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Light Step Counselling Privacy Policy

Light Step Counselling (“we”, “us” and or “our”) takes General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) seriously and respects the privacy of its users and customers. This policy describes the type of personal information we collect and how we collect, use and store your information.

Our website is hosted on the Wix.com platform. Your data may be stored through Wix.com’s data storage, databases and the general Wix.com applications. They store your data on secure servers behind a firewall.

This website uses Google Analytics.

We use cookies  to collect information about your use of the website to help understand the performance of the website.

To understand more about cookies, you can visit allaboutcookies.org for more information on what cookies are and how they are used.

Your IP address will be anonymised but Google Analytics collects information such as your device type; operating system; URL referrals; location; pages visited. To avoid using Google Analytics, you can install the ‘Google Analytics Opt-Out Browser Add-On’ from here: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

For more information, please visit Google's Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy

Our contact details

Name: Louise Diffey

Address: 18 Hulse Road, BS4 5AL

Phone Number: 0117 450 2905

E-mail: lightstepcounselling@gmail.com

This Privacy Notice was updated on 11/09/2023

The type of personal information we collect

We currently collect and process the following information:

  • Name

  • Postal Address

  • Email Address

  • Telephone number

  • GP Surgery details

  • Relevant basic medical information

  • Counselling Assessment data

  • Counselling notes (anonymous)

How we get the personal information and why we have it

Most of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you for one of the following reasons:

  • You have requested a counselling service (data deleted if service not required)

  • You are receiving or have received a counselling service from me

We also receive personal information indirectly, from the following sources in the following scenarios:

  • Counselling Directory if you have used this directory to request a service from me

  • British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy if you have used this directory to request a service from me

  • National Counselling Society directory if you have used this directory to request a service from me

  • Psychology Today directory if you have used this directory to request a service from me

We use the information that you have given us in the following ways:

  • To arrange to provide you with a counselling service

  • To provide you with an appropriate counselling service

  • To use in professional supervision to optimise your counselling service

  • To refer you to another service with your agreement

  • We may share this information with emergency services or local authority safeguarding services in the case of safeguarding concerns for your safety.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the lawful bases we rely on for processing this information are:

  • Your consent-You can remove your consent at any time. You can do this by contacting:

Name: Louise Diffey

Address: 18 Hulse Road, Brislington, Bristol, BS4 5AL

Telephone Number: 0117 450 2905

E-mail: lightstepcounselling@gmail.com

  • We have a contractual obligation.

  • We have a legitimate interest. We have checked that legitimate interests is the most appropriate basis.

  • We understand our responsibility to protect the individual’s interests.

  • We only use individuals’ data in ways they would reasonably expect, unless we have a very good reason.

  • We would pass personal information to a third party without your consent if we had a concern for your immediate safety or the immediate safety of someone else.

  • We would pass personal information to a third party if we were legally obliged to do so, such as in the case that you inform of us of a serious crime, or if your notes are requested by a court of law.

How we store your personal information

Your anonymised information is securely stored only on a password protected spreadsheet.

We keep your contact details, counselling assessment and counselling notes for five years in accordance with our professional malpractice insurance policy. We will then dispose your information by deleting it from our spreadsheet, which is set to automatically delete information when it becomes five years old.

Your data protection rights

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

  • Your right of access - You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.

  • Your right to rectification - You have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.

  • Your right to erasure - You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.

  • Your right to restriction of processing - You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.

  • Your right to object to processing - You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.

  • Your right to data portability - You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.

You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you. Please contact us at lightstepcounselling@gmail.com if you wish to make a request.

How to complain

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, you can make a complaint to us at:

Name: Louise Diffey

Address: PO Box 3472, Bristol, BS4 9HQ

Phone Number: 0117 450 2905

E-mail: lightstepcounselling@gmail.com

You can make a complaint through the British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists at:

https://www.bacp.co.uk/about-therapy/get-help-with-counselling-concerns-service/

Get help with counselling concerns service is available from Monday to Thursday, 9.30am to 4pm. Calls are limited to a maximum of 30 minutes.

At other times or, if you have difficulty accessing the service by telephone, please leave us a voicemail or email

call on 01455 883300

option 2,
07811 762114 or 07811 762256

Email gethelp@bacp.co.uk

Anything you say will be confidential and you can speak with us anonymously if you prefer.

You can also complain to the ICO if you are unhappy with how we have used your data.

The ICO’s address:           

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Helpline Telephone: 0303 123 1113

ICO website: https://www.ico.org.uk

We can change this privacy policy at any time, so please bear this in mind. Changes will take effect from the point at which they are published on the website. If we change this policy, we will notify you on this web page that it has been updated.

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