Privacy Policy

Personal information and privacy information

Your personal data and other information that you provide to me are subject to a privacy policy, which is described below.

EDGE Psychology (Simon Kitson) will manage psychological records with great concern for privacy and confidentiality and in accordance with current professional and legal standards, including the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements. The GDPR requires me to identify the legal basis upon which I process your personal data. I will proceed with the assessment and all associated activity on the basis of our contract with you and my legitimate interest to hold and process your personal data.

Contract: I need to process personal data in order to fulfil my contractual obligations to undertake a psychological assessment, which you have agreed for me to do. I will process all personal data that you share with me for the purpose of the assessment and will do so lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner. Therefore, the processing of personal data is necessary if I am to fulfil my contract with you.

Legitimate interest: the intended purpose for processing personal data is to conduct a psychological assessment/consultation. Educational Psychology assessments can involve the processing of special category data, including information, for example, about health, educational achievements, cognitive functioning, personality, interests and family history. Depending upon the nature of the contract with you, I have a legitimate interest to collect such personal data for the purpose of forming a professional opinion. In doing so, I will only collect information from you that is relevant to the purpose of undertaking that assessment and the associated feedback and reporting.

Further information about the data that I will collect and how it will be used and stored

You will only be asked for personal information that is relevant for the work being undertaken. The information that will be requested and held will enable me to decide:

What kind of involvement is appropriate; what tests and assessments should be used; and whether liaison with other professionals is needed.

The specific work carried out will vary according to the individual's needs and the concerns being investigated.

The list below shows the range of supportive activities that might be carried out:

  • Classroom observation

  • Observation in other settings in school, for example in a small group teaching session or nurture group

  • Discussion with the Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCo), or head of learning/student support if the setting is FE or HE college

  • Discussion with class teacher/form tutor and any other school/college staff (for example, Teaching Assistant, Mentor, School Counsellor, head of year)

  • Work alongside the child or young person in class (for example, in the Foundation Stage it is often more helpful to assess a young child through the usual play activities that are offered)

  • Individual assessment work. This might involve using tests, questionnaires or interview techniques for eliciting views

  • Discussion with other external professionals who are working with you or your child/young person (for example, speech therapist, learning support teacher)

  • Scrutiny of reports or other written information completed by other external professionals working with you or your child/young person

  • Scrutiny of school/college information, including SEN records

  • Therapeutic work

  • Group work

Parents and carers will always be offered an appointment to meet with me. This will take place in school and the SENCo will usually make arrangements with you. Apart from liaison with external professionals who are working with you or your child/young person, EDGE Psychology (Simon Kitson) will not share information about you or your child to anyone outside of our organisation without your consent unless the law compels me to do so. As an Educational Psychologist, I have a duty of care towards the individuals with whom I work. Therefore I would have to disregard any promises of confidentiality if I thought a child, young person or adult was in any kind of danger and would be harmed, or cause harm,

if I did not disclose some information about them or intervene in some way. Under these circumstances, the need to keep someone safe from harm overrides the duty to keep information about them confidential.

The work carried out with you or your child/young person will initially generate some paper information. For example, I will make some handwritten notes about work undertaken or will complete a paper test record booklet. This paper information will be used to create electronic written reports and/or summaries. In giving consent for EDGE Psychology (Simon Kitson) to work with you or your child, you are giving permission for a written report or summaries to be completed and for copies to be sent to the school or college. The school or college will also send you a copy of any written report or summary that is completed. The report or summary may also be shared with other external professionals who are currently working with you or your child/young person. Handwritten file notes will be retained in a locked filing cabinet until the case is closed and will then be destroyed.

The final Reports and Summaries are stored electronically on the c/drive of a password protected laptop which is kept in a locked filing cabinet. A backup is kept on a password protected storage device which is stored in a separate locked cabinet. Confidential information about your child, including the final Assessment Report, is sent via a password protected encrypted email account (Proton Mail: EDGEpsychology@ProtonMail.com). Reports and Assessments will be kept for seven years.

Professional supervision is good practice (and required by the HCPC)

The law allows me to share your personal information in some circumstances (for professional supervision), provided it has been anonymised. For example, I might discuss the work I have done with your child with other professionals in order to gain advice and to check that I am drawing reasonable conclusions and making good decisions. This is called supervision and it is common for professionals in health, care and education roles to ask for advice from their colleagues in this way. If I do discuss the work I have done in supervision, I will not pass on personal information that would allow another professional to identify your child. I might also show any written report or summary to other psychologists in a face to face supervision meeting, in order to obtain feedback about the quality of the report. These psychologists are also bound by confidentiality and data protection rules, so they would not keep a copy of any personal information.

The data controller responsible for your personal information for the purposes of EU data protection law:

Simon Kitson, Educational Psychologist, EDGE Psychology (simon@edgepsychology.org).