Privacy policy

Aim

Talk Well (formerly known as TIC+, Teens in Crisis) is a leading charity that exists to support children and young people aged 9-25 and their families. We do this in a variety of different ways, including face-to-face and online counselling for young people, parent support groups, psycho-educational workshops and other specialist services. We’re a registered charity, registered in England and Wales with the Charity Commission (1045429)

This Privacy Notice explains what to expect when Talk Well collects and uses your personal information and works alongside our Terms of use and Cookie Policy.

Have a good read through this document. Then, if you’d like to learn more about our data protection and privacy policies, or just talk things through with our friendly team, get in touch for an informal chat.

Address: Data Protection Officer, Talk Well, Office 73 – 4th Floor – Building 8, Vantage Point Business Village, Mitcheldean, Gloucestershire, GL17 ODD

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How we treat the information we gather

At Talk Well, your privacy is really important to us, so you can be confident that your personal information and anything you tell us is kept safe and secure. For your peace of mind, we process personal information in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018, the UK implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). This law strengthens your rights to privacy and gives you better and more control over the personal information that organisations hold about you.

As we continue improving our websites, we may update this policy. Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and you are deemed to have accepted the terms of the Policy on your first use of the website following the alterations.

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How do we collect personal information?

There are a few different ways that Talk Well can collect your personal information, and we’ll always choose the route that you’re happiest with.

We can collect information direct from you when you:

Contact us with an enquiry about our counselling services
Receive counselling or support from us
Generously decide to donate to support our work
Visit our website. Please see our Cookies section for more information
Sign up to become one of our amazing team of volunteers
Register to take part in one of our incredible challenges
Complete a compliments, feedback or complaints form (this can also be done anonymously)
Register to attend one of our training events
Become a student with Talk Well
Make a request for resources about Talk Well
Enquire about/apply for a job to join our great team

We can also collect information indirectly from other sources, such as:

Your GP or another agency that make a referral to us
Another person (parent or trusted adult) when they make enquires about our services

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What type of personal information do we collect – and how do we store it?

It’s useful for Talk Well to have all the personal information that will let us give you the most effective service. There are two types of personal information that we might gather from you:

General Personal information including:

Personal identifiers (your title, name and year of birth)
Contact details including postal address, postcode, email address and telephone number (including your mobile number)
Which school or college you go to (where applicable)
Which GP/doctor’s surgery you go to (where applicable)
Financial information (if you’re making a donation or work for us)
Whether you are a UK taxpayer

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Sensitive Personal data

The Data Protection Act recognises some information as ‘sensitive personal data’.

This includes, but is not limited to;

Any relevant information regarding any health issues you may have
Any relevant disabilities
Why you would like counselling
Any other agencies that are supporting you
Any relevant information to help us assess how serious your situation is

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Why do we collect your personal information?

First of all, because having access to your personal information means we’re able to give you the best possible help. Every visitor to Talk Well is different, and by knowing a little more about you, we can deliver personalised and professional counselling and support that’s tailor-made for your needs.
We also need to make sure you are able to demonstrate ‘competency’ to take part in counselling or support services. This just means that you understand what the service is that you are to receive and that someone has explained to you what will happen, what you can expect – and what you can do if you are not happy with any part of our service to you.
Occasionally, we ask you to share information with us which helps us to check how you are doing, and to give you the opportunity to feedback how the sessions are going for you. This helps us to make sure we are giving you the best type of support to meet your needs.
We are asked by our funders to show how you feel about the work we do, so you might be asked to fill in an online survey once your sessions have ended. We use this to collect data and statistics for reports that we pass on to our funders. All this data is anonymous, and we will never use information that will allow you to be identified unless you have given permission
To reclaim tax on Gift Aid donations (if applicable)
When you visit our website, we may gather information about which pages are visited most – this helps us improve our site and make it easier to navigate.
To keep you informed about our work. Please see more in Marketing Permissions Section.
So that we can contact you with the most relevant information for you.

We never share your information with other organisations for marketing, market research or commercial purposes, and we don’t pass on your personal information to any other website.

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Your Counselling or support sessions

Rest assured that everything you discuss with a member of our counselling and support team is confidential. Confidentiality will only be broken if we’re worried about your safety, or the safety of someone else, or we are instructed to do so by a Court of Law. We will always try to speak to you about this first, unless there is a safeguarding issue which prevents this.

