USEFUL INFORMATION

Confidentiality

Everything we will discuss is confidential. There are some certain topics where we may need to break confidentiality. This includes your involvement in or knowledge of an act of terrorism, money laundering and drugs trafficking. I will also feel obliged to break confidentiality if you consider harming yourself or another person. If we work on the phone or Zoom, we both ensure that we are in a safe location, where we can talk freely without anyone being able to hear us. 

The information you shared with me as part of the assessment and your personal details and information are held in strict confidence. Everything is stored electronically on a password protected laptop and the drive used to store the data is additionally password protected. Please be aware that I have a backup of the data, which is stored on a password protected external hard drive, which is stored in a concealed and locked filing cabinet. The key to the filing cabinet is hidden and only myself and my person of trust know the location of the key. I also keep brief hand written notes about the sessions, which carry your unique client number instead of your name. More information will be sent to you before we start counselling. When using Zoom, then your information is stored in the contact section, however no one can access this information as the laptop I use for this purpose is password protected and the Zoom service itself is password protected too. When using the phone, then I will use my dedicated work phone. Your phone number is not stored in the phone and after we finished our session, the phone number will be deleted form the phones call logs. 

Security 

Our contact will be over my hotmail account. Sensitive documents will be sent password protected. The password to open the document will be emailed to you separately. 

All client material is treated in complete confidence and is removed from my computer at the end of our work together. Electronic records are stored on a password protected hard drive and kept in a locked filing cabinet. No identifying names or material is retained on these records as a client ID number is used to replace such information. 

In an emergency

Online counselling is not sufficient support if you feel you are in crisis.

Signs of crisis may be feelings or thought about suicide or harm yourself or another. In this case, please consider contacting your local accident and emergency department at your nearest hospital and ask to speak to someone from the crisis team. 

If you feel you need immediate assistance you may consider contacting the Samaritans, they are available by telephone on 116 123 or by email on jo@samaritans.org 

If you are in crisis or a medical emergency arises during our sessions

If at any point during the counselling session, or throughout the counselling process, you were in need of additional support, I may ask for your consent to contact your GP or recommend alternative avenues of support. 

If a medical emergency should arise during our session, I will contact your emergency contact or emergency services to assist you. 

Conditions of counselling

Before counselling can start, we will have an assessment session, so I can understand a bit more about your current situation and problems you are facing. The assessment session will also help to see if the service I offer is right for you. It also gives you the chance to see if you are happy to work with me. The assessment session will last up to 50 minutes.

As I aim to offer confidentiality regarding the content of our sessions, I would ask that you do the same by not sharing any of the content of our sessions with any third party. As part of my practice, I attend supervision on a regular basis. When elements of our sessions are taken to supervision, no identifying information such as your name is used. My supervisor also follows the same procedures for confidentiality as I have outlined.