The Parents Village takes seriously the privacy of those that visit our website and utilize our services.

The Parents Village needs to collect personal information in order to carry out its business. This Privacy Policy explains The Parents Village’s approach to the handling of personal information and how we comply with our privacy obligations.

The Parents Village in Sydney, Australia is bound by the National Privacy Principles contained in the Privacy Act 1988. If you provide us with information about your health, finances or career, we also strive to ensure that our handling of that information complies with applicable State and Territory health records legislation.

What information do we collect?

We may collect various types of personal information from you when you:

• Contact and correspond with us by telephone, email, or text message
• Register for a group program online or face to face
• Register for a workshop online or face to face
• Subscribe to our newsletter
• Book in for an online or face to face therapeutic or career coaching consultation
• Attend an online or face to face therapeutic or career coaching consultation
• Respond to a survey
• Fill out a form
• Or any other such activity that we deem necessary

You may, however, visit our site anonymously.

The personal information The Parents Village may collect from our clients includes: identification, health, professional, and/or financial information.

• Personal identification information: name, signature, date of birth, e-mail address, mailing address, phone number or credit card information.
• Financial information: salary details as related to employment, as well as information about payment or non-payment of program, workshop or consultation fees. All other financial details related to service and product transactions are managed by third parties including Stripe and Square.
• Employment information: resumes and cover letters, career or job history, and salary details. Professional information is a sensitive form of personal information, so we only collect this with your complete consent, we only collect what we need, and we store this information ethically and confidentially.
• Health information: Medicare numbers, mental health care plans, private health insurance, pre-screening questionnaires (that clients complete before attending workshops or consultations), any information or opinion offered about the clients health, health services, or wishes regarding health care, and information collected to provide, or in providing a health service of any kind. Health information is a sensitive form of personal information, so we only collect this with your complete consent, we only collect what we need, and we store this information ethically and confidentially.

We also collect “Next of Kin” information which we collect from our clients for use in the case of an emergency. We suggest that our clients tell their next of kin that they have been nominated for this purpose.

Sensitive Information

Privacy law categorises certain types of Personal Information as “sensitive information”, including:

• Information or an opinion (that is also Personal Information) about an Individual’s:
  • racial or ethnic origin;
  • political opinions;
  • religious beliefs or affiliations;
  • philosophical beliefs;
  • criminal record; and/or
  • sexual orientation or practices;
• Health information about an Individual, including:
  • any information or opinion about the Individual’s health, health services, or wishes regarding health care; and
  • information collected to provide, or in providing, a health service of any kind.

The Parents Village collects health information from individuals in providing services. If individuals disclose other sensitive information to The Parents Village Practitioners (Co-founding Psychologist and Clinical Social Worker), this may be included in records created by the Practitioners and sometimes managed by The Parents Village. Individual Practitioners, not The Parents Village, take responsibility for storing other sensitive information disclosed to Practitioners during appointments (i.e. case notes or session records). The Parents Village may, however manage such information if the Practitioner ceases to act in association with The Parents Village and hand over records to The Parents Village on termination.

What do we use your information for?

The information we collect from you may be used in one of the following ways:

• To facilitate the booking of consultation appointments, programs and workshops
• To manage records about individual’s appointments including mental health and treatment, and career management plans
• To personalise your experience and improve our services. Your information helps us to better respond to your individual needs.
• To improve our website. We continually strive to improve our website offerings based on the information and feedback we receive from you.
• To improve customer service. Your information helps us to more effectively respond to your customer service requests and support needs.
• To process transactions. Your information, whether public or private, will not be sold, exchanged, transferred, or given to any other company for any reason whatsoever, without your consent, other than for the express purpose of delivering the purchased product or service requested.
• To facilitate Medicare and health insurance claims
• To administer a contest, promotion, questionnaire, survey or other site feature
• To send periodic emails. The email address you provide for order processing, may be used to send you information and updates pertaining to your order, in addition to receiving occasional company news, updates, related product or service information, etc.

Note: If at any time you would like to unsubscribe from receiving future emails, we include unsubscribe instructions at the bottom of each email.

How do we store your information?

The Parents Village holds and stores personal information using:

• Storage Services – third party data storage services including, but not limited to secure email applications, web and registration management services (e.g. Mailchimp), Halaxy / formerly Health Kit (practice management software), Commonwealth Bank, Stripe, Square, Xero and any other applications and software used for business operations;
• The Parents Village Devices – devices operated by the co-founders and practitioners; and
• Paper Files – printed paper and files.

