Privacy Policy

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Confidentiality 

RJU Therapy is a private and confidential form of help. I hold information about each of my clients and the services they receive in confidence. This means that I will not normally give your name or any information about you to anyone outside the organisation. However, there are exceptional cases where I might ethically or legally have to give information to relevant authorities. For example, if I have reason to believe that someone, especially a child, is at serious risk of harm or to prevent a miscarriage of justice. I will discuss any proposed disclosure with you unless I believe that doing so increase the level of risk to you or to someone else. 

If you come to counselling with a partner or your family, I 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. 

Reports and client records 

Occasionally, I am asked by clients or by external agencies such as Social Services or the NHS to write reports on the progress made in counselling or other services. I am not normally in a position to do this because of my duty of confidentiality to my clients and because I am not trained in the specialist areas of diagnosis or social work assessment. However, I can in some circumstances, and on receipt of written consent from the client(s) who attended a service, provide brief information about the dates and number of sessions attended. In addition, I am also asked by clients, their solicitors, the police and the courts for access to my client records. These are not suitable as evidence in legal proceedings and I reserve the right to resist legal requests to produce the records in court. I  do this in order to protect my duty of confidentiality to all my clients and to preserve my reputation as a qualified  provider of confidential counselling and relationship support. 

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 I hold about you. I am required to keep confidential records and statistics about clients. All records are kept securely. These records are subject to the General Data Protection Regulation May 2018. Some of the information I collect is classified as sensitive personal data and I can only use such data where I 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. I keep records for a period of 7 years at which point they are destroyed. 

I recognise that on rare occasions 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 RJU Therapy. Often during counselling, information is provided by more than one individual. In these cases I will only release information if consent has been given by all of the individuals involved. If at any time you wish to exercise your right under the Act you should put your request in writing and provide evidence of your identity such as a copy of your passport or driver’s licence and proof of your address. When I receive your written request and evidence of identity, I will respond to your request within one calendar month. A response to a valid subject access request will normally be in the form of a schedule listing and describing the personal data I hold on them. 

Unauthorised electronic recording: 

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