You don’t need to worry when you receive instant messaging support from us, because the text chat can’t be linked to your personal records or used to identify you. Just make sure you close your browser window when your session finishes, as this ensures no one can see your chat with us.
We’ll keep hold of some of your personal details to help our counselling and support services run smoother, including the details you gave us when you referred in. Don’t worry – these details are always kept on our secure and encrypted servers based in the UK.

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Using our Anonymous Services

We will always seek your permission to collect and keep your personal details on file. You do not have to give permission or give us your personal details.

If you choose to give us your personal details, it will be stored on the TIC+ system and is only accessible to the Talk Well team and any organisations we refer you to.

Sometimes getting extra support for you can be important. If we think you need extra support, we will ask you for personal details such as your name, address, phone number, date of birth and if needed, your parent/carer details.

We will ask your permission to pass over your details, although we will always act to protect you without your permission if it is necessary or if you are unable to give permission.

We will always let you know who we are passing your details to and will work with you to agree every step we may take and why.

Your counsellors and support staff may also keep electronic or handwritten notes of each session. Handwritten notes are safely stored in a locked filing cabinet in our secure head office. Electronic notes are kept on our secure and encrypted database in the UK.

The safe storage of your data is managed by Tacklit (as data processor), an organisation that provide our client record management system, and are compliant with GDPR and Cyber Essentials. Their security statement can be accessed at https://tacklit.com/security.

Records are kept for seven years, or until you are 18, whichever is longer. After that, they will be securely destroyed.
Our funders like to see how people who use our services feel about the work we do at Talk Well. We therefore collect data and statistics about our services for reports, and the funders use these to see how well Talk Well are doing in supporting you and other young people. We will never use information that will allow you to be identified unless we have your express permission.

We know how important it is that you trust Talk Well, and that’s why we take data security so seriously. To keep your personal information safe, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure all data collected online.

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Notes and records of your session

We do not hold recordings of telephone calls or keep a copy of online chat transcripts. We keep a short summary of your session that other workers at TalkWellChat can read so you do not have to repeat yourself if you chat to a different member of our team. If we are worried that you or another person is at risk of serious harm, we keep a more detailed record of what you say.

Your counsellors and support staff may also keep electronic or handwritten notes of each session. Handwritten notes are safely stored in a locked filing cabinet in our secure head office. We keep electronic notes on our secure and encrypted database in the UK.

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Case Studies

We sometimes write case studies about the work that we do with young people. We use these to help train and develop our team, and to show funders the kind of work we do. Sometimes we use case studies and encourage feedback to help advertise Talk Well on the website and in promotional literature to encourage other children and young people to use the service. We ensure that when we write case studies that no identifiable data is used.

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Questionnaires and Feedback

Any questionnaires you fill in during your counselling will be anonymous and used to improve our service

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Storage of your data

Notes, records and information belong to Talk Well. We encrypt information gathered and store it securely on our servers in the UK. We keep this information for at least 7 years or until you reach the age of 18, depending on which is longer.

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Disclosure (sharing) of your information

You can trust Talk Well to safeguard your details. We’ll only disclose your personal information if we believe you are in danger of hurting yourself or of being harmed (safeguarding). We will endeavour to discuss this with you before we talk to anyone, unless there are exceptional circumstances.

We may need to share some of your information with other agencies in these situations:

If you tell us anything about yourself, or another person, being hurt or at risk we might need to tell someone who can help (such as a social worker, parent or teacher).
Sometimes we may need to talk to your parent / carer or someone else about safeguarding issues, but we will always let you know first, unless we think it is not safe to do so.
If the police or Crown Prosecution Service ask to see some of your notes as part of a criminal investigation, we will ask for your consent first, offer to go through the notes with you and share a copy of the notes we share. We will only share information that is relevant to the case and not all your notes, as the Police can only request access to information relevant to the disclosures you have made (including if you remember additional information during your work with us) that they are investigating.
It is important for you to be aware that on rare occasions, if we or you refuse to share information from your case notes, the Crown Court can issue a court order to access them later in the investigation process.

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Third Party Sharing

Talk Well may, from time-to-time, employ the services of other parties for dealing with matters that may include, but are not limited to, payment handling, delivery of purchased items, search engine facilities, advertising and marketing.

We use live chat software on our website, this is provided by Click4Assistance, a third-party UK based Software Company. Information about how the data is processed and stored can be viewed here [Click4Assistance privacy policy ].