 Do we disclose any information to outside parties?

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website, conducting our business, tracking affiliate payments, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information private and confidential.

We will only disclose personal information with the consent of the relevant individuals. This includes:

• Facilitating the sharing of information about sales, inquiries, processing Medicare rebates, invoices and payments;
• Sharing information with other health practitioners, parents/guardians, teaching staff, governmental institutions including Medicare and private healthcare insurers; and
• Sharing information with administration staff and business service providers

Legal Compliance

We may release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law (i.e. under a court order, if required under legislation, or if an authorised request is made from a law enforcement agency), enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others rights, property, or safety. However, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.

How do we protect your information?

We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety and confidentiality of your personal information when you register for a program or workshop, book a consultation, partake in a consultation, or enter, submit, or access your personal information.

The Parents Village takes reasonable precautions to protect Personal Information from unauthorized access. This includes measures to secure The Parents Village’s physical facilities and electronic networks. The Parents Village secures Personal Information collected with requirements and agreements between The Parents Village and co-founder, employees and contractors.

The Parents Village limits access to personal information to those with a valid reason for using that information. The Parents Village’s document storage includes security measures such as passwords, pins, encryption, session expiries, firewalls, SSL network encryption, SSL certificate and website transmission encryption, the use of reputable vendors (e.g. Halaxy, Xero and Stripe), physical locks and storage on physical files and datacentres housing servers.

Such third party services may include:

• (Hosting) Web hosting service providers – Pepper IT https://www.pepperit.com.au/services/cloud/, and Halaxy Practice Management Software https://www.halaxy.com/article/privacy
• (Billing and Transactions) private health insurers and Medicare, Halaxy Practice Management Software, Commonwealth Bank https://www.commbank.com.au/content/dam/commbank/security-privacy/privacy-policy.pdf, Stripe: https://stripe.com/au/privacy, Square https://squareup.com/help/au/en/article/3796-privacy-and-security, and Xero: https://www.xero.com/au/accounting-software/security/
• (Online Registrations) Learndash: https://www.learndash.com/privacy-policy/, and WooCommerce: https://docs.woocommerce.com/document/marketplace-privacy/
• (Communications) Mailchimp https://mailchimp.com/legal/privacy/

The Parents Village will only share Personal Information with these third parties to the extent reasonably necessary to perform their functions. These third parties have their own privacy and security policies.

Deletion Procedures

The Parents Village deletes Personal Information when considered appropriate under relevant state and national laws. The Parents Village’s deletion process:

• The Parents Village identifies all digital records relating to the individual and delete them from these digital storage media; and
• The Parents Village identifies any paper records relating to the individual and shred these onsite or personally de-identify them.
• Records relating to adult clients will be kept for seven years following the date of last contact and records regarding children are to be kept until the child attains the age of 25 years.
• The Parents Village has certain obligations under Australian law to retain some client information for a prescribed period of time.

Are “Cookies” Used On The Website?

“Cookies” are small pieces of information that are placed on a web user’s hard drive. We may use cookies to provide you with better service. Cookies are pieces of information that a Web site transfers to your computer’s hard disk for record-keeping purposes. Cookies can make the Web more useful by storing information about your preferences for a particular site. The use of cookies is an industry standard, and many major websites use them to provide useful features for their customers. Cookies in and of themselves do not personally identify users, although they do identify a user’s computer. Most browsers are initially set to accept cookies. If you prefer, you can set your browser to refuse cookies. However, you ma not be able to take full advantage of the functionality of The Parents Village site if you do so.

Third Party Links

Occasionally, at our discretion, we may include or offer third party products or services on our website. These third party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We therefore have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these sites.

Children’s Online Privacy Protection ACT Compliance

We are in compliance with the requirements of COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act), we do not collect any information from anyone under 13 years of age. Our website, products and services are all directed to people who are at least 13 years old or older.

Your Consent

By using our website or accessing our services, you acknowledge and consent to our privacy policy and the terms and conditions expressed herein.

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page. We reserve the right to change this policy at our sole discretion and without notice.

This policy was last modified on April 17^th, 2020

Contact Us

If there are any questions regarding this privacy policy, you may contact us using the information below:
enquiries@theparentsvillage.com.au