Confidentiality

It is important that during your discussions, you feel you can talk openly with your practitioner and that your right to privacy is protected. This generally means that your practitioner cannot discuss you or your case with any third party without your consent.

Written Records

It is useful that your practitioner takes notes during your session. These tend to be brief and include information such as the dates you met, the topics covered, any problems or goals you have, and the progress of treatment. These are really just to document your meeting and ensure no important information that could be useful to treatment is lost.

Exceptions to Confidentiality

There are some situations that may arise when confidentiality codes may be broken. Although these situations are rare, you should be made aware of them:

  1. If you threaten to cause harm to yourself, and we believe your threat to be serious, then we are ethically required to protect you in any way we see fit. In situations such as these, our intervention may involve talking to you about going to a hospital. We may also need to call a crisis team or, in some cases, the police.

  2. Likewise, if you threaten to harm another person, we are required by law to protect anyone we feel may be in danger. This could include making contact with the person or people who have been threatened and, in some cases, notifying the police.

  3. If we suspect that any child, elderly person, or vulnerable person is at risk from abuse or neglect, the law requires us  to report this to the appropriate authorities. Laws such as these are enforced to protect any vulnerable people from being hurt.

  4. In order for us to provide you with the best treatments, we will need to seek advice from our clinical supervisors. All mental health workers receive clinical supervision on a regular basis for the duration of their career to ensure that best practice is maintained. When we do need to talk to our clinical supervisor about your case in order to help you, this will be done with your best interests in mind. Your identity will always be kept confidential. Furthermore, the content of what we discuss will also be treated with the same level of confidentiality and the same exceptions to confidentiality.

Cancellations

We understand that plans can change, so please let us know if you are no longer able to make your appointment. We require at least 48 hours notice for a full refund. There will be no refund for any cancellations that occur within 24 hours of the appointment.

Privacy

We value your privacy, so we don't share your data with anyone, unless you have explicitly signed up for a joint service between us and one of our partner organizations.