Confidentiality statement: -
Everything that is shared during our counselling sessions is confidential. The only caveat is if something is shared that suggests there is a risk of harm to you, or someone else, or details of a serious illegality are shared during the listening session. In those circumstances I would discuss the circumstances with you, the client, before informing, signposting or referring you to other agencies or services, if required.
Privacy statement: -
Adult Counselling Therapy 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. Adult Counselling Therapy may continually develop our privacy notice.
‘Data controller’ is the term used to describe the person/organisation that collects and stores and has responsibility for people’s personal data. For this purpose, the data controller is James Griffiths.
Adult Counselling Therapy Limited is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) as a fee payer and our registration number from the ICO is ZB771666.
Personal data - I am required to gain your consent to process ("obtain, record, store, update, share") your personal data. The personal data I process is your full name, address, contact phone numbers, email address, and date of birth. This data is used by me to contact you regarding therapy; to contact other professionals/organisations/services if I believe there is a clinical, ethical, or legal reason to break confidentiality; if you ask me to share information about our work with someone else; in the case of a professional conduct complaint or insurance claim being made against me.
If you pay for sessions by bank transfer, your name and account details will be displayed on my statements or financial documents. They may be seen by my bank, government departments such as HMRC, or other organisations, for example if my business accounts are audited or required for financial purposes.
Your personal data is stored electronically on google drive which is password protected, and on my smart phone and email program so I can contact you as required.
Apart from financial records and your full name, all personal data will be destroyed within 3 months of our therapy sessions coming to an end, and your full name will be deleted from my records 8 years after therapy comes to an end. Your information will never be sold to a third-party organisation.
In the case I am not able to meet with you for therapy and unable to contact you myself, your name, phone number, and email address will be made available via ClinicalWill to my clinical executors who will contact you on my behalf.
Record keeping - Any written records relating to sessions/communications with clients will never contain names or any other personal data. All records and copies of work relating to our work together will be destroyed 8 years after our therapy sessions coming to an end, unless they have been included as anonymised data in research or academic/professional papers.
Audio recording - If I record any therapy session with a client I will seek authorisation from the client initially. A recording of this nature may be used to present a scenario to supervision in order to improve my therapeutic service, may assist in my on-going assessment or may be used for research purposes. Any subsequent recordings made are identified by coded reference and no personal details will be associated with them. Any recordings are kept on my google drive account which is password protected, and are fully deleted as soon as they are no longer required. You are free to ask for recording to stop and/or to be deleted at any time.
You have the right to request to see all records which refer to you. Requests should be made in writing.