Privacy Statement
Your privacy is very important to me and any personal information your share will be kept safe and secure and will only be used for the purpose it was given to me. I adhere to current data protection legislation, including the General Data Protection Regulation (EU/2016/679) (the GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003.
How I use your information.
When you contact me with an enquiry about my counselling services I will collect information to help me deal with your enquiry. This will include only name, a telephone number and email if available. Alternatively, your GP or other health professional may send me your details when making a referral or a parent or trusted individual may give me your details when making an enquiry on your behalf. If you decide not to proceed I will ensure all your personal data is deleted immediately.
Everything you discuss with me is absolutely confidential. The only time I might share any information would be if it was required of me by law for your safety or the safety of someone else. I will always try to speak to you about this first, unless there are safeguarding issues that prevent this. Confidentiality and the limits of confidentiality are always explained prior to starting counselling.
If you decide to enter counselling, I will then ask for more details such as address, age, next of kin and GP services. This information is kept securely in a locked cabinet, not held online and not shared with any third party. I may keep brief written notes of some sessions in order to benefit our work, these are anonymised, locked and also not shared. I do not retain text messages, any relevant information contained therein is transferred to your notes and stored as detailed above. Likewise, any email correspondence will be deleted after 1 month.
After counselling has ended your records will be kept for 5 years from the end of our contact and are then securely destroyed. If you want me to delete your information sooner than this, please tell me.
Your rights.
I try to be as open as I can be in terms of giving people access to their personal information. You have a right to ask me to delete your personal information, to limit how I use your personal information, or to stop processing your personal information. You also have a right to ask for a copy of any information that I hold about you and to object to the use of your personal data in some circumstances. You can read more about your rights at ico.org.uk/your-data-matters.
If you have any complaint about how I handle your personal data please do not hesitate to get in touch with me by writing or emailing to the contact details given above. If you want to make a formal complaint about the way I have processed your personal information you can contact the ICO. For more information go to ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint.
