Privacy Policy

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Effective Date: 8 June 2025; Updated 18 June 2025

Hampshire Fostering Network is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. This privacy policy outlines how we collect, use, store, and share your data in compliance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

We are dedicated to being transparent about what information we collect and what we do with it. This policy applies to all individuals whose data we process, including prospective and approved foster carers, the children and young people in their care, our staff, volunteers, and supporters.

Hampshire Fostering Network is, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to supporting foster carers and improving the lives of children in care across Hampshire. For the purpose of data protection legislation, we are the data controller.

We collect and process a variety of personal data to effectively deliver our support to foster carers.  This may include:

• For Approved Foster Carers:
   
  • Personal Identification Information: Name, address,  contact details.

• For Children and Young People in Foster Care:
   
  • Personal Information: Name, age, and contact details.
  • Care and Support Information: Information relating to their care , health, education, and well-being to ensure their needs are met.
  • Special Category Data: As required to provide safe and appropriate care.

• For Staff, Volunteers, and Supporters:
   
  • Contact Information: Name, address, email, and phone number.
  • Donation Information: For our supporters.

We collect information in the following ways:

• Directly from you: When you fill in our application or enquiry forms, correspond with us by phone, email, or in person.
• Through our website: We may collect data about your use of our website through cookies. Please see our Cookie Policy for more details.

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

• Legal Obligation: To comply with our legal and statutory obligations under fostering regulations.
• Contractual Necessity: To fulfil our contractual obligations with you, such as the foster carer agreement.
• Legitimate Interests: Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. This includes activities such as sending you information about our services and events.
• Consent: Where you have given us explicit consent to use your personal information in a specific way. You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.

For the processing of special category data, we rely on additional legal bases, including for the provision of social care and reasons of substantial public interest.

Your personal data is used to:

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• Ensure the safety and well-being of the children and young people at our events.
• Process payments for events.
• Keep you informed about our work, events, and fundraising activities.
• Meet our legal and regulatory requirements.

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used, or accessed in an unauthorised way.

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. Our retention periods are in line with national guidance and statutory requirements for fostering records.

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

• Your right of access: You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.
• Your right to rectification: You have the right to ask us to rectify information you think is inaccurate.
• Your right to erasure: You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.
• Your right to restriction of processing: You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your information in certain circumstances.
• Your right to object to processing: You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.
• Your right to data portability: You have the right to ask that we transfer the information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact our Data Protection Officer using the details below.

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. We will notify you of any significant changes.

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or our data protection practices, or if you wish to make a complaint, please contact our Data Protection Officer:

• Email: chair@hfnyourvoice.uk

You also have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO, so please contact us in the first instance.