Privacy Policy

Privacy Notice

Confidentiality.

I am committed to providing you with a safe and confidential place to talk. This means that I will only discuss our work together with my supervisor, who is also a member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). Both of us are bound by confidentiality and work to the principles laid out by the BACP Ethical Framework for the Counselling Professions. It is a professional requirement, that I attend supervision and my supervisor is a qualified counsellor, who I meet with regularly to discuss my work and attend to my own mental and emotional wellbeing.

I need to inform you under what circumstances I am obliged by law to disclose what you tell me. There are other situations where I might not have a legal obligation to disclose but professional good practice means that I have a duty to consider doing so. Giving you the list of these situations, leaves you with the choice about whether you talk about these things with me or not…

If any of the following situations were discussed in a session, I would always endeavour to talk through my concerns with you, first of all, so that you can have a say in who we talk to and how we go about doing that.

I have a statutory obligation to disclose the following:-

1. Information relating to a terrorist attack (The Terrorism Act, 2000, s.38B).
2. Information about drug trafficking and/or money laundering (Drug Trafficking Act 1994, Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 and Money Laundering Regulations, 2007).
3. The whereabouts of a child who is in care, under police protection or subject to an emergency protection order, and who has run away, been abducted or otherwise missing (The Children Act s50).
4. If I am informed about Female Genital Mutilation of a child under the age of 18 years (The Female Genital Mutilation Act, 2003)
5. If I am obliged to comply with a court order requesting me to share information relating to our work together. Please let me know if you are involved in a court system for any reason.

The situations below are where professional good practice means that I might need to consider disclosure:-

• Serious Child Protection Issues.
• If you believe you or someone else is at risk of serious harm.

DATA PROTECTION.

In order to be able to stay in contact with you, I collect and securely store the following information:-

Name, Address, E-mail and Telephone Number.

I will not keep your contact information, once we have finished working together.

While I am working with you this information will be securely stored in a locked filing cabinet at my home address. I may also hold this information on my mobile phone, computer and e-mail account. Both of these devices are password protected and can only be accessed by me.

Notes.

I write brief dated notes on a paper system, about what we have looked at in each session. These are like an overview of the session. You can request to see your notes at any time and request that I change any information which you feel is incorrect. You can also request me to erase any information that I hold about you, although there is certain information I have an obligation to keep for tax purposes.

The notes are coded and kept in a locked filing cabinet, separately from your contact details. I keep them for 3 years from our last date of contact, after which I destroy them.

Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

I am registered with the ICO for the storage of information mentioned above. If you are unhappy or have any concerns which you feel that I have not adequately addressed, you can contact the ICO at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/handling/ or call on 0303 123 1113.