The providers of such services do not have access to certain personal Data provided by Users of this Website. Any Data used by such parties is used only to the extent required by them to perform the services that Talk Well requests. Examples of this are payments for training, donations, fundraising purposes etc. This does not include data collected for the purpose of counselling or support services

Any use for other purposes is strictly prohibited. Furthermore, any Data that is processed by third parties must be processed within the terms of this Policy and in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018.

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Visitors’ rights

Talk Well takes your rights seriously, and we want to make sure you always feel in control of your counselling sessions. Under the Data Protection Act 2018 you have the right to:

Be told about the data we collect about you and how we use it (Right to be Informed)
See a copy of your notes and records. We do ask that before making this decision, you meet with one of our trained counsellors at our offices in Mitcheldean or Gloucester who will support you to decide if sharing a copy of your notes is right for you (Right of Access)
Have corrected any information we hold about you that is inaccurate (Right to Rectification)
Request that your personal information is erased (Right to Erasure)
Ask us to stop using your personal information for certain activities. We can still keep your information, but we won’t use it for anything else until you give us permission again. (Right to Restrict Processing)
Have your data provided to you, or another party of your choosing in a commonly used format and a safe and secure way. This only applies to the data that you have provided us with (Right to Data Portability)
Ask us to stop processing your personal data (Right to Object)
Ask us not to use your personal information for any AI decisions without human involvement, or to not give you the opportunity to challenge any decision made by an AI process (Rights in Relation to Automated Decision-Making and Profiling)

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Withdrawing Consent

In addition, you have the legal right to withdraw consent for processing any personal identifiable data you have shared with us

You can withdraw your consent to share information at any time. To withdraw consent, see a copy of your notes, or request your records are corrected or deleted you will need to provide proof of identity before we can act. You will need to contact us in any of the following ways:

Post: Talk Well, Office 73 – 4^th Floor – Building 8, Vantage Point Business Village, Mitcheldean, Gloucestershire, GL17 ODD.

Phone: 01594 372777

Email: hello@talkwell.org.uk

Information about children may be released to a person with parental responsibility. However, the best interests of the child will always be considered. Even if a child is very young, data about them is still their personal data and does not belong to anyone else. It is the child who has a right of access to the information held about them.

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What do we mean when we say we ‘market’ to you and how do we do it? (Marketing Permissions)

Your support means a lot to us and to every person that we help. We love sharing positive stories, news and updates about how your support and the effort of others is helping to change lives. It’s great to be able to help our supporters reach their fundraising goals by promoting their efforts, and we love to thank our funders and commissioners for the faith and trust they place in us, each and every time they fund our work with young people.

This means that we like to share the good news with people like you, who are making a difference in the lives of children, young people and families. This may include sending you information and updates about our work, news, prayer requests, appeals, campaigns, and information on how you can volunteer and get involved.

We will most likely contact you by email, and only if we have your permission to do so. However, on rare occasions we may do this by post. Again, we will only send you communication by post if you have given us permission to do so.

Talk Well is committed to respecting your choice whether you receive marketing information or not. You can update your permissions, preferences or contact information at any time by:

Calling us on 01594 372777
Emailing fundraising@talkwell.org.uk
Clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ link in each email we send

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Postal Marketing

On rare occasions, we may get in touch to update you about our current work, or invite you to events, that we think you may be interested in. We will only send you marketing communication by post if you have given us permission to do so – and you can withdraw your permission at any time.

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Your choices

TIC+ is committed to respecting your choice whether to receive marketing information. You can update your permissions, preferences or contact information at any time by:

Calling our helpful and friendly team on 01594 372777 who will be glad to help
Emailing fundraising@talkwell.org.uk
Clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ link in each email we send

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Job Applicants

Talk Well is the data controller for information provided by applicants when applying for jobs, unless otherwise stated. If you have any questions about the process or how we handle your information, please contact us at hr@talkwell.org.uk. Please note that a full job applicant privacy notice is available and provided within our job pack.

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Learning with us

When you apply for a Talk Well training course that is accredited by CPCAB, some of the information you supply will be used by:

CPCAB (the awarding organisation associated with your course) will upload candidates achievement data to the Learning Record Service, who then in turn will update the candidates personal learning records.
The Learning Records Service to fulfil its statutory functions, issue/verify your Unique Learner Number (ULN) and update/check your Personal Learning Record. The Learning Records Service may share your ULN and Personal Learning Record with other education related organisations, such as your careers service, school, college, university, Government Departments and public bodies responsible for funding your education.

