed written feedback will be sent to families/schools as a password-protected .pdf document. The password will be sent separately.
Cases may be anonymously discussed, or anonymous reports used as part of professional psychological supervision, as required by the Heath and Care Professions Council.
We will also use the personal information you provide to process payment for any services undertaken and to contact you to seek feedback about our services.
5. Where is information kept, and how is it kept safe?
We are committed to ensuring your/your child’s personal information is kept secure and take reasonable steps to protect all personal and sensitive information shared with us. Information will be held securely and in accordance with UK GDPR (2020).
Information in paper format is either scanned to digital format and shredded or stored in a lockable filing cabinet. This includes any handwritten notes or assessment forms as necessary. Any information collected electronically is stored on a password-protected cloud-based storage that meets GDPR standards. Psychological reports and consultation notes are password-protected.
If reports from another service/professional are provided, these will be either stored in a lockable filing cabinet or on a password-protected cloud-based storage.
Q-Interactive and Q-Global is a cloud-based assessment tool which is sometimes used during assessments. The child’s name and date of birth are required by the assessment tool, no other personal information is uploaded. It has a two-factor authentication security system and Pearson Assessments, the owners of Q-Interactive and Q-Global, assure that it is GDPR compliant.
6. How long is information kept?
All electronic documents, including written feedback, relating to a child or young person will be kept securely until they turn 25 years old, and then permanently deleted. This is in accordance with The British Psychological Society Practice Guidelines.
Consent forms remain valid for one year. After one year a new consent form is required if further work is necessary.
Handwritten and observation notes are shredded or deleted once a report has been written, finalised and sent.
Information in paper format, such as paper assessment forms and reports/paperwork provided by other professionals/schools are stored for one year (unless Gemma remains actively involved with the child), at which point they are shredded.
If documentation is received about a child where there is no longer active involvement, Gemma will endeavour to let the sender know without undue delay.
If Gemma is contacted about the possible provision of services, but this does not take place, any information collected in initial telephone calls or email will be deleted without undue delay.
7. You and your child’s rights and access to your information
The Information Commissioners Office details your and your child’s rights to access information or request for it to be amended or deleted. Information may not be deleted if the information needs to be retained for the purposes of professional defence. Legal advice may be sought in response to any requests to delete information. Requests should be made in writing to Dr Handelsman at gemma@handelsmanpsychology.com.
Section Two: data collected via Handelsman Psychology’s website
This section outlines the way Handelsman Psychology processes, stores and protects personal data and information when you use our website: www.handelsmanpsychology.com
When using the contact form on www.handelsmanpsychology.com you may be asked to submit:
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Your name
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Contact information (email address and/or phone number)
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Other information relevant to your enquiry
When you supply any personal information to www.handelsmanpsychology.com we have a legal obligation towards you in the way this data is used.
We use the personal data and information you provide to understand your enquiry and respond to you. We may also use the information to improve the services we provide and update the website to reflect its visitors. We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. We have put into place suitable electronic procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect via our website.
We will not share your personal data and information with any third party service provider.
The Information Commissioners Office details your rights to access information or request for it to be amended or deleted. Legal advice may be sought in response to any requests to delete information. Requests should be made in writing to Dr Handelsman at gemma@handelsmanpsychology.com.
Cookies: We use Google Analytics to provide us with data about how our website is being used. Google Analytics uses cookies to monitor your engagement with the website, but it does not store, save or collect personal data. This helps us analyse data about webpage traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to the needs of our visitors. Cookies help us provide you with a better website. You can choose to accept or decline cookies through your web browser’s security settings. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.
External web links: www.handelsmanpsychology.com may contain links to other websites that interest you or shortened links to social media platforms. Clicking on any links via our website may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these external websites and we encourage you to read their Privacy Notices for more information about how your data may be collected or shared. We hold no liability for the content of external third party websites.
Questions
If you have any questions regarding this Privacy Notice please contact Dr Handelsman at gemma@handelsmanpsychology.com. For more information on your rights and GDPR please contact: Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).