I am currently working on a project examining an intervention targeted at Foster Carers with a secondary aim of assessing the emotional and behavioural indirect effects of the intervention upon the looked-after-children in their care. We are hoping to gather SDQ data from foster carer-report and teacher-report regarding the children in the care of the participating foster carers.

While we are not gathering any non-anonymised data about the children I am wondering what the ethical protocol is for collecting SDQ data from teachers is? For all other aspects of the study we have not needed to gain permission from the looked-after-children or their biological parents/social workers for data collection, as it is not directly about the children themselves. However, would it be different for collecting data from teachers about these children?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.