Data Protection and Privacy Policy

With You in Mind Counselling (With You in Mind) is committed to protecting the privacy of its clients and handling their personal data responsibly. This Data Protection and Privacy Policy (the Policy) sets out how With You in Mind collects, uses, stores, and shares personal data in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and other applicable data protection laws.

Collection of Personal Data

With You in Mind collects personal data about its clients in order to provide counselling and autism assessment services. This data may include:

Identification and contact details: name, address, phone number, email address
Demographic information: age, gender, date of birth
Medical and health information: medical history, diagnosis, medication, treatment history
Social and personal information: family information, education, employment, lifestyle
Autism assessment results: diagnostic observations, test scores, recommendations

Purpose and Lawful Basis for Processing Personal Data

With You in Mind processes personal data for the following purposes:

Providing counselling and autism assessment services: to assess, diagnose, and treat clients' mental health and autism needs
Communicating with clients: to schedule appointments, provide updates on progress, and send reminders
Maintaining records: to keep accurate records of client care for legal and clinical purposes
Research and quality improvement: to improve the quality of services and conduct research on autism and mental health
Direct marketing: to inform clients about new services or events (only with consent)
Legal and regulatory compliance: to comply with laws and regulations, such as reporting child abuse or safeguarding concerns

The lawful basis for processing personal data depends on the purpose of the processing. For most purposes, the lawful basis will be one of the following:

Consent: With You in Mind will obtain explicit consent from clients before using their personal data for marketing purposes
Contract: With You in Mind has a contractual obligation to process personal data in order to provide counselling and autism assessment services
Legitimate interests: With You in Mind has a legitimate interest in processing personal data for research and quality improvement purposes

Sharing Personal Data

With You in Mind will not share personal data with third parties unless it is necessary to do so in order to provide services or comply with legal obligations. In these cases, With You in Mind will take appropriate steps to ensure that third parties protect the data and use it only for the authorized purposes.

Data Retention

With You in Mind will retain personal data for no longer than is necessary for the purpose for which it was collected. The retention period for different types of data will vary depending on the purpose of the processing. For example, With You in Mind may retain client records for a longer period than marketing data.

Data Security

With You in Mind has implemented appropriate security measures to protect personal data from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. These measures include:

Physical security: Access to client records is restricted to authorized personnel
Technical security: Data is stored on secure servers with encryption
Administrative security: Staff are trained on data protection and confidentiality

Your Rights

You have the following rights in relation to your personal data:

Right of access: You have the right to access your personal data and to know how it is being processed
Right to rectification: You have the right to have inaccurate personal data rectified
Right to erasure: You have the right to have your personal data erased in certain circumstances
Right to restrict processing: You have the right to restrict the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances
Right to data portability: You have the right to receive your personal data in a structured, commonly used, and machine-readable format and to transmit your personal data to another controller
Right to object: You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances

If you wish to exercise any of your rights, please contact With You in Mind's Data Protection Officer at dr.jessicacoombes@withyouinmindcousnelling.co.uk.

Contact Information

If you have any questions about this Policy, please contact With You in Mind's Data Protection Officer at dr.jessicacoombes@withyouinmindcousnelling.co.uk.

Changes to this Policy

With You in Mind may update this Policy from time to time. Please check this page regularly for the latest version of the Policy.