Privacy Policy

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What personal information do we need to hold?

• Information relating to your past and current mental health; personal details such as your age, address, telephone & General Medical Practitioner (GP)
• Records of correspondence (email, telephone or other) between you and Families For Life.™ 
• Records  of correspondence between Families For Life™  staff and professionals involved in your healthcare.
• Any correspondence relating to you with other health care professionals, for example in community services.
• Assessment reports detailing presenting problems, personal information, risk assessments, and recommendations for therapy.
• Information about therapy we have provided or purpose and it's cost.
• Brief  notes of therapy or incidents that might occur for which a record needs to  be kept.
• Records of consent and agreement to therapy.

Why do we hold this information? 

• We need to keep accurate personal data about clients in order to provide you  with safe & appropriate counselling service. 
• We  also need to process personal data about you if we are referring you to a further service such as specific specialist  counsellor, psychotherapist or practitioner psychologist. 
• In some circumstances we also need to process personal data about you if we are referring you to an NHS service. 

Security

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.

Your information is held by Families For Life™ in a secure manual filing system. The information is only accessible to authorised personnel. Personal information will not be removed from this practice without the clients authorised consent.
Your Personal information is carefully protected by the staff at Families For Life.™  

Why we may need to disclose your information. In order to provide proper and safe care to:
 

• Your general medical practitioner
• Emergency services
• Other health professionals caring for you
• Private counsellors, psychotherapists and practitioner psychologists to whom you are potentially being referred to.

Disclosure will take place on a 'need to know' basis, so that only those individuals/organisations who need to know in order to provide care to you and the proper administration of Government (whose personnel are covered by strict confidentiality rules) will be given the information. Only information that the recipient needs to know will be disclosed. In very limited circumstances or when required by law or a court order, personal data may have to be disclosed to a third party not connected with your health care. In all other situations, disclosure that is not covered by this code of practice will only occur when we have your specific consent. Where possible you will be informed of these requests for disclosure.
 

GDPR 

For Families For Life™ to undertake a psychological assessment, make recommendations for treatment and make an appropriate referral, personal data needs to be recorded and processed appropriately. By requesting  Families For Life™  services, clients expect their data to be processed for these specific purposes as a part of Families For Life™  undertaking their contractual responsibilities.

Families For Life™processing of the data subject is therefore a necessary aspect of the fulfilment of our contractual obligation to the clients to whom We provide our services. Additionally we adhere to The British Association of Counsellors  and psychotherapists  (BACP) which constitutes the ‘national  competent body’ whose Professional Standards and Ethics include an obligation of professional secrecy to which Families For Life™  staff are bound.  For more information visit: www.Bacp.co.uk

Third Party Web Sites and Services

We may, from time to time, employ the services of other parties for dealing with matters that may include, but are not limited to, payment handling, delivery of purchased items, search engine facilities, advertising and marketing.  The providers of such services do have access to certain personal Data provided by Users of this Web Site.  Any Data used by such parties is used only to the extent required by them to perform the services that We request.  Any use for other purposes is strictly prohibited.  Furthermore, any Data that is processed by third parties must be processed within the terms of this Policy and in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

Controlling Access to your Data

Right to access

Under GDPR, an individual has the right to find out from a data controller if their personal data is being process, where this is happening and why. Controllers must provide a copy of that data free of charge when requested. 

Retaining information

At Families For Life,™ we are committed to retaining your personal information for no longer than necessary in relation to the purpose for which it was first collected. This is in line with guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office. Families For Life™may hold some types of data for up to seven years.

For example, in the case of financial transactions like donations and purchases, we will keep your personal information for as long as legally required in respect of tax or accounting purposes, which could be anything up to six years after a transaction has taken place

Right to erasure

Also known as ‘the right to be forgotten’, individuals can ask the data controller to:

• delete their personal data
• stop its dissemination
• stop third parties processing it

If at any point you believe the information we process on you is incorrect you can request to see this information and have it corrected or deleted. If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal data, you can contact our Data Protection Officer, who will investigate the matter.

If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are processing your personal data not in accordance with the law you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Copyright

Material on this website, including text and images, is protected by copyright. It may not be copied, reproduced, republished, downloaded, posted, broadcast or transmitted in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial use. Prior written consent of the copyright holder must be obtained for any other use of material. Copyright in all materials and/or works contained within this website remains with Families For Life™ and other copyright owner(s) as specified. No part of this site or sub-domains of this site may be distributed or copied for any commercial purpose.

Changes to this Policy

Families For Life™ reserves the right to change this Privacy Policy as we may deem necessary from time to time or as may be required by law. Any changes will be immediately posted on the Web Site and you are deemed to have accepted the terms of the Policy on your first use of the Web Site following the alterations.