Privacy Statement

1. Confidentiality Agreement

I value your privacy and the trust you place in me. Everything we talk about during our sessions is strictly confidential between you and me. To ensure I am doing my job effectively and that I have the right support, I may discuss elements of our sessions with my clinical supervisor. During these discussions I do not disclose any details that may identify you to my supervisor, and my supervisor also adheres to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Exceptions to confidentiality are in extreme cases and detailed further below.

If we see each other outside of a session I will not engage in any expression or conversation to ensure your confidentiality. You are welcome to share with other people about the therapy you are receiving, but I am obligated by GDPR law to ensure your confidentiality is protected. I would request that in order to further protect your privacy that you refrain from discussing your counselling with me outside of your sessions.

As I adhere to the GDPR, any contact relating to you with other health care professionals would only be made with your specific signed consent.

Exceptions: In order to safeguard you and the people around you, if you were to disclose that you were going to carry out significant harm to yourself or someone else, then under my ‘Duty of Care’ I am obligated by law to inform the relevant authorities. This is also part of my commitment to working ethically as a member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. I would always aim to discuss this with you prior to contacting anyone. If I was issued with a police warrant or court order for your information, or if you were to disclose anything in relation to terrorism, money laundering or drug trafficking, by law I would also have to provide your information to the relevant authorities.

2. General Data Protection Regulations 2018 (GDPR)

The GDPR replaces the 1998 Data Protection Act to ensure your personal and sensitive, confidential data is kept private and held securely, being processed in the way that you have agreed to. It is there to protect your rights as a consumer of a service or product that might involve your identifiable data, e.g. your name and address or whether you have a specific condition. It also covers any session records, online sessions, text messages or emails we exchange. For more information you can read the detailed document Information Governance Policies and Procedures accessible from me at any counselling session or via email.

3. Information Recording

All records are kept for 7 years. After this time your records will be destroyed by shredding. I will delete electronic copies of your information and correspondence after one month of us ending counselling.

To comply with the UK GDPR I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as a data controller so that all your information is safe.

Under the GDPR you can make a request in writing to me, for all your records to be deleted. In this case all your paper records would be shredded and any electronic data such as emails or text messages would be permanently deleted from the devices they are stored on. I would have to save the request for deletion you made but would not save any other data. My insurance company may want to verify the information I process.

I collect information about: why you are using the service, a small amount of medical information and a small amount of information about your important others, alongside brief session notes and contact details. This information enables me to provide a high quality service to you, ensuring I am equipped with the knowledge of our previous discussions as well as to support me during clinical supervision. Your contact details will only be used with your explicit consent. I may contact your GP if I believe you are at significant risk of harm and I will endeavour to gain your consent first. Please refer to your Consent Form for more information.

Please see below for information on how I secure my records.

Hardcopy documents – are all stored in a locked cabinet behind a locked door.

Text messages – my work phone is secured with a pin code & information is not displayed on the home screen.

Emails – my email account requires a username and password.

Email attachments – any attachments I send to you by email containing your personal information would be password protected and the password would be sent to you via text message.

Online working – I use Zoom and WhatsApp for online sessions because they are specifically designed to meet the privacy and quality standards required when working with personal and sensitive information such as in counselling. Information about Zoom’s security features can be found here. Information about WhatsApp’s security features can be found here. Zoom’s own privacy policy can be found here. WhatsApp’s own privacy policy can be found here.

4. All Website Visitors

This website is hosted by Squarespace. Squarespace collects personal data when you visit this website, including:

Information about your browser, network and device
Web pages you visited prior to coming to this website
Web pages you view while on this website
Your IP address

Squarespace needs the data to run this website, and to protect and improve its platform and services. Squarespace analyses the data in a de-personalized form.

5. Cookies

This website uses cookies and similar technologies, which are small files or pieces of text that download to a device when a visitor accesses a website or app. For information about viewing the cookies dropped on your device, visit the cookies Squarespace uses.

These functional and required cookies are always used, which allow Squarespace, my hosting platform, to securely serve this website to you.

These analytics and performance cookies are used on this website, as described below, only when you acknowledge the cookie banner. This website uses analytics and performance cookies to view site traffic, activity, and other data.