Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy 2024

About Us

Counselling with Verity (BACP Registered Member - 374317) is the data controller of your personal data. I am a humanistic counsellor trained in Transactional Analysis offering therapeutic counselling services to adults and young people aged 11 and above. I work face-to-face with clients privately, in schools and online. Protecting clients’ safety and wellbeing is of utmost importance to me and therefore I do everything I can to maintain your confidentiality and the safety of your data. 

This Privacy Notice is intended to provide information on how I handle the personal data of prospective and current clients, either individually or where you access my services through a third party (school etc…)

The Data I Collect & How I Use It

Website visitors

When you visit my website, the website collects and stores information relating to your use of that website, through the use of cookies. This information includes activity data, location data, weblogs and other communication data.

I use this information to improve our website and ensure its functionality.

Lawful basis: Consent

Enquiries

When you complete the website enquiry form, or submit an enquiry via email, I’ll need to collect the following information:

• Your name
• Your email address
• An outline for the reason for your enquiry

I use this information to contact you regarding your interest in my services, and to plan your first session, if you wish to do so. If you do not then become a client of mine, I will retain your information for 12 months before deletion.

Lawful basis: Legitimate Interest

Ongoing Counselling

When you begin your counselling, I will need to take notes and maintain records of our conversations. The personal data I will need for this are:

• Title
• Full name
• Date of birth
• Gender & Pronouns
• Address
• Language
• Contact details, including email address and telephone number
• Next of kin information, including name, relationship to client and phone number
• Any health data you may provide to me including details of your GP, any medical conditions or allergies and any medication that you are currently taking.
• How you found out about Counselling With Verity
• Information relating to your lived experiences, which is divulged during a counselling session

I use this information to:

• Provide you with the best possible counselling service I can, tailored to your requirements
• Maintain adequate records

Your data will be retained for 7 years after our last session or, if you are under 18, until you are 25 years old. 

Lawful basis: contractual (necessary for the performance of a contract - my provision of counselling services)

Lawful basis for the processing of special category data (health): consent

Safeguarding Data

I value your confidentiality highly and view it as a very important aspect of the counselling relationship. Everything that is discussed in the counselling session is kept in the strictest confidence, aside from the conditions as laid out below:

• As a member of the BACP, I am required to have regular supervision and where I will discuss my work with a supervisor on a regular basis. However, I will not disclose anything that would enable you to be identified.
• If there is convincing evidence that you may cause harm to yourself or others, I might need to break confidentiality by informing your doctor, social services, or in serious cases the police.
• In all other circumstances any disclosure would require a court order, even in circumstances in which you, the client, request such disclosure (e.g. court case, insurance claim, etc.).
• If there is any other legal reason compelling me to do so.
• If there is reason to believe that someone else is at risk of significant harm.
• For my work in schools, I follow each organisation’s Safeguarding Policy and will from time-to-time share necessary information with the Designated Safeguarding Lead or Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead. Where possible, this is done with the client’s consent.

I am required to maintain records of safeguarding cases of children until the 25th birthday of the child. All other safeguarding records will be retained for 7 years after our last session.

Lawful basis: Legal Obligation, Legitimate Interest

Third Party Processors

I use some external companies to assist me with processing personal data:

• Google - email hosting and electronic document storage. Data stored within my Google account is transferred to servers in the EU. I utilise the adequacy decisions made under both the UK GDPR and EU GDPR to safeguard this transfer. 
• Go Daddy – website and email hosting. Go Daddy utilises servers based either in the UK/EU or countries which are recognised by the GDPR adequacy decisions. 
• WriteUpp - patient recordkeeping, appointment scheduling. Data stored on WriteUpp is transferred to servers in the EU. I utilise the adequacy decisions made under both the UK GDPR and EU GDPR to safeguard this transfer.
• Zoom – online session hosting. Zoom is a US-based company. I rely on the UK-US data bridge to transfer data to their servers.
• WhatsApp – for confirming, adapting and cancelling sessions with clients. WhatsApp is a US-based company. I rely on the UK-US data bridge to transfer data to their servers

Your Rights

You have a number of rights over your personal data, and how I handle it. These are listed below.

The Right to be Informed:

I will keep you informed through this Privacy Notice, which will be uploaded to my website. You can always request a copy from me directly as well.

Right to Access:

You have the right to access the personal information that I hold by making a ‘Subject Access Request’. If I agree that I am obliged to provide this to you (or to someone else on your behalf), I will provide it free of charge and aim to do so within 30 days, subject to any ID checks I need to make.

Right to Rectification:

If any of the personal information I hold about you is inaccurate, incomplete or out of date, you may ask me to correct it.

Right to Stop or Limit My Processing of Your Data:

You can ask me to stop or limit your data being processed under certain circumstances - only where data is being used for direct marketing, or where I use the legal basis of legitimate interest and I do not have a compelling basis to continue this processing following an objection.

Right to Erasure:

This is also known as the ‘right to be forgotten’. The right is not absolute and only applies in certain circumstances. 

Right to Portability:

You have the right to receive your personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format, to allow you to pass this data easily to another controller. It also gives you the right to request that I transmit this data directly to another controller, in certain circumstances.

How To Contact Me

If you have any questions about this policy, or wish to complain about how your data is being processed, please contact me via one of the following methods:

By email:  enquiries@counsellingwithverity.com 

By post:  Stone Close

Middle Winterslow

Salisbury

SP5 1TN

How To Contact the ICO

If you are not happy with the way your information is being handled, or with a response I have provided to you regarding a complaint, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office:

Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, SK9 5AF (https://ico.org.uk/) 

Latest Review Date: January 2024

Next Review Date: January 2026