Privacy and confidentiality policies

Counselors recognize that trust is a cornerstone of the counseling relationship. Counselors aspire to earn the trust of clients by creating an ongoing partnership, establishing and upholding appropriate boundaries, and maintaining confidentiality. Counselors communicate the parameters of confidentiality in a culturally competent manner.

 

RESPECTING CLIENT RIGHTS

• MULTICULTURAL/DIVERSITY CONSIDERATIONS
  Counselors maintain awareness and sensitivity regarding cultural meanings of confidentiality and privacy. Counselors respect differing views toward disclosure of information. Counselors hold ongoing discussions with clients as to how, when, and with whom information is to be shared.
• RESPECT FOR PRIVACY
  Counselors respect the privacy of prospective and current clients. Counselors request private information from clients only when it is beneficial to the counseling process.
• RESPECT FOR CONFIDENTIALITY
  Counselors protect the confidential information of prospective and current clients. Counselors disclose information only with appropriate consent or with sound legal or ethical justification.
• EXPLANATION OF LIMITATIONS
  At initiation and throughout the counseling process, counselors inform clients of the limitations of confidentiality and seek to identify situations in which confidentiality must be breached.EXCEPTIONS

   

• SERIOUS AND FORESEEABLE HARM AND LEGAL REQUIREMENTS
  The general requirement that counselors keep information confidential does not apply when disclosure is required to protect clients or identified others from serious and foreseeable harm or when legal requirements demand that confidential information must be revealed. Counselors consult with other professionals when in doubt as to the validity of an exception. Additional considerations apply when addressing end-of-life issues.
• CONFIDENTIALITY REGARDING END-OF-LIFE DECISIONS
  Counselors who provide services to terminally ill individuals who are considering hastening their own deaths have the option to maintain confidentiality, depending on applicable laws and the specific circumstances of the situation and after seeking consultation or supervision from appropriate professional and legal parties.
• CONTAGIOUS, LIFE THREATENING DISEASES
  When clients disclose that they have a disease commonly known to be both communicable and life threatening, counselors may be justified in disclosing information to identifiable third parties, if the parties are known to be at serious and foreseeable risk of contracting the disease. Prior to making a disclosure, counselors assess the intent of clients to inform the third parties about their disease or to engage in any behaviors that may be harmful to an identifiable third party. Counselors adhere to relevant state laws concerning disclosure about disease status.
• COURT-ORDERED DISCLOSURE
  When ordered by a court to release confidential or privileged information without a client’s permission, counselors seek to obtain written, informed consent from the client or take steps to prohibit the disclosure or have it limited as narrowly as possible because of potential harm to the client or counseling relationship.
• MINIMAL DISCLOSURE
  To the extent possible, clients are informed before confidential information is disclosed and are involved in the disclosure decision-making process. When circumstances require the disclosure of confidential information, only essential information is revealed.

 

INFORMATION SHARED WITH OTHERS

• SUBORDINATES
  Counselors make every effort to ensure that privacy and confidentiality of clients are maintained by subordinates, including employees, supervises, students, clerical assistants, and volunteers.
• INTERDISCIPLINARY TEAMS
  When services provided to the client involve participation by an interdisciplinary or treatment team, the client will be informed of the team’s existence and composition, information being shared, and the purposes of sharing such information.
• CONFIDENTIAL SETTINGS
  Counselors discuss confidential information only in settings in which they can reasonably ensure client privacy.
• THIRD-PARTY PAYERS
  Counselors disclose information to third-party payers only when clients have authorized such disclosure.
• TRANSMITTING CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION
  Counselors take precautions to ensure the confidentiality of all information transmitted through the use of any medium.
• DECEASED CLIENTS
  Counselors protect the confidentiality of deceased clients, consistent with legal requirements and the documented preferences of the client.

 

GROUPS AND FAMILIES

• GROUP WORK
  In group work, counselors clearly explain the importance and parameters of confidentiality for the specific group.
• COUPLES AND FAMILY COUNSELING
  In couples and family counseling, counselors clearly define who is considered “the client” and discuss expectations and limitations of confidentiality. Counselors seek agreement and document in writing such agreement among all involved parties regarding the confidentiality of information. In the absence of an agreement to the contrary, the couple or family is considered to be the client.

