The Together Collective Privacy Policy

We understand how important your privacy is. We take care to maintain your confidentiality in accordance with current data protection laws (GDPR, 2018) and the ethical guidelines of the Irish Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (IACP). These guidelines have been set up to protect your confidential material and ensure that your therapist always conducts themselves with professionalism and integrity.

In order to provide you with the best service possible, we will hold your personal contact details and records of your therapy sessions. Please find below important information about how this information will be held and used.

Your personal information

We use a secure, encrypted and password protected practice management platform, to collect and store your personal data. Your contact information is stored securely and can only be accessed by your therapist.

In order to be able to fulfil our duty of care to you, in your initial consultation session, your therapist will ask you for contact information for your GP and an elected Emergency Contact person. These details will be stored securely and will only be accessible to your therapist.

This personal information will be held for a duration of seven years, in line with IACP standards, after which it will be deleted from our secure database.

Please note that we will need to keep a record of your name and client reference number for seven years after the end of your therapy, so that we can respond effectively to any potential requests regarding your clinical notes and treatment.

We will never pass on your contact details to any third party organisations for the purposes of sales, marketing or research and will never use your personal data for any purposes other than the administration of the counselling service we are providing to you i.e. to arrange, cancel and rearrange appointments and collect payment for sessions.

Your therapy sessions

Everything that you discuss with your therapist is confidential. Confidentiality will only be broken if there is concern about your safety or the safety of someone else or we are instructed to do so by a Court of Law. We will always endeavour to speak to you about this first.

Working online

During remote working, your therapist will ensure that they are conducting online and telephone sessions in a quiet, private and confidential setting. We have selected video calling platforms through Google Meet. To make sure your data is safe, Google Meet uses several encryption methods. End-to-end encryption is used to mask data with a code that only you and the other callers have access to. Cloud encryption ensures your information is encrypted in transit and at rest in Google's data centers. Please note however that we cannot be held responsible for any breaches that occur due to failures in this technology.

Outside of Therapy Sessions

If you happen to see your therapist outside of counselling sessions, for example at a shop, an event, on the street etc. your therapist will never initiate conversation or approach you to say hello. This remains the case even if you no longer attend counselling sessions with us. This is to protect your confidentiality outside of the therapy space. Your counsellor will discuss this with you at your initial session.

Supervision

Your therapist discusses their clinical work with a supervisor. This is to ensure that they are offering you the best service possible. These conversations are bound by confidentiality and you will only be referred to by your first name.

Session Notes

Your therapist will also keep brief notes of each session. These are stored in a locked filing cabinet or within a password protected file within our secure password protected and encrypted system. These notes are for your therapist’s use only and help to keep a track of everything that is being discussed. In line with IACP guidelines, these notes will be kept securely for up to seven years after your therapy comes to an end. After this time, they will be confidentially destroyed. All email and text message correspondence are deleted. If you email us any significant information related to your therapy sessions we will store it securely with your notes.

Third Party payment of sessions

If your sessions are paid for or arranged via a third party, (e.g. your employer, a friend, or a family member), other than payment requests, invoices or receipts your counselling information will not be shared. Details about what is discussed in your sessions will remain confidential between you and your therapist. Any other information can only be shared if you provide your written consent.

Your communications with us

All of our email accounts use the secure GSuite server and are double password protected If you send an email to your therapist’s email address, only they will have access to it.

All phones, tablets and laptops used to respond to your emails are encrypted, fully protected with anti-virus software and password protected.

Data Usage

We will only use your email address and telephone number to contact you about your appointments. Your therapist may also contact you directly via email in order to share information with you that is pertinent to your therapeutic process.

Your rights

Any personal data retained by our service or your therapist is kept in accordance with the GDPR, 2018.

Under these guidelines you have the following rights:

1. The right to request access to your data

You can request to view the information that we hold about you (contact details, appointment logs etc.) at any time. If during therapy you would like to see your session notes, please make this request to your therapist directly. Should you require a copy of your notes after your therapy has come to an end, you can make this request by emailing info@thetogethercollective.ie.

2. The right of rectification

At any point during your time using our service or during the seven years thereafter, while we retain your records, you have the right to request amendments to your contact details or session notes. This right can be exercised either by speaking directly to your therapist or by contacting us in writing.

Instances where we would not be able to comply with your request are as follows:

1. a) It is necessary for us to retain these records in order to continue providing an effective service

2. b) We are compelled to retain these records by a Court of law.

3. c) We require these records in order to establish, exercise or defend legal claims

Consent

When you book your first session with us you will be asked to provide a digital signature and tick a checkbox to confirm that you consent to the storage and processing of your personal data for the purposes of providing therapeutic services.

You are entitled to withdraw this consent at any time and can do so by emailing our office at info@thetogethercollective.ie

If you are under 18, here is some additional information for you:

Your counselling sessions are private. You decide what you want to share with your parents/guardians about your counselling sessions. There is an exception to this: if your counsellor has a serious concern about your safety, then they will get in touch with your parents/guardians or someone who can help keep you safe.

If you want to, your parents/guardians can join us for a bit. If they do, we discuss beforehand what you do and don’t want to talk about. Your counselling information will be stored by us for seven years after you turn 18. Your parents/guardians need to sign a piece of paper to say they give permission for you to come to counselling.

Breaches of data protection

In the event of any breach of our data protection policies, We will notify you and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) within 72 hours and will seek to rectify this immediately.

Raising concerns

Should you have any concerns about our data protection practices, you can raise these directly with us or you can contact our regulatory body, the IACP.