Data Protection & Privacy Policy

Any personal data provided by you to Therapy With Horses through any means (verbal, written, in electronic form, or by your use of our website) will be held and processed in accordance with the data protection principles set out in the Data Protection Act 1998 for the purposes of providing the services you have requested from us, and to meet the legitimate interests of the business.

Introduction

Therapy With Horses (the ‘data controller’, referred to below as “TWH”, “us” or “we”) is committed to protecting your privacy. Please read the following in order to learn more about TWH’s privacy policy and our information collection and use practices.

This policy only applies to data collected by TWH staff and via our own forms and website. Third-party agents, and websites which are linked to ours, are not covered by this policy, please read the individual privacy policies detailed below.

If you have any queries concerning your personal information or any questions about our use of the information, please contact us at info@therapywithhorses.co.uk.

When you request equine guided learning sessions with TWH or otherwise provide your personal details to us, you will be asked to consent to our processing of your data under the terms of this policy.

What information do we collect?

Equine Guided Learning Requests – Registering with us to request access to our equine-guided learning service can be done online, on paper or in person. Our request process involves providing us with your name, address, telephone number, and email address. We may also request information on your availability, therapeutic issues, and other details which we deem relevant to processing your request.
Initial Assessment Appointments – At an initial appointment we ask about your current personal, social, medical, and financial circumstances. We may also ask about your background and family history, as well as the issues which are affecting you now. We require this information so that we can decide about our offer of equine-guided learning to you, assign you to a facilitator, and manage the service we provide to you.

What do we use your information for?

We use information held about you in the following ways:

To provide clients with the professional equine-guided learning service requested from us.
To notify you about changes to your appointments and other changes to our services.
To seek feedback from you on your experience of equine guided learning services with us.
To improve our service to ensure that it is provided in the most effective manner for you and for us.
To administer our service, including the arrangement of appointments and for financial control, data analysis, research, statistical and survey purposes.
To keep in touch with those who ask us to, for the purposes of organisational, service, and professional development.

What information do we share?

We will not share any information about you with other organisations or people, except in the following situations:

Consent – TWH may share your information with professional carers or others whom you have requested or agreed we should contact.
Serious harm – TWH may share your information with the relevant authorities if we have reason to believe that this may prevent serious harm being caused to you or another person.
Compliance with law – TWH may share your information where we are required to by law or by the regulations and other rules to which we are subject.

How do we keep your information safe?

All information you provide to us is stored as securely as possible. All paper forms and correspondence are kept in locked storage on our premises. All electronic records are stored on an encrypted computer, all access to which requires password-protected authentication, or by reputable service providers using secure internet ‘cloud’ technology.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is never completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your information using industry-standard protocols and encryption, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to us via email, including forms completed on our website which are transmitted by email; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

Your identifiable personal information is kept separately from any session notes and other descriptive material. Client notes and other documentation are destroyed 3 years after the end of equine-guided learning sessions, and personal contact details are destroyed/deleted after 7 years of no contact or updates.

Your rights

You have the right to ask us to provide a copy of the information held by us in our records, for which we may charge a small fee. You also have the right to require us to correct any inaccuracies in your information. If you would like to do this, please contact us at info@therapywithhorses.co.uk.

You may withdraw your consent for us to hold and process your data at any time. However, if you do this while actively receiving equine-guided learning at TWH, your sessions would have to end. You can withdraw your consent by contacting us at info@therapywithhorses.co.uk.

Changes to this policy

We may edit this policy from time to time. If we make any substantial changes we will notify you by posting a prominent announcement on our website.