Letting you know what we do with your data and keeping things private and confidential is very important to Off the Record. When you register with Off the Record, whether signing up to our newsletter, engaging with one of our support services or if you are applying for a role as a volunteer or paid member of staff, some data you provide you will be held by Off the Record.

The aim of this policy is to let you know what happens to your data as well as how long we keep it, how we process your data and what your rights are.

Your Privacy:

Nothing that you share with our services will be passed to anyone outside of Off the Record without your permission.

There may be exceptional circumstances in which:

• Your counsellor or Off the Record care worker thinks that you or someone else is at risk of serious harm
• Your counsellor or Off the Record care worker does not feel you are able to take responsibility for your own decisions.
• In an emergency or when ordered by a court of law then information about you may have to be shared with someone else even without your permission. Even then, Off the Record will work to involve you in decisions about sharing information wherever possible and will keep you up-to-date with any actions we have taken.

Your Data:

Off the Record collects, keeps and uses information about you and your use of our services (including counselling/art therapy or young carers help or trips and activities) for the purposes below:

• Your name, address, email and telephone numbers which are used to contact you about your counselling, art therapy or young carers help.
• Regular wellbeing questionnaires and counsellor/carer’s worker’s notes that are used to record how you are feeling and to help make sure that the support you are getting is working for you.
• Quotes and other feedback about how you experience the services with Off the Record which are used anonymously for publicity and funding reports.
• Details about your age, ethnicity, gender, school/employment and types of issues faced which are used to provide reports to Off the Record’s funders and to check that our services are reaching young people across the community (names are never used in these reports)

If you were referred to Off the Record through the Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS) then your information may be shared with them, and with the original referrer as appropriate. This includes sending them a brief letter when your time using the services finishes.

If you would like information to be shared with someone else such as a doctor, teacher or social worker, then you would need to discuss this with either your counsellor or care worker so you can agree exactly what information is to be shared.

Off the Record is also part of national NHS programmes aimed at monitoring and improving mental health services. As part of these programmes, we are asked to provide information about who uses our services and the counselling wellbeing questionnaires. This information is processed by NHS Digital. Information provided from Off the Record to NHS Digital does not include your name but does include your postcode and date of birth information which is used to make sure records are not counted twice. Reports produced from NHS Digital do not include any details that could identify you. When you start counselling with us we will ask you if you agree to us sharing your information with NHS Digital.

All the information we keep about you is held in a secure database, secure online store and locked filing cabinets and is only seen by Off the Record staff directly involved in supporting you or writing reports. Identifiable information is securely destroyed and deleted 7 years after your final contact with Off the Record or 7 years after your 18th birthday whichever is longer. You can ask for your information to be deleted at any time by writing to the Agency Director at our registered address: 72 Queens Road, Croydon, Surrey. CR0 2PR.

Your Rights:

You have a right to see any information kept about you by Off the Record and to have that information corrected or deleted. Please contact the Agency Director at our registered address: 72 Queens Road, Croydon, Surrey. CR0 2PR.

You have the right to refuse permission for Off the Record to keep or share your information and to change your mind about it at any time by informing the Agency Director at the registered address.

If you are unhappy with the service or the way you and your information have been treated, then you can complain through Off the Record’s complaints procedure; through the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (of which Off the Record is a member) or to the Information Commissioner’s Office (with which Off the Record is registered)

Recruitment and Volunteering:

When you apply for a role with Off the Record either as a volunteer or a paid member of staff you might send us your CV or a completed application form or both. We use the application form to determine your suitability for the role for which you are applying and to shortlist applicants for interview. We do not share this information with anybody outside of Off the Record including employment agencies.

If you completed an equal opportunities monitoring form, we will use this information to ensure we are fulfilling our equal opportunities policy. These forms are not used in any way as part of the selection process.

If you are a successful applicant, we will then keep your CV/application form on file for the duration of your time with Off the Record plus 6 years after your employment or volunteer position ended. If you are unsuccessful with your application, we will only keep your CV/application form on our systems for 6 months.

Cookies:

A cookie is a little bit of code that can do things like track the time you spend on a website, or makes sure your username and password match up when you sign in. Most browsers allow you to choose whether or not to accept cookies, which is great. But please remember, if you don't allow cookies on the Off the Record's sites, some functions might not work properly. 

Marketing and Mailing Lists:

If you have signed up to Off The Records mailing list, our legal reason for processing your data is your consent. We will regularly give you the option to unsubscribe from our mailing list. At most, we will hold your personal data for a period of one year before destroying it, unless you opt to keep subscribed for another year. In the case where you are accessing other services from Off The Record, we may need to retain your data for longer (please refer to the section about ‘Your Data’).