Chid Protection- Photos

[Guest]

Hi there, have just come in froma fairly heated staff meeting/disscussion which included childrens photos. In the past the staff have always handed any photographic evidence (from profiles) of their keychildren to the parents, when the child leaves our setting for school. We have now been informed that some parents may not like this as their children may be on photographs, which other parents may put on a web site, and if that happens and it gets into the wrong hands who knows... Am I making myself clear?. Do we need parents to sign something if they have these photos, is there a law that says the pre-school will be liable if gone into wrong hands or does it lie with each parent. I am totally confused and dont know what to do.. I have staff on my back moaning and asking weather they should black out the other children- but this insn't going to look very nice.

Any ideas anyone- Thanks

[AnonyMouse_8466]

This is something I'm wrestling with at the moment. We ask parents sign to say whether they will allow their child to be photographed for our website (not that we have one yet!), or for publicity purposes either for the nursery or for the Local Authority. We put photographs of children in their special books, and these may contain images of other children. These are given to the parent when the child leaves. We would like to give all the photos (not all photos are used in special books) on a CD so that parents can have a complete record of all the photos taken of their child during their time with us. This has led me to wonder whether we should be asking for specific permission from parents to pass images of their children onto third parties.

 

Clearly electronic images can be manipulated - but then printed photos can be scanned and manipulated or uploaded too. Peggy will have something to say about this: I'm sure she said her registration forms asked for permission to use photographs in this way, whilst reminding parents that once images were given to other parents the group had no control over what was done with them.

 

I've decided to ask my parents what they feel about it: do they want to give express permission about how photographs of their children can be used: ie can they be printed out, put onto a CD for other parents to hold, or would they prefer their faces to be obscured etc? I don't want to be seen to be playing fast and loose with children's images, but on the other hand I don't want to be bringing the nanny state into the heart of my group.

 

Does any of that make sense?

 

Maz

 

PS: have I welcomed you to the Forum before? If not: welcome!

Edited July 7, 2008 by HappyMaz

[AnonyMouse_8282]

We have a standard photo consent form - seeking permission to take photo, observations, press puposes ect.

 

we have now included an extra consent from- which I put a copy of in their 'scrapbooks' when they leave, asking for permission for their child's photo to be givien to other parents (mixed photos ect) but also agreeing that they will not use any images (other than own child) to reproduce, put on facebook etc without third-party permission.

 

 

xxx

[Guest]

Always good to revisit this question and re-evaluate whether all the correct permissions are in place.

 

On my registration form I asked permission to use photo's for:

 

Preschool displays

Handbook

Publicity

news storys

observation & assessment

Quality Assurance scheme

This forum (gallery and posts)

website ( never actually created)

 

I did explain the fact I used CD's for storing and handing out photo's, and that I could not be in control of what happened to these images once they left the preschool.

 

All my parents were happy to agree to all the above, the exception being looked after children.

 

However, if I still ran my preschool I would reflect on my policy and consider the following;

 

Maybe ask parents in what circumstances they do not want photo's of their child used, stored, disseminated by (they may come up with something we haven't thought of)

 

Include in the policy data protection management, including confidentiality / security.

Include the fact that staff also have pictures of children on their photo CD's ( I used to make a CD for staff as well as children for keepsakes)

 

I actually have quite a lot of photo's on my office wall at home, my favourite preschool pics, my accreditation mentor, whilst on a home visit asked if I had permission (which I didn't) something to think about if you personally show family friends photo's related to work.

Thinking about it, I can now confess I used photo's for training purposes, ie: when doing guest lectures at the local teacher training University, I hadn't asked permission.

 

So Iwould suggest that all the staff think about all the ways photo's are used / displayed / disemminated(spl) and include this on any permission forms. Ofsted told me that EACH method had to be signed and not a blanket signature at the end of a document. (see my registration form in resource library)

 

Once the permissions are gained from parents THEN think about how you can realistically abide by them, ie: blur out any particular faces.

 

ooh don't forget the 'professional' group photo's which areoften done on an annual basis. I still included foster children in this event by asking the photographer to take one pic with all children (print just one for the foster child), then another group pic leaving the fostr child out, which could go to all parents. A bit of extra work but ensured that foster children were not excluded from having a 'class' photo. (I've asked my school to do this as well for my foster children)

 

So to sum up;

comprehensive list of all useages / acces to photo's

Permissions

data protection

disclaimers

 

No doubt I've forgotten something...........................................hmm, yes, did we ask the children what they want or not?

 

 

Peggy

[AnonyMouse_1027]

we do the same as Louby Lou

[Guest]

we only give parents photos of their children if no other child is on them. If the photos in their profiles have other children on then we black their faces out. We do ask parents to give consent for photos for publicity etc but we find by blacking the faces out and not giving parents photos with other children on then we are not constantly checking to see who has or has not given permission. If, as in some cases, we have photos of best friends together then we ask both sets of parents to give permission to exchange the photos.

Hope this makes sense!!!

[Guest]

Thanks for all the comprehensive info. It is so difficult to get the balance between protection and over the top protection!

Does anyone have a copy of the letter/ policy that they ask parents to sign?

[Guest]

Thank you to everyone who has repied. Your input has been really helpfull. I have composed a letter which I will be sending out to parents to sign before they get given their photos.

Many Thanks again