This Privacy Policy describes how we obtain and use your personal data, why we are allowed to do so by the law, who has access to your personal data and what your rights are. Please review it carefully.
The Belay Foundation is a registered charity (Charity number 1192653 referred to variously throughout our Privacy Policy as ‘The Belay Foundation’, Us’ and ‘We’. For the purposes of the data processing described in this statement, The Belay Foundation act as the Data Controller unless otherwise stated.
If you use a Belay Foundation service, you can be assured that we are committed to making sure that any information we hold about you will be collected, stored and used in accordance with The Data Protection Act 2018 and UK General Data Protection Regulations (UK GDPR).
This means that we adhere to the data protection principles of only holding information about you that is relevant to our work with you, and that we make sure the information that we hold is accurate, up to date, kept securely, and only kept for as long as we need it. You have the right to object to us processing your personal data for our legitimate business interests or for direct marketing purposes (including any related profiling). For more information about your rights and how you can exercise them, please see the section ‘Your Rights’ below.
Should you have any questions relating to this notice or our processing of personal data, please email us at info@thebelayfoundation.org.uk
We may collect information about you at a number of stages in your use of our services.
Referral
You may be referred to our service by a social worker or other support organisation that is providing services to you. Where they refer to us, they will usually ask for your consent to do so. As part of the referral, they may share with us your contact information and the reason for their referral.
Accessing our resources and services
When you access our resources and services, we will ask you to complete registration details, including your name, email address and some further personal details.
During your work with us
Should you engage with us directly, particularly through 1:1 support sessions or supervision, we may need to make notes about you and your children to give you advice and offer you the best service.
We also collect this information so that we can keep in touch with you during the course of the work we are doing with you, to work out how best we can help you, to record the work that we have done and to assess how that work has gone. This will help us to fully understand your needs, recommend actions and improve the services that we deliver to you.
If you make a complaint
If you make a complaint about the services you have received, the details of the complaint will be recorded and processed to investigate and resolve the issue. Information will only be provided to members of the team with a need to know.
Feedback on our services
We will from time to time ask you to provide feedback on the resources and services we have provided via surveys. Completion of surveys is voluntary.
Personal data is any information which identifies you personally, whether directly (for example: your name) or indirectly (for example: information about your use of our products and services).
The type of personal data that we collect and use and what we do with it will depend upon your relationship with us. We collect only the personal data that we require to provide you with services, fulfil contracts or keep in touch.
We may collect the following data about you:
Some of the personal data we collect may be ‘special category data’ under data protection law. This may include equality and diversity information and, where relevant, information shared as part of consultations, supervision or support services.
We only process special category data where a valid lawful basis and condition applies, and we apply robust safeguards to protect this information. Access to such data is strictly limited to those who have a legitimate interest in processing it.
What are Cookies?
We collect information about your use of our Site through cookies. Cookies are small text files which are sent to and stored on your computer, tablet or smartphone that help our site to remember who you are and record information about your visit. Cookies make it easier for you to visit our site again, and configure our site information to make it more useful to you. Most major websites use cookies.
What cookies are used on this Site?
The cookies we use on our Site are broadly grouped into the following categories:
How can I reject or opt out of receiving cookies?
You may opt not to accept cookies by activating the setting on your browser which allows you to refuse the setting of cookies. This may, however, leave you unable to access all of our site. Without activating this setting our site will issue cookies when you visit. Find out how to refuse cookies by accessing the help menu on your browser. Most browsers also give you the options of being notified when you receive a new cookie, or how to disable cookies altogether. For more information about cookies and how to stop cookies being installed, or how to delete existing cookies from your hard drive, visit the following website: http://www.allaboutcookies.org.
Third party cookies
When you visit our site cookies may be issued and stored in your device by third parties to collect information and serve content or advertisements to you. These cookies may emanate from third party websites we interact with (such as data and analytics collection sites). We have no control over these cookies or how the third parties involved use them.
For more information about these cookies, and how to disable them, please see:
We use your personal data for the following purposes:
To provide our services
We use your personal data to enable you to access and use our charitable services, in line with our Terms and Conditions, including free resources, webinars, guidance packs, support sessions, training and supervision.
To communicate with you
We use your personal data to communicate with you about the services we provide, including notifications about changes to those services.
Direct communications
If you have provided your consent, or we otherwise have the right to do so, we may contact you with information about our services, events or resources. You can opt out of such communications at any time by emailing us at info@thebelayfoundation.org.uk.
To track your use of our website
We use cookies and similar technologies to monitor usage of our Site, improve functionality and understand how users engage with our content.
To provide and improve the support we offer
We use your personal data to provide and improve the quality, accessibility and reach of our services. We sometimes ask people to complete surveys to obtain feedback on the services we have provided.
To maintain our records and improve data accuracy
We process personal data as part of maintaining accurate internal records and ensuring information is kept up to date.
To respond to enquiries, complaints and disputes
We use the personal data we hold about you to help us respond to any enquiries or complaints you have made, or deal with any dispute which may arise in the course of us providing our services to you, in the most effective manner.
To comply with our legal obligations
In certain circumstances, we use your personal data only to the extent required in order to enable us to comply with our legal obligations, including safeguarding responsibilities, financial and regulatory obligations, fraud detection and prevention and lawful requests from authorities.
We will never sell your data, and we will never share it with other organisations for the purposes of their own marketing. We are not involved in any data swapping schemes.