 

CLIENTS LACKING CAPACITY TO GIVE INFORMED CONSENT

• RESPONSIBILITY TO CLIENTS
  When counseling minor clients or adult clients who lack the capacity to give voluntary, informed consent, counselors protect the confidentiality of information received—in any medium—in the counseling relationship as specified by laws, written policies, and applicable ethical standards.
• RESPONSIBILITY TO PARENTS AND LEGAL GUARDIANS
  Counselors inform parents and legal guardians about the role of counselors and the confidential nature of the counseling relationship, consistent with current legal and custodial arrangements. Counselors are sensitive to the cultural diversity of families and respect the inherent rights and responsibilities of parents/guardians regarding the welfare of their children/charges according to law. Counselors work to establish, as appropriate, collaborative relationships with parents/guardians to best serve clients.
• RELEASE OF CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION
  When counseling minor clients or adult clients who lack the capacity to give voluntary consent to release confidential information, counselors seek permission from an appropriate third party to disclose information. In such instances, counselors inform clients consistent with their level of understanding and take appropriate measures to safeguard client confidentiality

 

CASE CONSULTATION

• RESPECT FOR PRIVACY
  Information shared in a consulting relationship is discussed for professional purposes only. Written and oral reports present only data germane to the purposes of the consultation, and every effort is made to protect client identity and to avoid undue invasion of privacy.
• DISCLOSURE OF CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION
  When consulting with colleagues, counselors do not disclose confidential information that reasonably could lead to the identification of a client or other person or organization with whom they have a confidential relationship unless they have obtained the prior consent of the person or organization or the disclosure cannot be avoided. They disclose information only to the extent necessary to achieve the purposes of the consultation.

 

• USER INFORMATION
  To improve the responsiveness of the sites for our users, we may use “cookies”, or similar electronic tools to collect information to assign each visitor a unique, random number as a User Identification (User ID) to understand the user’s individual interests using the Identified Computer. Unless you voluntarily identify yourself (through registration, for example), we will have no way of knowing who you are, even if we assign a cookie to your computer. The only personal information a cookie can contain is information you supply (an example of this is when you ask for our Personalised Horoscope). A cookie cannot read data off your hard drive. Our advertisers may also assign their own cookies to your browser (if you click on their ads), a process that we do not control. Our web servers automatically collect limited information about your computer’s connection to the Internet, including your IP address, when you visit our site. (Your IP address is a number that lets computers attached to the Internet know where to send you data — such as the web pages you view.) Your IP address does not identify you personally. We use this information to deliver our web pages to you upon request, to tailor our site to the interests of our users, to measure traffic within our site and let advertisers know the geographic locations from where our visitors come.
• LINKS TO THE OTHER SITES
  We shares the sensitive personal information to any third party without obtaining the prior consent of the user in the following limited circumstances:
• (a) When it is requested or required by law or by any court or governmental agency or authority to disclose, for the purpose of verification of identity, or for the prevention, detection, investigation including cyber incidents, or for prosecution and punishment of offences. These disclosures are made in good faith and belief that such disclosure is reasonably necessary for enforcing these Terms; for complying with the applicable laws and regulations.
• (b) We proposes to share such information within its group companies and officers and employees of such group companies for the purpose of processing personal information on its behalf. We also ensure that these recipients of such information agree to process such information based on our instructions and in compliance with this Privacy Policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.
• INFORMATION SECURITY
  We take appropriate security measures to protect against unauthorized access to or unauthorized alteration, disclosure or destruction of data. These include internal reviews of our data collection, storage and processing practices and security measures, including appropriate encryption and physical security measures to guard against unauthorized access to systems where we store personal data. All information gathered on our Website is securely stored within our controlled database. The database is stored on servers secured behind a firewall; access to the servers is password-protected and is strictly limited. However, as effective as our security measures are, no security system is impenetrable. We cannot guarantee the security of our database, nor can we guarantee that information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted to us over the Internet. And, of course, any information you include in a posting to the discussion areas is available to anyone with Internet access. However the internet is an ever evolving medium. We may change our Privacy Policy from time to time to incorporate necessary future changes. Of course, our use of any information we gather will always be consistent with the policy under which the information was collected, regardless of what the new policy may be