PRIVACY POLICY

The below information outlines what I will do with your information from the beginning to end of therapy with me. I adhere to current data protection legislation, including the General Data Protection Regulation alongside the Data Protection Act 2018. I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO Number: ZB342461). Please do get in contact should you have any questions.

Confidentiality

Confidentiality is central to the client-counsellor relationship. The client should know that everything discussed within the counselling environment will be treated with the highest level of confidentiality possible.

However, there are some limitations to this confidentiality and should any of the following situations occur, details of the sessions may need to be disclosed:

  • The client is considered to be at serious risk to themselves or to another individual. 

  • Any illegal acts or acts of terrorism, where non-disclosure would break the law. 

  • Any situation in which a court order has been obtained. 

  • Any child protection issues where the child could be at risk of harm or neglect must be reported to the appropriate authorities as required by the Children Act 1989. 

Ideally, I will discuss breach of confidentiality before disclosure, however, this would be dependent upon circumstances. 

Confidentiality and Ethics

The BACP confidentiality guidelines to which I adhere can be found here.

Supervision

As part of the meeting of the BACP’s professional standards, I am required to discuss some of the information from the sessions with a qualified supervisor. This is under a strict professional and confidential framework. The client will remain anonymised. 

Your Information

To begin working together, I will record your name and preferred contact details (for example, telephone number, email address). I use this information only for essential administrative tasks: contacting you and arranging appointments. I do not share it with others without your consent unless I am legally or ethically required to do so. I will delete your contact details when counselling ends and once all fees are paid.

Note-taking

I may keep brief notes of the session. These will be anonymised and securely stored. You will not be able to be identified from these notes. These notes will be destroyed one year after our sessions have ended.

Online Counselling

During video call sessions, I will be in a room where you can not be overheard by anyone else. I always recommend to my clients that they do the same in their location. In initial sessions, we will explore your remote therapeutic space and how we can make you feel safe in sessions. I do not record the sessions.

While video call platforms offer degrees of security and encryption, it is not possible to guarantee how the companies providing these services will handle data relating to the call. For online sessions, I use the platform ‘Zoom’ and their privacy policy can be found here.

Website Data

My website host (Squarespace) uses various processes to monitor when and how the site is visited, and I can also use Google Analytics to see details of visitor behaviour patterns. I do not have access to any of your personal data within these systems, which only show me anonymised numerical information about the site’s usage.

Your Consent And Rights

When we start working together, I will ask if you consent to me using your personal data as described in this statement. It is your right to see the data I hold about you and to request that it be corrected (if you believe there are inaccuracies) or deleted. If you would like this to happen or have any other questions about privacy or confidentiality, then please contact me and I will attempt to resolve your query as soon as possible.