Privacy Statement

Sky Full of Stars is committed to providing children, young people and adults with the highest quality counselling and psychotherapy support. To do this, records are kept about you and the services provided in accordance with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations). You have a right to know what data is held about you. This Privacy Statement is designed to help you understand the information that is collected from you and how it is processed and used.

 

The need for your personal information

To provide counselling and psychotherapy requires some personal or sensitive information to be collected from you. The legal term for this is called legitimate interest. Legitimate interest means your personal information can be processed if there is a genuine and legitimate reason for doing so and your rights and interests are not being harmed. To provide counselling and psychotherapy some information, including your name, address, contact details and GP details, is required. This information is collected from you at the start of therapy.

As part of our therapeutic work, you may also disclose sensitive personal information such as gender, ethnicity, sexuality, relationship status and physical or mental health conditions. This type of information is called ‘special category personal information’. The lawful basis for processing any special category personal information is that it is for provision of health treatment (in this case counselling and psychotherapy). The use and storage of this special category personal information forms part of our contract.

What is your data used for?

Sky Full of Stars may also use the information provided by you to:

- Respond to any enquiries you make 

- Contact you regarding sessions

- Keep and maintain accurate records

- Write reports (at your request) for other healthcare or educational professionals

The information you provide may be sensitive and it will be treated confidentiality. We do not share your information with any other third party or individuals unless we are obliged to by law, for purposes of national security, taxation and criminal investigations or safeguarding, or unless we have your consent (verbal or written) to do so. 

In case of a data breach we will comply with the regulations set out by the Information commissioner office.

Initial contact

When you contact Sky Full of Stars with an enquiry about Counselling and Psychotherapy, you will need to provide information to help us respond your enquiry. This will include: name, email address and telephone number.

Alternatively, your GP or other health professional may send us your details when making a referral or a parent/carer may give us your details when making an enquiry on your behalf. If you decide not to proceed, we will delete all your personal data within 90 days. If you would like the information to be deleted sooner, please let us know. 

How your data will be kept secure

To keep our information secure we have the following processes in place:

• Hardcopy documents: Any handwritten session notes, contracts and any other reports/documents relating to you/your child will be stored in a locked filing.

• Text and WhatsApp Messages: Held on a telephone secured with a pin passcode number. 

• Emails: Password protected and held on password protected telephone and computer devices. 

• Electronic documents: All documents, including session notes are password protected and stored on a password protected computer and stored in password protected cloud storage.
 

How long will your data be kept for   

 Records of clients will be kept securely until therapy has concluded plus two years, after which time they will be securely destroyed. 

Access to your data and records

Under GDPR clients or their parent/legal guardian have rights as an individual which they can exercise in relation to the information that is held about themselves or their child. See https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/right-to-be-informed/

You have the right to request a copy of your records. Once this request is received in writing, the request for a copy of the information held about you in an intelligible form will be processed within 30 days.  Please note that any details about third parties will be blanked from records provided. There will be an administrative charge for processing documents of £30.

You also have the right to ask that any mistakes there may be in the personal information that is held about you is corrected.

Withdrawal of consent

Should you wish to withdraw your consent for data about you or your child being stored or to limit how your data is used, please put this in writing. You will receive a written response explaining what will happen next. In the event of withdrawal of consent for collecting and storing data, therapy will need to end. 
 

Complaints 

Sky Full of Stars offer high standards of care and abide by the professional BACP Ethical Framework. Should you be unhappy with the treatment or services that are offered and have not been able to resolve this directly during your sessions, complaints should be made to Jackie Bisley by email to Jackie@skyfullofstars.co.uk 

We welcome any suggestions for improving data protection procedures. If you have any complaints about how your personal information has been handled, as well as letting Sky Full of Stars know, you have the right to contact the Information Commissioners Office online https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/  or by telephone 0303 123 1113.

Website Use, Links and Cookies

 This website is managed by a third-party service, Ionos, which collects standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. This information is used to find out things such as website visitor numbers and duration of visit to the different pages of the website. This information is processed without identifying the user. 

This website uses cookies to help the site work more efficiently. No user-specific data is collected by Sky Full of Stars or any third party. If you complete the form on the website, the data you provide will be temporarily stored on the Ionos webhost before being sent to Sky Full of Stars.