Student Welfare and Protection Coordinator

Our children are our most precious asset, and that is why, both in our family, private and public life, we want them to be protected and cared for by all those around them.

Well, the Organic Law 8/2021, of June 4, on the comprehensive protection of children and adolescents against violence (LOPIVI) establishes, in its article 35, the figure of the Coordinator for the welfare and protection of students in educational centers.

Duties of the Student Welfare and Protection Coordinator

The Coordinator for the welfare and protection of students will be present in all educational centers, regardless of their ownership, where minors are studying and will report to the person in charge of the direction or ownership of the center.

Its functions will be, at least, the following:

Promote training plans on prevention, early detection and protection of minors, aimed at both personnel working in the centers and students, prioritizing those aimed at detecting situations of violence.
Collaboration with parents’ associations on training issues.
Coordination with social services when necessary.
To make themselves known among the students so that they identify the figure and what their functions are within the school center and go to them in cases of violence in the school center.
Promote a culture of respect and protection of minors.
Encourage peaceful agreements between school staff and students.
Coordinate with the center’s management the coexistence plan, which will include the acquisition of skills, awareness and training of the educational community, promotion of good treatment and peaceful resolution of conflicts by the center’s staff, students and the educational community on the peaceful resolution of conflicts, as well as the creation of codes of conduct for bullying situations.
Communicate to the State Security Forces, the security risk situations affecting minors.
Promote the immediate communication to the Spanish Data Protection Agency of any unlawful processing of minors’ personal data.
To promote healthy eating among children in the educational center.

Student Welfare and Protection Coordinator and the GDPR

The obligation that the law places on this new figure in educational centers is that their actions must always respect the provisions of the data protection regulations (art. 35.3 of the LOPIVI).

Therefore, if the Welfare and Child Protection Coordinator has among its functions to promote the immediate communication to the Spanish Data Protection Agency (Agencia Española de Protección de Datos (AEPD) of the unlawful processing of personal data of minors, as well as must adapt its actions at all times to the provisions of data protection regulations, it is reasonable to think that the coordinator, whether appointed from the school’s own staff or external, will have to have knowledge of data protection, because otherwise, it would be in breach of the provisions of the article 35 of LOPIVI.

This specific situation focused on the educational field, reminds us that all those who process personal data, whether in the private or public sphere, must know the data protection regulations and understand what their obligations are, in order to be able to comply with them, because not doing so can lead to many problems with an unhappy ending, such as a sanctioning procedure before the supervisory authority, i.e., the Spanish Data Protection Agency.

That is why the best way to transfer the necessary knowledge on data protection would be the training of the staff in charge of the educational center.

Additionally, it should be remembered that all educational centers are obliged to designate a Data Protection Delegate(DPD) before the General Registry of the AEPD, as established in the Article 4. who shall have the necessary training and experience in data protection.

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If you need data protection training for employees or a Data Protection Officer(DPO), contact us by email: info@businessadapter.es, you can also call 96 131 88 04, or leave your message in this form:

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