Lindow Counselling

I am active on Social Media and have devised a social media policy to clearly set out to my clients how I operate ethically and professionally on public sites. The policy is also to protect my client’s privacy and confidentiality, and our therapeutic relationship. If you have any questions about this policy then feel free to ask them in our session together or via email.

I have a Facebook Professional Page for Lindow Counselling and my online practice (Helena Hodgson MBACP Lindow Counselling) but I have no expectation that you will follow this. I use this page to share my blog, inspirational quotes and any helpful articles on mental health issues. You are welcome to follow this page or even ‘like’ the page but I will not engage in any counselling or help via this page. You can comment on this page but do bear in mind that this could compromise your confidentiality that you are seeing me as a client or it may impact our therapeutic relationship.
I will not accept friends or contact requests from any client or colleagues on my personal Facebook account. This page is private and for friends and family only.

This is my professional profile. You are welcome to look at it but I will not accept any requests from clients or from anyone I do not know.

Blog

I regularly blog about mental health issues giving useful self-help tips. I have no expectation that you will follow this or comment on it. Just like Facebook, remember commenting can compromise your confidentiality. If you choose to comment on it, I suggest you use a pseudonym name and a different email address in order to protect your privacy. Additionally, if you choose to follow this via email then your contact details will be stored on my computer.

I will not search for clients via google or any other search engine. I will not also follow or comment on current or past client’s blog posting. Either of these activities could jeopardise our therapeutic relationship. If there are things that are online that you wish to share with me then you need to please bring them to your counselling session so that we can talk about it.

Do not message me via Facebook or LinkedIn. I do not monitor these accounts actively and these accounts are not secure. If you wish to contact me in between our sessions then either telephone, text or email me.

You may have found out about me on sites that list businesses. Some of these sites allow users to add a review. If you have found me via these sites you are not obliged to rate or endorse me as a client and I will never ask you to leave a review. You do have the right to comment on these sites. Remember these sites are public forum and any sharing any information could reveal who you are. To protect your privacy it is best to use another email address and pseudonym name. If you do have any issues that are troubling you then it is best you bring it to our sessions together as this can be an important part of our therapy.

This Privacy Policy explains how I Helena Hodgson of Lindow Counselling, use and protect any information that you give to me when you use this service. I am committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should I ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using this website, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy statement. I may change this policy from time to time and I suggest that you regularly check this page to ensure that you continue to be comfortable with the measures that I am taking to protect your privacy. This policy is effective from 25th May 2018. By visiting www.lindowcounselling.co.uk, you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this policy. Helena Hodgson is registered with the ICO under the Data Protection Act 1998 as a data controller (Registration No. ZA455380.) Full details of my notified purposes can be viewed on the Information Commissioner’s Office website https://ico.org.uk/ Information I may collect In order to operate effectively and provide you the best experience when using my services, I may ask you to provide some general identification and contact information, such as your name, address, email, telephone details, gender, marital/family status and date of birth. You may also share with me sensitive information that may be volunteered by you, as to why you are interested in using my services. You provide some of this data directly when you email me to request information on counselling, or supervision. With regard to each of your visits to my site, I may automatically collect the following information:

• Technical information, including the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform
• Information about your visit, including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL) clickstream to, through and from my site (including date and time); services you viewed or searched for; page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page. I will process your data when it is in the legitimate interest to do this and when these interests are not overridden by your data protection rightsI use it to provide you with an invoice or receipt for my services, to communicate with you regarding enquiries you have made, to book, change or cancel an agreed appointment in the event of an emergency or unexpected situation and to advise you of any useful information that may come to our attention which is related to your original enquiry.

I will only use your personal information for the purposes for which it was obtained in the first place. I won’t share it with any third parties and you won’t receive any communications from other organisations. However, there are two very explicit ways in which your data might be shared:

• Where I am legally bound to disclose your personal information, for example, to further criminal investigation or
• To keep you safe if I believe you (or someone else) is at risk of serious harm or abuse. Where I store your personal data The data that I collect from you will be transferred to and stored at a destination within the European Economic Area (EEA). All personal information is protected by passwords and anti-virus support. Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although I will do my best to protect your personal data, I cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to my site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once I have received your information, I will use strict procedures and security features to prevent unauthorised access.

I am 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. I may hold some types of data for up to six years. For example, in the case of financial transactions, I 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.

You can request access to the personal information that I hold about you. I will provide this except in the limited circumstances in which I am permitted not to. Any access request may be subject to a fee of £10 to meet my costs in providing you with details of the information I hold about you.