Privacy Policy

Contact Details:

Name: Katarzyna Boczek

Phone number: 07743797959

I understand how important your privacy is. I take care to maintain your confidentiality in accordance with current data protection laws (GDPR, 2018) and the ethical guidelines of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. These guidelines have been set up to protect your confidential material and ensure that your therapist always conducts themselves with professionalism and integrity.

In order to provide you with the best service possible, I will hold your personal contact details and records of your therapy sessions. Please find below important information about how this information will be held and used.

Your personal information

At the point of contracting, you will be asked for your personal contact information, for example, your name, address, email address and telephone number.

To be able to fulfil my duty of care to you, I will also ask you for contact information for your elected Emergency Contact person.

Your information will be held on a password-protected computer, within the encrypted and password-protected folder. The backup copy will be held on a password-protected external drive.

This personal information will be held for the duration of your therapy after which it will be deleted from the database.

Please note that I will need to keep a record of your name and client reference number for seven years after the end of your therapy so that we can respond effectively to any potential requests regarding your clinical notes and treatment.

I will never pass on your contact details to any third-party organisations for the purposes of sales, marketing or research and will never use your personal data for any purposes other than the administration of the counselling service I am providing to you i.e. to arrange, cancel and rearrange appointments and collect payment for sessions.

Your payment details

If you pay by bank transfer or BACS, we will give you bank details and you can make a direct payment. Information we receive such as your payee name and the amount paid will be retained for banking and tax purposes.

Confidentiality

As a member of BACP, I am bound by their Ethical Framework to protect a client’s confidentiality. Therefore, everything that we discuss is confidential except in certain circumstances:

1) I am given a subpoena (Court order or instructions from a coroner)

2) The client infers involvement in, or knowledge of an act of terrorism, drug trafficking or money laundering.

3) The client infers knowledge of or involvement in behaviours that may, in the therapist’s opinion, lead to harm or neglect of children and vulnerable adults.

Prior to starting counselling, I also require your permission to contact your GP or emergency contact when I might have serious concerns about risk to yourself. I might contact your emergency contact if we lose contact during a phone or online appointment, and I have concerns for your safety. The briefest and most relevant details will be given in this instance.

Your sessions

During remote working I will ensure that I am conducting online and telephone sessions in a quiet, private, and confidential setting. I have selected video calling platforms that offer end-to-end encryption to ensure maximum privacy. Please note however that I cannot be held responsible for any breaches that occur due to failures in this technology.

As a counsellor, I am required to have regular supervision with a more experienced counsellor to ensure that my work is safe, ethical, and effective. Aspects of our work may be discussed during these sessions, but no full names will be used, and identifiable details will be removed. My supervisor is a BACP member and is bound by the same confidentiality rules as myself.

I keep notes of each session. These notes are fully anonymised, ensuring they contain no information that could directly identify you and no one else will have access to the notes.

These notes are for my use only and help to keep track of everything that is being discussed. In line with industry guidelines, these notes will be kept securely for up to seven years after your therapy comes to an end. After this time, they will be confidentially destroyed.

If your sessions are paid for or arranged via a third party, (e.g. your employer, a friend, or a family member), other than payment requests, invoices or receipts your counselling information will not be shared. Details about what is discussed in your sessions will remain confidential between us Any other information can only be shared if you provide your written consent.

Your communications with me

My email account is password-protected and only I have access to it. All phones, tablets and laptops used to respond to your emails are encrypted, fully protected with anti-virus software and password protected.

Any emails or text messages will be deleted after receipt unless they form part of your notes or are needed for income tax purposes, in which case they will be kept for 7 years as above.

Data Usage

I will only use your email address and telephone number to contact you about your appointments. I may also contact you directly via email in order to share information with you that is pertinent to your therapeutic process.

Your phone number may also be used to issue appointment reminders via text message.

Your rights

Any personal data retained by me is kept in accordance with the GDPR, 2018.

Under these guidelines, you have the following rights:

The right to request access to your data

You can request to view the information that I hold about you (contact details, appointment logs etc.) at any time. If during therapy you would like to see your session notes, please let me know. Should you require a copy of your notes after your therapy has come to an end you can make this request by emailing kat@uprtherapy.co.uk.

The right of rectification

At any point during your time using my service or during the seven years thereafter, while we retain your records, you have the right to request amendments to your details or session notes. This right can be exercised either by speaking directly to me or by emailing info@uprtherapy.co.uk.

The right to be forgotten

You can request that I delete and confidentially destroy the information that I hold about you and your sessions at any time. This request can be made by contacting me at info@uprtherapy.co.uk.

Instances, where I would not be able to comply with your request, are as follows:

It is necessary for me to retain these records in order to continue providing an effective service
I am compelled to retain these records by a Court of Law
I require these records in order to establish, exercise or defend legal claims
It is required by my insurer

Review of this privacy policy

I may update this privacy notice from time to time as necessary. I will provide you with an updated version if that happens via email.

If you have any questions regarding my privacy policy, please contact me.

Breaches of data protection

In the event of any breach of my data protection policies, I will notify you and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) within 72 hours and will seek to rectify this immediately.

Raising concerns

Should you have any concerns about my data protection practices, you can raise these directly with me. You can also notify the Information Commissioner’s Office. I am registered with ICO under the reference number ZB677251.