Data protection law requires us to only process your personal data if we satisfy one or more legal grounds. These are set out in data protection law and we rely on a number of different grounds for the data processing we carry out. These are as follows:
Consent
In certain circumstances, we process your personal data after obtaining your consent to do so for the purposes of:
You may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us at info@thebelayfoundation.org.uk.
Necessary for the performance of a contract
Where you access certain paid-for services, such as guidance packs, training or supervision, it is necessary for us to process your personal data to:
If you choose not to give some or all of the aforementioned information to us, this may affect our ability to provide our services to you.
Legal obligation
In certain circumstances, we also use your personal data where required in order to enable us to comply with our legal obligations, including safeguarding, financial and regulatory obligations, fraud detection and prevention and lawful requests from authorities.
Legitimate interests
It is sometimes necessary for us to process personal data to pursue our legitimate interests as a charity, including:
Where we think there is a risk that one of your interests or fundamental rights and freedoms may be affected we will not process your personal data, unless there is another legal ground for us to do so (either that we have obtained your consent to the processing or it is necessary for us to perform our contract with you or to comply with our legal obligations).
Your information will only be accessed by staff, trustees and volunteers of The Belay Foundation who need to do so as part of their role with us.
There are very limited instances where we will share your personal data with third parties. We will always respect your privacy and will seek your consent before doing so. We will never share your information with a third party who intends to use it for their own marketing purposes.
If your service is being funded by a Local Authority, Regional Adoption Agency or Voluntary Adoption Agency we will need to share information about your family with them to ensure good working practice. We will seek your consent regarding this.
We may share personal data with trusted service providers who act as data processors on our behalf, such as IT, website hosting, payment processing or event management providers. These providers are required to handle your data securely and only in accordance with our instructions.
We may disclose your personal data to relevant authorities in order to comply with any legal obligation to do so, or in order to protect the rights, property, or safety, of our business, our beneficiaries or others. This could include:
In some cases, the personal data we collect from you may, for the purposes set out above, be transferred outside the European Economic Area (EEA) and such destinations may not have laws which protect your personal data to the same extent as in the EEA. We are required by data protection law to ensure that where we or our “processors” transfer your personal data outside of the EEA, it is treated securely and is protected against unauthorised access, loss or destruction, unlawful processing and any processing which is inconsistent with the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy.
Wherever possible, we ensure that your personal data is kept in the EEA by using Microsoft 365 Office storage. We make every effort to keep your data safe electronically and (where relevant) to keep your data accurate and up to date. By communicating electronically with us, you acknowledge and agree that your data may be processed in this way.
We will only keep information about you for the length of time it is necessary to do so in order to engage with you in the way that you have requested and in accordance with our data protection legal requirements, our regulatory requirements, and tax and accounting rules. When your personal data is no longer needed, we will ensure that it is disposed of in a secure manner. We may anonymise data in order to retain it for a longer period than might otherwise be required, in order to ensure we have a record of the services we have delivered.
If you would like us to delete any information we hold about you, please contact us using the details in the ‘Contact us’ section and note the ‘Your Rights’ section below.
You have the following rights regarding your personal data:
Rights | What does this mean? |
1. Rights to be informed | You have the right to be provided with clear, transparent and easily understandable information about how we use your personal data and your rights. This is why we are providing you with the information in this Privacy Policy. |
2. Right of access | You have the right to obtain access to your personal data (if we are processing it) and certain other information (similar to that provided in this Privacy Policy). This is so you are aware and can check that we are using your personal data in accordance with data protection law. |
3. Right to rectification | You are entitled to have your personal data corrected if it is inaccurate or incomplete. |
4. Right to erasure | This is also known as ‘the right to be forgotten’ and, in simple terms, enables you to request the deletion or removal of your personal data where there is no compelling reason for us to keep using it. This is not a general right to erasure; there are exceptions. |
5. Right to restrict processing | You have the right to ‘block’ or suppress further use of your personal data in certain circumstances. When processing is restricted, we can still store your personal data, but may not use it further. |
6. Right of data portability | You have the right to obtain and reuse your personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format in certain circumstances. In addition, where certain conditions apply, you have the right to have such information transferred directly to a third party. |
7. Right to object to processing | You have the right to object to us processing your personal data for our legitimate business interests or for direct marketing purposes (including in each case any related profiling). |
8. Right to withdraw consent to processing | If you have given your consent to us to process your personal data for a particular purpose (for example, direct marketing), you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time (although if you do so, it does not mean that any processing of your personal data up to that point is unlawful). |
9. Right to make a complaint to the data protection authorities | You have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data or believe our processing of your personal data does not comply with data protection law. |
If you would like to exercise your data protection rights or if you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data, please feel free to contact us by email at info@thebelayfoundation.org.uk.
If you’re not satisfied with our response to any enquiries or complaint, or believe our processing of your personal data does not comply with data protection law, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) by:
Our website may contain hyperlinks to websites owned and operated by third parties. This Privacy Policy does not apply to those other websites. We encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit, as they will govern the use of any personal data you provide when visiting those websites. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the privacy practices of such third party websites and your use of such websites is at your own risk.
This Privacy and Cookies Policy was last updated on 4th February 2026.
This Privacy and Cookies Policy may be updated from time to time, so you may want to check it each time you provide personal data to us.
