Adult Early Help Privacy Notice

The Adult Early Help link worker service provides a strength-based approach to help people overcome barriers affecting their health and wellbeing.

We aim to get involved at an early stage when difficulties start to arise, to get support in place quickly, and to prevent things from getting worse. 

We help adults set goals to improve their health and wellbeing. Working holistically and in a trauma informed manner, with a range of evidenced based and effective practice tools, our link workers will explore and get to the heart of what is impacting individuals’ health and well-being. Our link workers will build an effective relationship to support reflective conversations, that can identify what’s important to the person, what would they like to change, what skills and abilities they have and the level of motivation to want to achieve their goals.

Working with the individual to plan out their goals, the Adult Early Help link worker will be the conduit to supporting these plans by connecting people to support in their community to enable them to feel safe, well, connected, resilient and independent.

We may collect various types of personal data about individuals depending on the services you receive and your contact with the council, such as your:

• contact details, including name, address, email address, telephone number, etc.
• date of birth
• proof of identity
• national identifiers such as: NHS number and NI numbers
• information about your family
• lifestyle, social and personal circumstances
• the services you receive
• employment details (when you apply for jobs)
• housing information
• visual images, personal appearance and behaviour
• We may also collect sensitive personal data (also known as special categories of data) that may include:
• physical or mental health details
• racial or ethnic origin
• gender and sexual orientation
• trade union membership
• political affiliation and opinions
• offences (including alleged offences)
• religious or other beliefs of a similar nature
• criminal proceedings, outcomes and sentences

The Care Act 2014 sets out the duties that we must carry out to assess the needs and eligibility for publicly funded care and support for residents of Waltham Forest Council. In order to fulfil these duties and ensure you receive the correct care; we need to collect relevant information from you.

This helps us to determine what type of assistance you may require and where to send it to. We also collect information about your contacts so that, with your consent, we can inform them about your interactions with us and other Agencies. 

Your data may be shared with the following:

• health agencies
• adult social care providers (residential and community care providers)
• Other departments within the council such as housing, council tax, OT, and ASC. MASH
• DWP
• police
• education providers
• city/district/borough councils
• prepaid cards providers
• direct payment support services

The lawful basis for processing your data is:

• Article 6(1)(e) Public Task as the council is required to carry out statutory social care functions under the Care Act 2014.
• Article 6(1)(a) Consent – we will obtain your consent before collecting some of your information

We have a statutory obligation to collect, process and share personal or sensitive personal information without consent, with our partners such as the NHS, housing associations, schools, central government, such as DWP, HMRC, Home Office, Dept. Of Education, Dept. of Health, other councils, and law enforcement agencies such as the emergency services including the Police, and the Crown prosecution service, for the following purposes:

• health and wellbeing and public health
• safeguarding of vulnerable adults and children
• the prevention and detection of crime
• the assessment of any tax or duty
• collection of debt
• if we are required to do so by any court or law
• prevention of fraud
• the national fraud initiative
• protect you or other individuals from serious harm
• protect public funds
• public safety and law enforcement
• criminal or civil prosecution of offenders
• national security

We may also share your information with our partners to deliver national government programmes and initiatives such as the Troubled Families Programme or improve services we deliver or provide the services you agreed to receive. We may share with: 

• NHS – this includes GPs, hospitals, Mental Health and Clinical Commissioning Groups.
• schools
• voluntary sectors
• central government
• other councils
• housing associations

This will be done where there is a lawful basis under the conditions set out in the Data Protection Legislation.

We may also share your information with third party service providers working on our behalf for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf (for example, domiciliary care providers).  However, when we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service and we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure, as required by the Data Protection Act 2018 and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and not to use it for any other purposes.

We will never use or share your personal information to third parties for marketing purposes.

Adult social care records are retained for 8 years or the end of care or the client's last seen, this is subject to review and if no longer needed, records will be destroyed.

Our Data Protection Officer

Our Data Protection Officer is Mark Hynes, you contact him by email at data.protectionofficer@walthamforest.gov.uk

Protecting your information

Please see the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice.

Your information choice and rights

Please see the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice.

Complaints and contact details

These are included in the relevant section of the Corporate Privacy Notice.

Information Commissioner’s Office

If we’re unable to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)