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Cookie Policy (UK)

This Cookie Policy was last updated on 15th December 2023 and applies to citizens and legal permanent residents of the United Kingdom.

Introduction

Our website, https://www.talkwell.org.uk (hereinafter: “the website”) uses cookies and other related technologies (for convenience all technologies are referred to as “cookies”). Cookies are also placed by third parties we have engaged. In the document below we inform you about the use of cookies on our website.

What are cookies?

A cookie is a small simple file that is sent along with pages of this website and stored by your browser on the hard drive of your computer or another device. The information stored therein may be returned to our servers or to the servers of the relevant third parties during a subsequent visit.

What are scripts?

A script is a piece of program code that is used to make our website function properly and interactively. This code is executed on our server or on your device.

What is a web beacon?

A web beacon (or a pixel tag) is a small, invisible piece of text or image on a website that is used to monitor traffic on a website. To do this, various data about you is stored using web beacons.

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Cookies

Technical or functional cookies

Some cookies ensure that certain parts of the website work properly and that your user preferences remain known. By placing functional cookies, we make it easier for you to visit our website. This way, you do not need to repeatedly enter the same information when visiting our website and, for example, the items remain in your shopping cart until you have paid. We may place these cookies without your consent.

Statistics cookies

We use statistics cookies to optimise the website experience for our users. With these statistics cookies we get insights in the usage of our website. We ask your permission to place statistics cookies.

Marketing/Tracking cookies

Marketing/Tracking cookies are cookies or any other form of local storage, used to create user profiles to display advertising or to track the user on this website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.

Social media

On our website, we have included content to promote web pages (e.g. “like”, “pin”) or share (e.g. “tweet”) on social networks. This content is embedded with code derived from third parties and places cookies. This content might store and process certain information for personalised advertising.

Please read the privacy statement of these social networks (which can change regularly) to read what they do with your (personal) data which they process using these cookies. The data that is retrieved is anonymised as much as possible.

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Cookies and Consent

When you visit our website for the first time, we will show you a pop-up with an explanation about cookies. As soon as you click on “Save preferences”, you consent to us using the categories of cookies and plug-ins you selected in the pop-up, as described in this Cookie Policy. You can disable the use of cookies via your browser, but please note that our website may no longer work properly.

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Enabling/disabling and deleting cookies

You can use your internet browser to automatically or manually delete cookies. You can also specify that certain cookies may not be placed. Another option is to change the settings of your internet browser so that you receive a message each time a cookie is placed. For more information about these options, please refer to the instructions in the Help section of your browser.

Please note that our website may not work properly if all cookies are disabled. If you do delete the cookies in your browser, they will be placed again after your consent when you visit our website again.

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Your rights with respect to personal data

You have the following rights with respect to your personal data:

You have the right to know why your personal data is needed, what will happen to it, and how long it will be retained for.
Right of access: You have the right to access your personal data that is known to us.
Right to rectification: you have the right to supplement, correct, have deleted or blocked your personal data whenever you wish.
If you give us your consent to process your data, you have the right to revoke that consent and to have your personal data deleted.
Right to transfer your data: you have the right to request all your personal data from the controller and transfer it in its entirety to another controller.
Right to object: you may object to the processing of your data. We comply with this, unless there are justified grounds for processing.

To exercise these rights, please contact us. Please refer to the contact details at the bottom of this Cookie Policy. If you have a complaint about how we handle your data, we would like to hear from you, but you also have the right to submit a complaint to the supervisory authority (the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

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Contact details

For questions and/or comments about our Cookie Policy and this statement, please contact us by using the following contact details:

Talk Well

Address:
Talk Well Offices, Carlson Suite,
4th Floor, Building 7,
Vantage Point Business Village,
Mitcheldean,
Gloucestershire,
GL17 0DD
United Kingdom
Website: https://www.talkwell.org.uk
Email: hello@talkwell.org.uk
Phone number: 01594 372777

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Links to and from our website

Our website contains links to and from other organisations’ websites. This privacy policy, the one you’re reading, only applies to Talk Well’s websites.

If you go to another website from this one, read their own privacy policy to find out what it does with your information.

When you come to our website from another website, we may get personal information about you from the other website. Read those websites’ privacy policies if you want to know more about this.

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Aim