The Wagon Method holds information about children who have been hurt, the caregivers yoked to their wagons, and the professionals who help the team carry the load. We take that responsibility seriously. This policy tells you, in plain language, what we collect, why, who can see it, how long we keep it, and the choices you have.
The short version
- We collect only what we need to help you support a child on the trail of healing.
- We use a three-tier data model. Critical child data gets the strongest protection we can give it.
- We use AI for educational content and the triage tool. No child PII is ever sent to an AI provider. Your data is never used to train any model.
- You can access, export, or delete your data at any time from Settings.
- If we ever have a breach involving your information, we will tell you within 72 hours.
What we collect
We collect data in three categories, each with a different level of care.
Tier 1. Critical child data
This is the information that directly identifies or describes a child in the system. It gets our highest level of protection: encryption at rest, strict role-based access, and full audit logging of every view.
- Child first name, last name, and date of birth
- Assessment data: spoke ratings, wheel scores, component evaluations you enter
- Behavioral observations and free-text notes attached to an assessment or spoke
- Timeline entries: milestones, setbacks, placement changes
- Grounded experiences: what the child is carrying and processing
Tier 2. Sensitive user data
Information about the adults on the platform and how they relate to the children they serve.
- Display name, bio, avatar, and role you select at signup
- Learning progress: courses started, modules completed, quiz scores, certificates earned
- Community contributions: questions you post, answers you write, comments
- Shared team notes among a child's advocate network when that feature is enabled
- Caregiver self-check and journal entries, which remain private to you
Tier 3. General browsing data
Data that carries no personal risk but helps us understand how the platform is being used.
- Page views and feature usage, aggregated with no PII attached
- Device type, browser, and general region, not exact location
- Session cookies needed to keep you signed in
- Error and performance logs that help us fix broken features
How we use your data
We use the information you share with us to:
- Give you a dashboard that reflects where your child is on the trail right now
- Track progress through courses, modules, and the four wheels
- Recommend strategies, reading, and next steps that fit your situation
- Power the triage tool and other guided features that help you figure out where to go from here
- Send messages you have asked to receive, like a weekly reflection email
- Keep the platform safe and working, including detecting abuse and fixing bugs
We do not sell your data. We do not share it with advertisers. We do not use it to build a profile of you for marketing purposes.
Who can see your data
Access is controlled by role, and each role sees only what it needs to help you.
- Caregivers see everything about their own children, nothing about anyone else's.
- Caseworkers and therapists see children explicitly assigned to them. Therapists get the deepest view into grounded experiences and emotional wellbeing spokes.
- Teachers see only the Safety and Identity and Value wheels for children assigned to them. They do not see numerical scores or clinical notes.
- Network members, like grandparents or church helpers, see a simplified status view without scores or sensitive details.
- Admins manage courses, users, and community moderation. Admins do not have access to child-level data by default. Any override is logged and audited.
- Third-party processors such as our database host, email sender, and error monitoring service see only what they need to provide their service and are bound by data protection agreements.
How we use AI
We use AI models to help generate educational content, power the triage tool, and classify community questions. We want you to know exactly how that works.
- We use Anthropic's Claude for text generation, content classification, and the triage tool.
- We use Google Gemini for illustration generation on marketing and educational pages.
- No child PII is ever sent to an AI provider. Before any AI call, we replace child names with opaque identifiers, convert dates of birth to age ranges, and strip caregiver names and location data.
- Your data is never used to train any AI model. Our provider contracts prohibit training on input data, and we do not opt in to any training program.
- Every AI output is scanned by a safety validator before it reaches you. If an output fails validation, we show you a safer response or route you to a human.
- Content that is AI-assisted is clearly labeled, and news articles receive mandatory human editorial review before publication.
- You can opt out of AI-powered features in Settings. Opting out disables those features but does not affect the rest of the platform.
Cookies and similar technologies
We use a small number of cookies, all of them necessary for the platform to work.
- Session cookies that keep you signed in as you move between pages
- A CSRF token that protects your account from forged requests
- A preference cookie that remembers your theme and reduced motion settings
We do not use advertising cookies. We do not use third-party tracking pixels. Our analytics are aggregate only, with no personal identifiers attached.
How long we keep your data
While a child's placement is active, we keep all of their data so you have the full picture of the trail so far. When things change:
- When a placement ends, the record is marked inactive and day-to-day access for non-caregivers is removed.
- After 30 days, team communication threads are archived and can no longer be edited.
- After one year, free-text notes move to cold storage. Assessment scores remain available to you for longitudinal tracking.
- When a child turns 18, we invite the young adult to create an account and request a full export or deletion of their records.
- When you delete your account, we remove your profile immediately and purge deletable records after a 30-day grace period during which you can recover your account.
- Audit logs about access to critical child data are retained for at least three years to support compliance review.
Your rights
You have real, enforceable rights over your information.
- Access. Ask for a copy of everything we hold about you or your child.
- Export.Download a full JSON and PDF archive of your account and your children's records at any time from Settings.
- Correct. Fix any information that is wrong. Most fields can be edited directly in the app.
- Delete. Remove your account and its data. Caregiver child records enter a 30-day grace period before permanent deletion.
- Restrict. Limit how we process certain data, including opting out of AI features.
- Complain. Reach out to us directly or to a relevant privacy regulator if you feel we have handled your information poorly.
Children and consent
The Wagon Method is designed for adults who are caring for children. Children do not create accounts or enter data directly. The primary caregiver provides consent on behalf of the child at the time of adding them to the wagon, and can withdraw that consent by deleting the record. When a child turns 18, the young adult gains the right to request their full data export or deletion.
Security
We use TLS 1.3 for every connection between your browser and our servers. Databases are encrypted at rest. Assessment notes are encrypted with application-level AES-256 before they are written. Backups carry the same protection as the primary database. We rotate keys on a regular schedule and we run periodic access reviews. No system is perfect, and we will never pretend otherwise, but we take this seriously.
Changes to this policy
When we make meaningful changes to this policy, we update the date at the top of the page and send a note to active accounts. Minor edits for clarity do not require a notice, but the revision history is always available on request.
Contact us
If you have any questions about this policy, or if you want to exercise any of your rights, write to us at privacy@thewagonmethod.com. A real person on our team will read your note and respond within a few business days.