PRACTICE POLICIES

If you are experiencing a crisis please call 999 or proceed to your nearest Accident and Emergency Room.

Confidentiality

Everything that you discuss in therapy is confidential, meaning I cannot share any information with any other person or entity without your written consent. Confidentiality will only be broken without your written consent 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. I will always endeavor to speak to you about this first.

Sessions are conducted in a confidential setting. The video calling software I use offers end to end encryption to further protect your privacy. Please note that I cannot be held responsible for any breaches caused by failures in this technology.

I may discuss my clinical work with a supervisor. This is to ensure that I am offering you the best service possible. These conversations are bound by confidentiality & if your case is discussed you will only be referred to by your first name. 

Notes are kept of each session. These are anonymized & are stored securely in a password protected file within the Kiku electronic health record system. These notes are for my use only, for the purposes of continuity in your care. In line with industry standards, these notes must be kept securely for up to 7 years after your therapy comes to an end, after which they will be confidentially destroyed.

You have the right to view these notes at any time. To make this request please contact me directly.

All confidential information is held in accordance with the GDPR, 2018 using the secure & encrypted Kiku system (please see their Privacy Policy for more information at https://www.wearekiku.com/privacy-notices). 

Appointments

Initial sessions are up to 80 minutes in duration. On-going sessions are 50 minutes. Sessions are commonly held once per week but may be more or less frequent depending on clinical interest and availability. 

Please ensure that you choose a quiet and private location to conduct your online or telephone sessions and that you log in on time to make full use of the appointment. Please note that sessions cannot be extended beyond the scheduled time.

Should we experience any technical difficulties, I will endeavor to switch to an alternative session format (e.g. another video calling platform, telephone or alternative phone line) so the session can continue with minimal disruption.

Outside of your scheduled therapy sessions, it is not usual for you to have contact with me. If you think that you may need extra support, please discuss this directly with me. 

Payment

Fees are invoiced monthly and are payable by bank transfer or credit card. 

Initial sessions are billed at £250. On-going sessions are billed at £200.

I use Stripe for credit card invoicing. In the interest of your privacy payments will appear on your account statement under ‘Professional Services.’

Making changes to your appointments

It is expected that you will attend scheduled sessions. For counseling to be effective regular and consistent attendance is essential. It is also important that we are aware of any planned breaks so that we can prepare. I will endeavor to give you at least 4 weeks’ notice of any holidays and I expect that you try to do the same. 

If you know you cannot attend a scheduled appointment you may contact me to request a make-up session. Make-up session requests must be received with two working days notice before your scheduled session. Make-up sessions must be scheduled within 7 calendar days of the original session. If a session cannot be made up within 7 calendar days, you will be billed for the full session fee. Please note that insurance cannot be billed for cancelled sessions.

The full session fee will be charged for cancelled sessions, where two working days notice has not been given & for non-attended sessions, where no prior notice has been given. Please note that insurance cannot be billed for non-attended sessions.

Raising Concerns

Should you have any problems at all with the service that you receive, please inform me as soon as possible. All concerns are taken extremely seriously and will be addressed according to the Ethics and Standards of my regulatory bodies. For more information about the Ethics and Standards I adhere to please visit Social Work England and the New York State Education Department Office of the Professions

Data Protection

Your privacy is very important to me and you can be confident that your personal information will be kept safe and secure and will only be used for the purpose it was given to me. I adhere to current data protection legislation, including the General Data Protection Regulation (EU/2016/679) (the GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003. 

This privacy notice tells you what I will do with your personal information from initial point of contact through to after your psychotherapy has ended, including: 

  • Why I am able to process your information and what purpose I am processing it for 

  • Whether you have to provide it to me 

  • How long I store it for 

  • Whether there are other recipients of your personal information

  • Whether I intend to transfer it to another country, 

  • Whether I do automated decision-making or profiling, and 

  • Your data protection rights. 

I am happy to chat through any questions you might have about my data protection policy and you can contact me via email at mk@meghankelley-lcsw.com.

