If you access the Youth Enquiry Service website, it is important that you understand how we safeguard your personal information and ensure your privacy is intact. When you use or access our services, you acknowledge that we will use your personal information in the ways set out below in in this policy.
Privacy Policy:
How and why we collect information:
We collect information from you so that we can offer you the best support possible and continually improve the services we offer. If at any point you don’t want to provide us with certain information, you do not need to.
Personal information that you upload to the website through our Blether Live Chat Service or through any of our forms is held with the strictest confidence in accordance with GDPR. For more information on Data Protection please click here.
All other information is gathered through cookies for research and analysis purposes to enable continual improvements to be made. These are there for your convenience and to enable the best functioning website possible. To find out more about this, please click here.
How we use your information:
The majority of the information we ask for, is gathered to help us improve the website for you and all other users. This information is then used for:
- Monitoring purposes
- To produce anonymous statistics about service use
- To get quality feedback about service use and the effectiveness of the programs offered
- To improve our services for future users
- For case studies (you will not be identifiable from these and a Youth Worker will always ask your consent before writing a case study)
In addition to the above, we also store all conversations from the Blether Chat Service confidentially for safeguarding purposes.
Sharing Information with Third Parties:
We will not share your personal information with any Third Parties unless we believe you or someone else is at risk, in which case we will need to pass this on to other relevant partners or agencies.
Storing Your Information:
The information you provide us will be treated as confidential except where the law requires it be disclosed. It will be stored securely by the Youth Enquiry Service (Under the oversight of Dumfries and Galloway Council) for a minimum of 3-5 years, after which time it may be annonymized and stored indefinitely.
We take the protection of your personal information very seriously and there are several administrative and technical measures put in place to prevent it from loss, theft, misuse, and unauthorised access. All information is stored securely within Dumfries and Galloway Council’s servers and is password protected to ensure it is always protected. For more information on Data Protection please click here.
Your Rights:
You have many rights relating to your personal information. These are:
- To access your personal information that we have on file, together with information on how and why we use this
- To erase any personal information, you do not wish to be stored on file
- To restrict the processing of your information
- To withdraw consent if you decide that you no longer wish us to have personal information about you or no longer want to participate in projects
- To lodge a complaint if you feel that your personal information has not been stored correctly.
There are several exceptions to this including when you are at risk or are deemed not to have capacity. For more information on your rights click here.
Your Stories:
Through participating in the Your Stories section of the website you are providing consent for us to share the anonymized information, artwork and multi-media you provide on our website and social media. If at any time, you wish for this information to be removed, taken down or adapted, please contact yes@dumgal.gov.uk.
Survey’s:
We may occasionally run online surveys to gather your views, find out what areas we can improve, or to evaluate a project. You may be asked to provide basic demographic information as part of these surveys in addition to question answers. All information will be stored securely and if we are publishing the findings of the survey or using your data in any other way that is not set out here, it will be made explicitly clear on the survey itself to ask for your consent.
Get Involved:
If at any time, you apply to volunteer with the Youth Enquiry Service or sign up to one of our face to face or digital youth work programs, we will store your information on a central, password protected, Youth Work Database. This data will be used to contact you and provide you with access to all relevant resources.
We will store this information in accordance with GDPR and the strictest confidence for a minimum period of 3-5 years.
Competitions:
We occasionally run online competitions through the website and our social media. Should you enter one of these, we will ask for a contact method and home address, to enable us to get the prize to you, should you win. Again, this information will be stored confidentially under GDPR by Dumfries and Galloway Council. After the competition is over, this information will be destroyed through confidential waste.
Tracking & Monitoring:
We use Google Analytics to gather non-personal information about our website users to help us understand what is working well and what we could improve. This is done through cookies that are embedded on our website. For more information, please click here.
Confidentiality:
The Basics:
The Youth Enquiry Service provides a confidential service. When you use the site you do not have to provide personal information that identifies you.
Sometimes, if we’re worried about your or someone else’s immediate safety, we may need to get you help. If this is the case, we will use your IP address (a number used by your internet provider) and other information that you have provided to get help to you.
We would like to reassure you that this would only happen if there was immediate risk of harm for you or someone else. We have a duty of care to safeguard and protect you from harm, so if we are concerned, we will need to pass this on. We will always tell you if we need to do this beforehand. For more information click here.
What do we mean by Child Protection?
All children and young people have the right to be protected and kept safe from harm. Sometimes, children and young people are harmed by adults or other young people who they know and trust. Sometimes, but much more rarely, children and young people can be harmed by strangers.
All adults have a responsibility to help protect children and young people. When we talk about something being a child protection issue, we mean that we have information that makes us think the child or young person is at risk and that it is necessary to help them. When we talk about being at risk it means from physical or sexual abuse or anything that puts a you or someone else in danger.
Confidentiality:
When a young person speaks to someone through the Youth Enquiry Service that conversation is confidential; that means that no one else can be told without that child or young person’s permission. This includes parents and carers.
This changes if the child or young person tells someone that they, another child or young person are being abused in any way. Information may also be shared in some cases where a child or young person is an immediate risk to themselves. We must pass that information on so the situation can be investigated and the child or young person can get the help they need.
What happens next?
When services are notified about a child protection situation there is usually an investigation by police and social work. The police officer and social worker will come and talk to the child or young person and anyone else who may be involved. The police and social workers who do this work are specially trained for this work and are there to help. They will interview the young person in the best place for that young person. The young person can have a trusted adult with them.
Every Case is Different:
The situation will be risk assessed this means that police and social work will decide if there is an immediate risk to the child or young person and other members of the family. Everything is done to protect the child and young person and to work with families so they can stay together and be safer. Depending on the outcome of the assessment a decision will be made about how best to help the child or young person. The adults working with the child or young person have a duty to keep them informed and explain about any further meetings.
Who to Talk to:
Remember that if you are being abused in any way, or is at risk from harm, it is not your fault. There are services out there to protect all children and young people.
If a child or young person is worried they should talk to a trusted adult; this might be a school nurse, a teacher, GP, a youth worker or local young people’s service. They all help children and young people get the support they need locally.
Blether Live Chat:
During our Blether Live Chat Service, we will access several pieces of personal information including your IP address. This is a safeguarding measure so that, in the event we believe you are in immediate risk of danger or harm, we can pinpoint your location and get help to you.
Whilst on a Blether Live Chat us you may tell us things relating to the following topics:
- Ethnicity
- Religious or Philosophical beliefs
- Health (Including Mental, Physical and Sexual)
- Sexual Orientation
- Gender Identity
- Disability
This list is not exhaustive and you can decide to talk about anything that is on your mind, however under GDPR this information is classed as ‘special category data.’ For this reason, we may require additional consent from you to store and process this information confidentially. As noted above, all information will be stored securely for a minimum of 3-5 years by Dumfries and Galloway Council.
Contact Us:
If you have any questions or queries relating to this policy, how it affects you or to make a complaint about the use for your data, please email yes@dumgal.gov.uk.
