Data protection

 

The information about confidentiality in no way contravenes your rights under the General Data Protection Regulation May 2018 to access personal data that Tom Sobel Counselling holds on you. Tom Sobel Counselling keeps confidential records and statistics about its clients. All records are kept securely and are only seen by authorised Tom Sobel Counselling personnel. These records are subject to the General Data Protection Regulation May 2018. Some of the information we may collect is classified as sensitive personal data and we can only use such data where we have your explicit consent. This data may include racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, trade union membership, physical or mental health, sexual life, criminal proceedings and offences. Your personal and sensitive personal data will only be used in order to provide the service to you and for managing and quality assuring the service. Records are kept for up to a period of 7 years and are then destroyed.

 

Tom Sobel Counselling recognises that on occasion, our clients may wish to exercise their rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (May 2018) and make a subject access request in respect of their personal information held by Tom Sobel Counselling. Often during counselling, information is provided by more than one individual. In these cases, Tom Sobel Counselling will only release information if consent has been given by all of the individuals involved.

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Confidentiality

 

Tom Sobel Counselling is a private and confidential form of help. We hold information about each of our clients and the counselling they receive in confidence. This means that we will not normally give your name or any information about you to anyone outside the organisation. However, there are exceptional cases where Tom Sobel Counselling might ethically or legally have to give information to relevant authorities, for example, if we had reason to believe that someone, especially a child, is at serious risk of harm or to prevent a miscarriage of justice. We will discuss any proposed disclosure with you unless we believe that to do so could increase the level of risk to you or to someone else.

 

If you come with a partner or your family, the counsellor may suggest seeing each of you individually. It is important for you to know that what is said in those individual sessions will be confidential and not shared with your partner or family.

 

Unauthorised electronic recording

 

In order for you to work safely and effectively with a counsellor, it is important that the privacy of the work is respected. Please do not attempt to record your counselling session using any device or app. If it is found that recordings have been made covertly, counselling services for the individual responsible will be discontinued immediately and Tom Sobel Counselling reserves the right to seek legal advice regarding possible further action.

 

Reports and client records

 

Occasionally Tom Sobel Counselling is asked by our clients or by external agencies such as Social Services or the NHS to write reports on the progress made in counselling. We are not normally in a position to do this because of our duty of confidentiality to our clients and because Tom Sobel Counselling counsellors are not trained in the specialist areas of diagnosis or social work assessment. However, we can in some circumstances, and on receipt of written consent from the client(s) who attended counselling, provide brief information about the dates and number of sessions attended.

 

In addition, we are also asked by clients, their solicitors, the police and the courts for access to the client records. These are not suitable as evidence in legal proceedings and Tom Sobel Counselling reserves the right to resist legal requests to produce the records in court. We do this in order to protect Tom Sobel Counseling’s duty of confidentiality to all its clients and to preserve Tom Sobel Counseling’s reputation as the provider of confidential counselling.