My lawful basis for holding and using your personal information 

The GDPR states that I must have a lawful basis for processing your personal data. There are different lawful bases depending on the stage at which I am processing your data. I have explained these below: If you have had therapy with me and it has now ended, I will use legitimate interest as my lawful basis for holding and using your personal information. If you are currently having therapy or if you are in contact with me to consider therapy, I will process your personal data where it is necessary for the performance of our contract. The GDPR also makes sure that I look after any sensitive personal information that you may disclose to me appropriately. This type of information is called ‘special category personal information’. The lawful basis for me processing any special categories of personal information is that it is for provision of health treatment (in this case psychotherapy) and necessary for a contract with a health professional (in this case, a contract between me and you). 

How I use your information 

When you contact me with an enquiry about my psychotherapy services I will collect information to help me satisfy your enquiry. This will include your email should you choose to complete the email inquiry form on my website. Alternatively, your GP or other health professional may send me your details when making a referral or a parent or trusted individual may give me your details when making an enquiry on your behalf. If you decide not to proceed I will ensure all your personal data is deleted within 16 weeks. If you would like me to delete this information sooner, just let me know. 

While you are accessing therapy

Everything you discuss with me is confidential. That confidentiality will only be broken if, as listed above, 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. I will always try to speak to you about this first, unless there are safeguarding issues that prevent this. 

I will keep a record of your personal details to help the psychotherapy services run smoothly. These details are kept securely in an encrypted, password protected electronic health record (Kiku) and are not shared with any third party. I will keep written notes of each session, these are kept in your electronic health record. Any email correspondence will be deleted after 16 weeks. If necessary I will add information from email correspondence from you to the notes in the electronic health record. 

After psychotherapy has ended. 

Once our work together has ended your records will be kept for 7 years from the end of our contact with each other and are then securely destroyed. If you want me to delete your information sooner than this, please tell me. 

Third party recipients of personal data

I sometimes share personal data with third parties, for example, where I have contracted with a supplier to carry out specific tasks. In such cases I have carefully selected which partners I work with. I take great care to ensure that I have a contract with the third party that states what they are allowed to do with the data I share with them. I ensure that they do not use your information in any way other than the task for which they have been contracted. 

At this time I store your personal data in an electronic health record using the Kiku electronic health record. Kiku’s RSA 256 bit SSL encrypted, password and 2FA protected platform is fully GDPR compliant. All confidential information is held in accordance with the GDPR, 2018 using the secure & encrypted Kiku system (please see their Privacy Policy for more information at https://www.wearekiku.com/privacy-notices). 

Your rights 

I try to be as open as I can be in terms of giving people access to their personal information. You have a right to ask me to delete your personal information, to limit how I use your personal information, or to stop processing your personal information. You also have a right to ask for a copy of any information that I hold about you and to object to the use of your personal data in some circumstances. You can read more about your rights at ico.org.uk/your-data-matters. 

If I do hold information about you I will: 

  • give you a description of it and where it came from; 

  • tell you why I am holding its, tell you how long I will store your data and how I made this decision; 

  • tell you who it could be disclosed to; 

  • let you have a copy of the information in an intelligible form. 

You can also ask me at any time to correct any mistakes there may be in the personal information I hold about you. To make a request for any personal information I may hold about you, please put the request in writing addressing it to mk@meghankelley-lcsw.com. If you have any complaint about how I handle your personal data please do not hesitate to get in touch with me by writing or emailing to the contact details given above. I would welcome any suggestions for improving my data protection procedures. If you want to make a formal complaint about the way I have processed your personal information you can contact the ICO which is the statutory body that oversees data protection law in the UK. For more information go to ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint.

Data security 

I take the confidentiality of all data I hold about you very seriously and as such I take every effort to make sure it is kept secure. All data is stored on an encrypted website and accessed via personal electronic devices which are password-protected. 

Visitors to my website 

When someone visits my website, I use a third party service, SquareSpace, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behavior patterns. I do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. This information is only processed in a way that does not identify anyone. I do not make, and do not allow SquareSpace to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting my website. I use legitimate interests as my lawful basis for holding and using your personal information in this way when you visit my website. I use SquareSpace so that I can continually improve my service to you, You can read SquareSpace’s privacy notice here. I use SquareSpace as the content management system for my website. Like most websites I use cookies to help the site work more efficiently - find out about the use of cookies. No user-specific data is collected by me or any third party. If you fill in a form on my website, that data will be temporarily stored on the web host before being sent to me.