Privacy Policy and Cookies

Protecting your personal details on our website.

Last updated: September 2020

This document describes our privacy policy and forms part of our website terms and conditions (“Website Terms”). We are registered with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as a data controller (Kathryn Barker). Registration number ZA376930.

By accepting our Website Terms or by visiting www.taketimecounselling.com (“the Website”) or by signing an agreement for counselling services you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this Privacy Policy. The Website is brought to you by Take Time Counselling and we believe it is important to protect your Personal Data (as defined in the Data Protection Act 1998). We are committed to giving you a personalised service that meets your needs in a way that also protects your privacy. This policy explains how we may collect Personal Data about you. It also explains some of the security measures we take to protect your Personal Data, and tells you certain things we will do and not do. You should read this policy in conjunction with the Website Terms.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. We know it’s long, but it contains important information about how we protect, use and process any personal information you give to us. We aim to be clear when we collect your data and not do anything with the data you wouldn’t reasonably expect.

WHAT INFORMATION WE COLLECT

The main pieces of information we collect are:

Name

Mobile phone number

Email address

Postal address

Brief details of what you are hoping to achieve from counselling

Brief details of any medication, GP information and health concerns

WHEN WE COLLECT YOUR INFORMATION

There are a few occasions when we might collect information from you. These include when:

You first call or email us to make an enquiry about our service; or to make an appointment

You give us this information face-to-face if we meet on any occasion

You attend your first session and sign our Counselling Agreement

You give us via a contact form, comment boxes or payment facility on our website.

We will not collect this information from you at any other time.

HOW WE COLLECT YOUR INFORMATION

We collect information in the following ways:

When you give it to us directly

When you contact us via our website

We do not collect your data in any other way. We will only ever get it from you.

HOW WE PROTECT YOUR INFORMATION

We are experienced counsellors / psychotherapists, fully trained in the importance of maintaining confidentiality. We go to great lengths to keep all your information safe. We invest in the appropriate resources to protect your personal information from loss, misuse, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. We make sure we manage it in accordance with our legal responsibilities under applicable data protection laws.

However, no internet-based platform, including email, is 100% secure, so we cannot be held responsible for unauthorised or unintended access that is beyond our control. When we communicate via email, there is always the possibility that email platforms can be hacked; or email transmission may not be encrypted when corresponding back and forth. We remain mindful of this and ensure that we do everything in our capability to protect your personal information.

HOW WE USE AND PROCESS YOUR INFORMATION

After we have received your information, there are a few ways in which we might use it to ensure we give you the best possible service. They include:

To help us to identify you when you contact us

To contact you to make, confirm, cancel or reschedule appointments

To respond to any queries or complaints that you raise

If we have a legal obligation to use or disclose information about you for instance, where we are ordered by a court or regulatory authority

For any other purpose to which you agree

We will not disclose your information to any third party except with your agreement and in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

HOW WE KEEP YOUR INFORMATION SAFE AND WHO HAS ACCESS TO IT

We want you to know that we will never sell or pass on your personal information to third parties for their own purposes.

Your therapist may keep some very brief notes of your sessions. Any such notes are kept on a secure password protected database and via a password protected secure computer in accordance with data protection laws.

Each therapist keeps their own notes and they are never shared with anyone, even other therapists with whom they may work alongside. Each therapist also engages in Supervision over their practice and will talk in general terms about their clients for the purpose of their development. Your anonymity is preserved during such sessions.

HOW WE RETAIN YOUR INFORMATION

Our professional insurance requires that all our records are kept for 5 years after which time they will be destroyed.

HOW WE WILL COMMUNICATE WITH YOU

We will usually only communicate with you via email or message exchange outside of any face to face sessions. If a therapist were to see you in a work or social situation outside the counselling sessions they would not acknowledge you to maintain your privacy and confidentiality. If you were to greet them then they would acknowledge you politely in return.

VISITING THIRD PARTY WEBSITES

This website may contain links to other websites that we believe may be of interest to you. This Privacy Policy only applies to our website, so if you link to another website, we recommend you read the privacy policy of that website before sharing any personal or other data.

We do not provide any personally identifiable client Personal Data to any advertisers or third-party websites.

We exclude all liability for loss that you may incur when using any third-party websites.

Like most websites, we use ‘cookies’ to help us improve how we create, and how you use, our site. Cookies mean that a website will remember you and can obtain an overall view of visitor habits and volumes to our website. They can make interacting with a website faster and easier.

Cookies are small text files stored on your computer by websites that you visit. They are used by most websites in order to make them work efficiently, to make controls respond properly and to provide information to owners of web sites, or third parties. The cookies stored by our site cannot be used to identify you personally.

If you want to know how to disable the use of cookies on your device, visit aboutcookies.org. Please note that if you turn off the use of cookies on the website, you are likely to find your browsing experience significantly degraded, and you may not be able to use some of the products or services on our website without cookies.

WHAT YOUR RIGHTS ARE

We want to make sure you’re in control of how we use and keep your information.

You have the right to:

be told how your personal information will be used;

request a copy of the information we hold about you;

update or amend the information we hold about you if it is wrong;

change your communication preferences at any time;

ask us to remove your personal information from our records (see ‘How We Retain Your Information’ above);

request an electronic copy of your personal information be sent to you, or another organisation;

raise a concern or complaint about the way in which your information is being used.

Further Information

If you would like any more information or you have any comments about our Privacy Policy, please either write to us at Kathryn Barker, 135 Whitefields Road, Solihull, B913NY or email us at taketimecounselling@outlook.com

We may amend this Privacy Policy from time to time without notice to you, in which case, we will publish the amended version on the Website. You confirm that we shall not be liable to you or any third party for any change to this Privacy Policy from time to time. It is your responsibility to check regularly to determine whether this Privacy Policy has changed.

You can ask us for a copy of this Privacy Policy and of any amended Privacy Policy by writing to the above address or by emailing us at taketimecounselling@outlook.com. This Privacy Policy applies to Personal Data we hold about individuals. It does not apply to information we hold about companies and other organisations.

If you would like access to the Personal Data that we hold about you, you can do this by emailing us at taketimecounselling@outlook.com or writing to us at the address noted above.

We aim to keep the Personal Data we hold about you accurate and up to date. If you tell us that we are holding any inaccurate Personal Data about you, we will delete it or correct it promptly. Please email us at taketimecounselling@outlook.com or write to us at the address above to update your Personal Data.

You can find out more on the Information Commissioner’s Office website at https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/