Privacy policy
Protecting your personal information.
We, at Cold Ash Counselling, know that you care how information about you is used and shared; and we appreciate your trust in us to do that carefully and sensibly.
This is our Privacy Policy, relating to our website, use of emails and texts for the purposes of contacting you about our service, and any other ways we collect information. It covers how we process any personal information you provide to us, as well as how we are committed to keeping it safe and managing it in line with data protection laws.
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
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 Therapy Agreement
We will not collect this information from you at any other time.
We do not have any features that collect any information from you via a contact
form, comment boxes or payment facility on our website.
HOW WE COLLECT YOUR INFORMATION
We collect information in the following ways:
- When you give it to us directly
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 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 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.
As all therapists are required to keep appropriate records of their client work, we may keep some brief notes of your sessions. The notes are fully anonymised and do not contain any of the information we collect from you, as detailed above. Anonymised notes are kept in a locked cabinet or on a password protected secure computer in accordance with data protection laws.
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 only ever communicate with you via email or telephone (calls or texts), outside of our face to face sessions.
VISITING THRID 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 financial data.
COOKIES
Like most websites, we use ‘cookies’ to help us improve how we create, and how you use, this site. Cookies mean that a website will remember you and can obtain an overall view of visitor habits and volumes to this 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 this 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.
WHAT YOUR RIGHTS ARE
We want to make sure you’re in control of how your information is used and stored.
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.
If you wish to find out more about these rights, have any questions about this Privacy Policy, have anything you’d like to correct, or you’d like to request a copy of the information we hold about you, please contact:
Email: nicolawildin@coldashcounselling.com
Or you can find out more on the Information Commissioner’s Office website at https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/