Introduction 

Your privacy is very important to me, and you can be confident that your personal information 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. This privacy notice tells you what I will do with your personal information from initial point of contact through to after your therapy has ended, including: 

• Why I am able to process your information and what purpose I am processing it for 
• Whether you have to provide it to me 
• How long I store it for 
• Whether there are other recipients of your personal information, and 
• Your data protection rights. 

I am happy to chat through any questions you might have about my data protection policy and you can contact me via email. ‘Data controller’ is the term used to describe the person/ organisation that collects and stores and has responsibility for people’s personal data. In this instance, the data controller is me. I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ZB558654). 

My lawful basis for holding and using your personal information 
The GDPR states that I must have a lawful basis for processing your personal data. There are different lawful bases depending on the stage at which I am processing your data. I have explained these below: 

If you have had therapy with me and it has now ended, I will use legitimate interest as my lawful basis for holding and using your personal information. 

If you are currently having therapy or if you are in contact with me to consider therapy, I will process your personal data where it is necessary for the performance of our contract. 

The GDPR also makes sure that I look after any sensitive personal information that you may disclose to me appropriately. This type of information is called ‘special category personal information’. The lawful basis for me processing any special categories of personal information is that it is for provision of health treatment (in this case counselling) and necessary for a contract with a health professional (in this case, a contract between me and you). 

How I use your information

Initial contact 
When you contact me with an enquiry about my counselling services, I will collect information to help me satisfy your enquiry. This will include your name and contact details (email and/or telephone number). 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 within one month. If you would like me to delete this information sooner, just let me know. 

While you are accessing counselling 
Rest assured that everything you discuss with me is confidential. That confidentiality will only be broken under exceptional circumstances, as outlined in my counselling agreement. I will always try to speak to you about this first, unless there are safeguarding issues that prevent this. 

I will keep a record of your personal details to help the counselling services run smoothly. These details are kept securely on a private and password-secured computer and are not shared with any third party. I will keep written notes of each session; these are kept electronically with password protection. For security reasons I do not retain text messages or emails for more than the length of our time working together. If there is relevant information contained in a text message or email, I will include this in session notes. 

After counselling has ended 
Once counselling has ended your records will be kept for seven years from the end of our contact with each other and are then securely destroyed. 

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 I do hold information about you I will: 

• give you a description of it and where it came from; 
• tell you why I am holding it, tell you how long I will store your data and how I made this decision; 
• tell you who it could be disclosed to; 
• let you have a copy of the information in an intelligible form. 

You can also ask me at any time to correct any mistakes there may be in the personal information I hold about you. To make a request for any personal information I may hold about you, please put the request in writing via my email address. 

If you have any complaint about how I handle your personal data, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me via email. I would welcome any suggestions for improving my data protection procedures. 

If you want to make a formal complaint about the way I have processed your personal information, you can contact the ICO, which is the statutory body that oversees data protection law in the UK. For more information, go to ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint. 

Data security 
I take the security of the data I hold about you very seriously, and as such I take every effort to make sure it is kept secure, including using private and password-protected devices and documents. 

Visitors to my website 
Squarespace hosts this website. Squarespace collects personal information when you visit this website, including: 

• Information about your browser, network and device 
• Web pages you visited prior to coming to this website 
• Web pages you view while on this website 
• Your IP address 

Squarespace needs the data to run this website and to protect and improve its platform and services. You can read more about how Squarespace uses your data (site usage information of end users) for its own purposes in its Privacy Policy. 

This information may also include details about your use of this website, including: 

• Clicks 
• Internal links 
• Pages visited 
• Scrolling 
• Searches 
• Timestamps 

This information is provided to Squarespace to learn about site traffic and activity. 

My website uses cookies and similar technologies, which are small files or pieces of text that download to a device when a visitor accesses a website or app. For information about viewing the cookies dropped on your device, visit The cookies Squarespace uses. 

These necessary and required cookies are always used, which allow Squarespace, the hosting platform, to securely serve this website to you. 

These analytics and performance cookies are used on this website, as described below, only when you acknowledge our cookie banner. This website uses analytics and performance cookies to view site traffic, activity, and other data.