Privacy Policy 

Leon Day Counselling is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information.  This section describes how personal information about you is collected and used in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the relevant professional bodies. 

Information about you
In order for me to be able to fulfil my responsibilities as a counsellor, I will need to record personal information about you. This information includes your name, address and contact details, and GP practice. Under an identifying code, I will also take notes of ‘assessment information’, that is, relevant medical information and aspects of your personal, social and family history that you choose to share with me.
This information will be retained within a secure online note-taking system provided by We Are KiKu, on a password-protected Apple Mac.
Your contact details will be used to contact you. Other personal data, such as your name, address and/or date of birth, will be used to verify your identity if there is a need to contact your G.P., or a request for access to personal data from yourself or your representative, or a legitimate legal instrument such as a court order.
This personal information will be held for a period of three years after the cessation of our counselling relationship, except where there is a mutually agreed decision to retain it for longer or where I believe that it is in my best professional interests to do so.
Your contact details alone will be shared in exceptional circumstances with my supervisor or other named agent if I am incapacitated, so that they can contact you to explain the situation. The details of this arrangement are set out in my professional will.

Information about counselling sessions and our work together
I will record notes of each therapy session under an identifying code. These notes will be a brief factual record of the session. This set of notes will include any agreements made with regard to, for example, cancelled sessions. The notes are held within a secure online note-taking system provided by We Are KiKu.
These notes may be shared under the identifying code with my supervisor, counselling professional body or similar for purposes of maintaining professional standards and aiding my professional development.
These notes will be held for a period of three years after the cessation of counselling, except where I agree with you to retain them for longer, or where I believe that it is in my best professional interests to do so.

I may make information from these notes available to legitimate third parties under the following conditions:
Receipt of a request from you or your representative, and where the release of the notes is not judged by me as likely to cause you significant harm or harm to another person.
Where there is a specific legal requirement for me to do so.
There is an ethical duty for me to do, for example, to avoid serious harm to yourself or another person, including the safeguarding of children or vulnerable adults.

Phone contacts between us
I will hold your name and telephone number on my mobile phone until our counselling relationship ends, and then I will delete it from my contact list. 
The phone is password-protected, and details are stored in ‘the cloud’ so they can be restored if my phone is lost or stolen.

Your Rights
You have the right to ask to see any information held by me about you. To do this, please either ask me or submit a request by writing. You also have the right to ask for information that you believe to be incorrect to be rectified. I will endeavour to provide you with the information requested within four weeks.
If I become aware of a situation where your personal information may have accidentally or maliciously been obtained by a third party, I will notify you within three days.
If you are concerned about the way that your information is being held, please discuss this with me. If you are still unhappy, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.

Agreement
Without your agreement to my holding your personal information, it will not be possible to proceed with counselling.