Confidentiality
Academy Counselling Centre and it’s counsellors are members of the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (IACP) and adheres to their Ethical Framework for Good Practice. All our counsellors are aware of their responsibility for confidentiality.
As part of any counselling and therapy service a client will disclose personal information about their life, situations and experiences. The client needs to feel secure that what they disclose is private and will be kept private. The client needs to know this to feel secure, if the client does not feel secure the counselling / therapy service will be thwarted right from the start as “Client Counsellor trust” is an essential aspect of the therapeutic relationship.
Apart from a supervisor (who is bound by the same confidentiality agreement) what the client discloses stays private unless it breaches the below guidelines.
Situations which oblige a counsellor to break confidentiality are as follows:
· If a client has committed a serious criminal offence, or is involved in terrorist activity.
· If a child is being abused.
· If during the counselling process it emerges that the client was sexually abused in childhood and there is the possibility of further abuse being committed, the responsibility of the counsellor is to work with the client to disclose, if possible to the authorities.
· If the counsellor considers there is serious danger to the client harming themselves or another person.
In all cases these decisions would be taken in consultation with my supervisor, and my client would be informed.
Notes and Record Keeping
Our policy is to keep minimum notes and records. The information we do store includes:
As part of any counselling and therapy service a client will disclose personal information about their life, situations and experiences. The client needs to feel secure that what they disclose is private and will be kept private. The client needs to know this to feel secure, if the client does not feel secure the counselling / therapy service will be thwarted right from the start as “Client Counsellor trust” is an essential aspect of the therapeutic relationship.
Apart from a supervisor (who is bound by the same confidentiality agreement) what the client discloses stays private unless it breaches the below guidelines.
Situations which oblige a counsellor to break confidentiality are as follows:
· If a client has committed a serious criminal offence, or is involved in terrorist activity.
· If a child is being abused.
· If during the counselling process it emerges that the client was sexually abused in childhood and there is the possibility of further abuse being committed, the responsibility of the counsellor is to work with the client to disclose, if possible to the authorities.
· If the counsellor considers there is serious danger to the client harming themselves or another person.
In all cases these decisions would be taken in consultation with my supervisor, and my client would be informed.
Notes and Record Keeping
Our policy is to keep minimum notes and records. The information we do store includes:
- Personal information, such as your name, date of birth, address etc;
- Background information that might be relevant to the counselling process;
- Your signed contract with us;
- Confidential case notes (describing the main focus of the session with any important information);
- Information for service evaluation and statistical purposes.
