Privacy Policy - First Steps ED

First Steps ED collect and process personal data for a number of website analysis purposes, each justified by a GDPR lawful basis for processing.

The following sections explain in more detail what data we collect, why we collect it, and what we do with it.

Website statistics

This website is hosted by First Steps ED, which collects information such as your IP address, the link from which you were redirected to our website, browser information such as brand and version, geographical location, device type, pages visited alongside the date and time you have accessed the website.

We believe that our GDPR lawful basis for processing such personal data is one of legitimate interest.

Cookies

We believe that our GDPR lawful basis for processing such personal data is one of consent.

Our cookie policy can be read here.

Google Analytics

When someone visits our websites we use a third-party service, Google Analytics, to collect aggregated visitor information and behaviour patterns. We do this so we can can broadly see the types of people that visit our websites, the technology they use to access them, how they find us, and what they do once they are there. We use this information in order to make the websites more useful, relevant, easier to find, and simpler to use. This is a very common industry practice across a huge number of the websites that you are likely to already visit. The tracking information is only processed in a way which does not personally identify anyone.

For further details, please see the Google Analytics privacy policy.

We use MailChimp and LinkedIn in order to communicate with both service users and professionals. This is a common practice amongst the sector.

We believe that our GDPR lawful basis for processing such personal data is one of legitimate interest.

Beacons

‘Beacons’ are file requests that are embedded within our emails and websites that are used in conjunction with ‘cookies’ to track website usage and the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns. This is a very common industry practice.

If you don’t like the idea of beacons, then you can disable those within emails by instructing your email program to not load externally hosted images, or to not display emails sent in HTML format.

We believe that our GDPR lawful basis for processing such personal data is one of legitimate interest.

Our newsletter

Should you opt in to receiving our newsletters, you agree to being contacted by First Steps ED regarding matters relating to our mental health and eating disorders services. You may unsubscribe from our newsletter or any updates from First Steps ED at any time. Your email address will be shared with MailChimp, Inc but will not be used for marketing purposes from third parties including MailChimp, Inc.

We believe that our GDPR lawful basis for processing such personal data is one of legitimate interest.

Service Provision

Our websites also collect personal data in order to provide you with services that you explicitly request from us. For example, should you use our self-referral programme, we will collect your personal details and process these in accordance with legislation. First Steps ED will use the information you provide to us in the form, so as to contact you to begin the referral process. If you submit this form, we will collect personal information including your name, email address, date of birth, gender, student status (if applicable), mobile telephone number, your GP’s information and an account of the difficulties with mental health and/ or eating difficulty, equality monitoring data and emergency contact information. We require similar information from professionals referring people to us.

This information is then processed into our secure database for the purposes of ensuring that First Steps can provide a service to service users (you) and so that outcomes can be anonymised for our commissioning services, such as NHS England.

We believe that our GDPR lawful basis for processing such personal data is one of consent.

Further Guidance

First Steps ED will not pass on your personal information to any outside our organisation except for those listed above as a result of using this website.

First Steps ED will always endeavour to offer completely private services to its service users. We therefore recommend discussing with us in a session or by contacting us to discuss what happens to that data, how it is collected, and how it is safely disposed of.

Research

When gathering data for research purposes, we will ensure to gain consent or give an option for service users to opt out. Data will be stored in line with the GDPR policy. Data will be anonymised, and we will only use what is necessary for the specific research project. We will always be transparent around why we are conducting research and the purpose of the study.