Terms of Use

The short version

Who this agreement is between

These terms are between you and Vriesea LLC, a limited liability company registered in the State of New York, United States, trading as The Level Up Labs, in respect of the website at theleveluplabs.org and the software behind it.

We are in the process of establishing a Guyanese entity to hold this work. When that happens, these terms will be reassigned to it and participating schools will be told before the change takes effect.

Where a school has signed a separate written agreement with us, that agreement governs the school’s use and takes precedence over these terms where they conflict.

This is not a medical or emergency service

The platform does not provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, and does not provide crisis intervention. Screening questionnaires indicate that a conversation may be worth having. They are not a diagnosis and must not be treated as one.

Nobody monitors the platform continuously. Counsellors review cases during school hours. Do not rely on this platform in an emergency.

Who may use it

• Students receive an account from a guidance counsellor at a participating school, once a parent or guardian has consented.
• Counsellors and school staff receive accounts from their school, and use them only for students they are responsible for.
• Anyone may read the public pages of this website, and anyone may ask to be put in touch with support.

Because nearly every user is a minor, a parent or guardian must consent before a student account is created, and may withdraw that consent at any time.

Asking to be connected is not the same as opening an account

A student can send us a request to be put in touch. That is not a registration and it does not create an account — it is a message asking for help finding the right person. What happens next is that we pass the request to the guidance counsellor at that student’s school, or point the student to who they should speak to.

The account itself is only ever created by a counsellor, with consent recorded first. We keep it that way because an account created without an adult attached is an account with nobody behind it, and that is not support.

If you send us a request, we hold what you tell us only for as long as it takes to connect you, and we handle it as set out in our privacy policy. We are not a crisis service and we do not read messages around the clock. If it is urgent, call 915 or 592 502 1388, or go to the nearest hospital.

Accounts and PINs

• Your Level Up ID identifies you. Your PIN proves it is you. Do not share either.
• Do not use another person’s account, or let anyone use yours.
• If you think someone else knows your PIN, tell your counsellor and change it.
• Repeated wrong PIN attempts will lock the account. A counsellor can unlock it.
• We may suspend an account where we reasonably believe it has been compromised, or where continuing would put someone at risk.

Using it properly

Please do not:

• post anything abusive, threatening or hateful about another person;
• share another student’s private information, or anything a counsellor has told you in confidence;
• make deliberately false reports of distress or harm — this pulls a counsellor away from someone who needs them;
• attempt to access records that are not yours, probe the system for weaknesses without our written permission, or interfere with how it works;
• copy the platform, or use it to build a competing service.

If you have found a security problem, we want to hear about it. Write to leveluplabs.gy@gmail.com and give us a reasonable chance to fix it. We will not pursue anyone who reports a genuine fault in good faith and does not access other people’s data in the process.

What you write

What a student writes stays theirs. We do not claim ownership of it, and we do not use it to train anything, sell anything or promote anything.

We hold it so that the school can support that student, on the terms set out in our privacy policy. Statistics may be produced from it, but only in aggregate, with small groups suppressed, so that no individual can be identified.

If you are a school

By enrolling students, a school confirms that it holds parental consent, has a designated safeguarding lead, will act on concerns raised through the platform under its own child protection policy, and will remove access promptly for staff who leave.

The school is the data controller for its students’ records and remains responsible for decisions about them. We process on the school’s instruction. Our safeguarding statement sets out where each responsibility sits.

Availability, and what we do not promise

The platform is pre-launch. It is provided as it is, without a service level agreement. There will be outages, and there will be faults.

We do not currently promise a fixed uptime figure or response time, because we would not be able to honour one. A school considering enrolment should assume this platform supplements its existing arrangements and never replaces them. When we are able to commit to a service level, we will publish it here rather than negotiating it quietly per school.

We may change, suspend or withdraw features. Where a change materially affects how student information is handled or how a concern is escalated, we will tell participating schools before making it.

Liability

Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything that cannot lawfully be limited.

Subject to that, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, for loss of data where you have not kept your own records, or for outcomes arising from decisions made by a school or its staff. The platform supports professional judgement; it does not replace it, and it cannot be responsible for it.

Intellectual property

The software, design, written content and branding of The Level Up Labs belong to Vriesea LLC, except for third-party materials used under licence. Screening instruments used in the platform remain the property of their authors and are used under their own terms.

Schools receive a right to use the platform for their own students for as long as their arrangement with us continues. That right is not transferable.

Ending it

A student or a parent may stop at any time by asking the school’s counsellor to close the account. A school may end its use by writing to us. We may end or suspend access where these terms are seriously or repeatedly broken, or where continuing would put someone at risk.

When an account ends, records are handled as set out in our privacy policy.

Law and disputes

Vriesea LLC is registered in New York. The services described here are delivered to schools and students in Guyana, and we accept that the laws of Guyana govern these terms and that the courts of Guyana have jurisdiction over disputes arising from them. We have chosen this deliberately: a school or a parent in Guyana should not have to litigate in New York to hold us to what we have written.

Nothing here removes any right you have under Guyanese law, including under the Data Protection Act 2023. If any part of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest continues to apply.

Changes

We will post changes here with a date. If a change materially affects students or schools, we will notify participating schools directly first.

Contact

leveluplabs.gy@gmail.com — Vriesea LLC (New York, USA), trading as The Level Up Labs.