privacy & cookie policy

This privacy and cookie policy sets out how Kelly Weatherer Counselling uses and protects any information that you give when you attend sessions or when you contact me by other means and the lawful basis under the Data Protection Act 1998 and the General Data Protection Regulations (‘GDPR’ enacted 25th May 2018) that permits me to do so.

You may visit my marketing pages freely without having to contact or use my services.

Privacy policy

Consent to hold your personal data

Kelly Weatherer Counselling is committed to ensuring that I protect your privacy and will seek your explicit written consent to hold personal data about you, specifically and only for the purposes of providing counselling to you.

I may also analyse data you provide me with for the purposes of providing the best possible service to you. If you make contact, you will be asked to provide certain information by which you can be identified (see below). You can be assured that all this information is held securely and will only be used in accordance with data protection principles, my data protection and confidentiality policies and ethical principles (contained in the National Counselling and Psychotherapy Society’s (NCPS) Code of Ethical Practice.

I will honour the confidence and trust you have placed in me. The basis on which I hold or share information about you is outlined below and also the limits around confidentiality. You have the right of access to information I hold about you and to amend or ask for deletion of information that may not be accurate or correct. Please contact me if you wish to view the data I hold about you.

Kelly Weatherer Counselling will not hold your data for longer than is deemed necessary for the purposes of counselling and following best practice and legal guidance. If you wish to know how long we hold data or notes for please contact me.

For the purpose of the Data Protection Act 1998 and the GDPR, the data controller is Kelly Weatherer Counselling. You may also contact me via hello@kellyweatherercounselling.co.uk.

By signing a consent form prior to commencing sessions, you agree to have your data stored.

The types of personal data I collect and use, whether or not you become a client of my counselling service

I’ll use your personal data for the purposes of initiating counselling for you. I collect the majority of this information during first contact and assessment. I will advise you if any of this data is optional. At first contact, I will collect the following information in order to establish if we can provide you with counselling:

  • Your name

  • Contact information including your email address and/or phone number.

At assessment

  • Your name

  • Date of birth

  • Contact information including your email address

  • Home address

  • Next of kin or emergency contact

  • Other information relevant to you engaging in counselling with us, e.g. the name of your medical practice

  • Information about any disability or communication difficulty you may have

  • A brief description of what is bringing you for counselling now

  • At assessment you will be asked to agree to give me permission to process your data

  • Anonymised counselling notes – your identity is protected and these notes are not shared with anyone unless I am legally required to do so or the client specifically requests we share them with another third party, which we have the right to refuse to do

  • Personal data that identifies you and counselling notes are held separately and securely to protect your anonymity

  • You have the right to view these notes and you would be advised of any request to share your notes

  • These notes are the property of Kelly Weatherer Counselling and not the client.

What I do with the information I gather

I collect this information to understand your needs from counselling and provide you with a better service, and in particular for the following reasons:

  • Internal record keeping

  • The lawful basis and purpose of holding this data is to ensure I can meet the terms for providing a contract for counselling with you. I will also use your personal data to meet any legal obligations placed upon me – for instance when you exercise your rights to see what data I  hold under data protection law or in order to meet any legal compliance placed on me.

All information you provide to us is stored securely and information held on computer is held on our secure servers. Any payment transactions via your bank will only be identified by an anonymised client reference number and no other information will be required or shared. Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet cannot be completely secure. I have in place security measures to protect your personal data, but I cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site, particularly by email; any transmission is at your own risk.

Once I have received your information, I will use my own policies and procedures as far as is reasonably possible to prevent unauthorised access. I am committed to making sure your information is secure.

I do not share your personal information with anyone else unless in pursuit of counselling on your behalf and only then if I have your permission to do so. In exceptional circumstances I may be required by law and my ethical responsibilities to break my confidentiality with you. I would discuss this with you first wherever possible but if you do not give consent I may still have to disclose information. This relates to situations where you may be at risk of harm, causing harm to others, the safeguarding of children, young people and adults at risk, acts of terrorism and unreported crime where we are under legal obligations.

Access to information

You have the right of access to the personal information which I hold about you under the Data Protection Act 1998 and the GDPR and also the right of access to your client notes. You can contact me or email if you wish to examine what I hold and believe that any information I am holding on you is incorrect or incomplete. Steps will be taken to correct any incorrect information that we hold. There is no charge to access this information and it will be provided to you within one week unless circumstances require longer, but this will not exceed a month in any event.

You have the right to complain to the Information Commissioners’ Office in connection with enforcement and compliance with data protection law at www.ico.org.uk

About cookies

A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server.

Cookies may be either "persistent" cookies or "session" cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date unless deleted by the user before the expiry date; a session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed.

Cookies may not contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal data that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.

Cookies that we use

We use cookies identified by Squarespace, for the following purposes:

  • authentication and status - we use cookies to identify you when you visit our website and as you navigate our website

  • security - we use cookies as an element of the security measures used to protect user accounts, including preventing fraudulent use of login credentials, and to protect our website and services generally

  • analysis - we use cookies to help us to analyse the use and performance of our website and services

  • cookie consent - we use cookies to store your preferences in relation to the use of cookies more generally

Cookies used by our service providers

Our service providers use cookies and those cookies may be stored on your computer when you visit our website.

We use Google Analytics, which gathers information about the use of our website and uses cookies for this purpose. We use the information gathered by Google Analytics to create reports about the use of our website. You can find out more about Google's use of information by visiting https://policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites and you can review Google's privacy policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy. The cookies used by Google Analytics are named _ga and _ga+container-id.

Managing cookies

Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies and to delete cookies. The methods for doing so vary from browser to browser and from version to version. You can obtain up-to-date information about managing cookies via these links:

Blocking all cookies will have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites.

If you block cookies, you will not be able to use all the features on our website.

Contact me

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy notice, policies and procedures around privacy and confidentiality are welcomed and should be addressed to us by email to hello@kellyweatherercounselling.co.uk

Policy updates

From time to time, and as technology and regulations change, there may be a need to update this policy. If this is required, I will notify my clients in writing of any changes, ensuring you have access to a copy of the updated policy. 

Thank you for taking the time to review my Policy. I appreciate the content can sometimes feel overwhelming and/or challenging. If you wish to discuss these policies and procedures further, please don’t hesitate to reach out or raise them in our sessions. 

Policy last updated – November 2024