Privacy policy & digital policy

Privacy Policy

This privacy policy explains how and why I use the data you provide to me when making an enquiry or interacting with me here or on my professional social media channels.  If after making an enquiry you decide to go ahead with counselling or supervision sessions, I will then provide you with a separate Privacy Agreement to sign which covers those services before our first appointment.

If you contact me to make an enquiry, I will only use your provided contact details to respond to your enquiries.  I will ask you to describe briefly what you would like counselling for, in order to help you most effectively.

If your initial enquiry and/or introductory phone call does not lead to arranging counselling sessions with me, any contact details and communications (emails, voicemail messages, texts, my notes on our conversations etc) will be stored securely for a maximum of six months after our last contact for contractual and legitimate interests purposes before being securely destroyed.

If we arrange a counselling appointment, I will request additional data from you in that appointment.  I will give you a written Contract, a Contact Details Form and a Privacy Agreement to read, complete and sign before the appointment begins.  These explain in detail the additional data I will collect and how it will be processed and stored.  It also explains the limits of confidentiality.  I keep brief notes on sessions for legal and professional purposes, which are securely destroyed at the end of the agreed retention period along with the other paperwork (Contracts, Contact Details forms and Privacy Agreements).  You do not have to answer any questions you don’t want to, but that may mean I am unable to provide counselling or supervision services to you.

I make use of third party services for email, telephone, and online work.  I take all reasonable precautions to use these services appropriately for data security, but cannot be held liable for third-party breaches. My website host, HostPresto, collects IP addresses of visitors.  I cannot identify you from your IP address.

It is a BACP ethical requirement that I have a clinical will.  This will be activated in the event that I am seriously incapacitated and cannot contact clients myself, or I have died.  In that case my executor, who is also a counsellor and supervisor, will be provided with the first names and contact telephone numbers of clients and supervisees who have upcoming appointments with me, or who are on my waiting list, to inform them.  My administrative executor will securely destroy all my notes and records a maximum of three years after my death (per insurance requirements), in accordance with data protection principles.

Your rights under the UK GDPR are given here.  If you have any concerns over how your data is handled, please contact me to address them.  If you are still unsatisfied, you can contact the ICO.  I am registered with the ICO as a Data Controller, my registration number is ZA116756.  My lawful bases for processing data under the UK GDPR are contract and legitimate interests.

I have advertising profiles on Counselling Directory, NDsupport.org, Seek A Therapy and the BACP directory.  Occasionally these listings will not be viewable because they are being edited and reviewed.  I also have a professional Facebook page and Instagram account which you may follow if you wish.  Please note that my professional social media channels are set to “public”, so your likes/comments/interactions on or with posts will be publicly viewable.

The listed directories and social media channels are the only ones I use.  Any others I appear on are without my consent.  Unfortunately some companies lift information from counsellors’ websites, social media and directory entries, and then post them on their own sites without consent and for their own purposes.  Please be very careful which sites you give your details to when seeking a therapist.

Digital policy

I have written this policy to help avoid misunderstandings and offer guidance on handling digital interactions.  It is based upon advice I have received, experience, and discussion with other counselling professionals – and my position is open to change if needed.  If anything is unclear or you would like to make a suggestion, please feel free to let me know.

Emails and phone calls

Please remember that emails are vulnerable to viruses and human error, as well as logs of emails being kept by ISPs.  Please take care when considering what to include in emails.  Many email providers that you might use do not encrypt messages, meaning it is possible for them to be intercepted by hackers.  If you are concerned about confidentiality in emails, please feel free to phone me instead but be aware that phone calls are not necessarily unhackable either.

Contact between sessions

In order to keep clinical material “in the room”, between-session contact can only be for changing, cancelling or rearranging appointments or for administrative issues.  As a private practitioner, I cannot offer an emergency service and am unavailable outside my published office hours.  There is a list of agencies which might be able to do so, and their contact details, on my useful links and others sources of help page.

Availability and safety

I check emails and my phone when possible during my office hours, which are given here, but I may not be immediately available (for example, if I am in-session with another client).  I will respond as soon as I can, but I am not available outside these hours nor at weekends.  If I am unavailable because I am on leave, I set up an email out of office auto-reply and voicemail greeting saying when I will be back.  Out of consideration for your privacy and safety, I will only return a phone call if you leave a voicemail asking me to do so with a number you wish me to call you on.

If you are at immediate risk or feeling suicidal, please call the emergency services or the Samaritans (116 123).

Social media

I maintain a professional Facebook page and a professional Instagram account as a way of promoting my practice, which you are welcome to follow.  However, our relationship must remain as much as possible between us in the counselling room so I will not knowingly engage in discussion with clients on social media.  My professional Facebook and Instagram are set to ‘public’ – so comments, likes & other interactions with posts are publicly viewable.  I have a LinkedIn account for connecting with other counsellors, therapists and associated professionals. I aim to keep my personal Facebook profile as private as possible and cannot be Facebook “friends” with former or current clients, or link with clients on LinkedIn.

Occasionally there may be overlap across social networks that may come to light later.  In such cases we would need to discuss it in-session.

 

Digital policy adapted from Dr Aaron Balick’s “Digital Policy version 3”.