Privacy Policy | Inner Spark Counselling & Consulting

Overview

Part of Madeleine Power and Inner Spark Counselling and Consultancy's commitment to providing a high level of care for clients includes ensuring a high level of protection for any personal information we have on our records. We view the privacy of clients as an essential part of our duty of care and seek to comply with all elements of the Australian Privacy Principles, Data Protection Principles, as well as our existing obligations of confidentiality under the AASW Code of Conduct.

This privacy policy explains how Inner Spark Counselling and Consulting handle your personal information, including the collection, storage, use and disclosure of your personal information, as well as how you can access and change your information, provide us with feedback or make a complaint. Your personal information is readily available

should you require to make any amendments.

When you come for a session you will be asked to complete and sign a consent form, which includes notices about privacy and requests your consent. When you complete a consent form, then by signing that form and agreeing to its contents, you consent to Inner Spark Counselling and Consulting collecting, maintaining, using and disclosing personal information about you and provided by you or by another person in accordance with the privacy statements in the form and this privacy policy, for the service(s) we provide to you.

Inner Spark Counselling and Consulting takes seriously the trust you place in us and at all times will make every effort to ensure that your personal information is secure, protected from interference, misuse, loss and unauthorised access, modification and disclosure.

Inner Spark Counselling and Consulting values your comments and opinions. If you have questions or require further information about our privacy policy, please do not hesitate to ask or contact Madeleine Power: madeleine@innersparkcounselling.com.au.

Collection of Your Personal Information

Personal and Sensitive Information

Personal Information refers to information or an opinion, whether true or not, and whether recorded in a material

form or not, about an individual whose identity is apparent, or can reasonably be ascertained, from the information

or opinion.

Sensitive Information is a subset of personal information and includes your health information as well as information

pertaining to racial or ethnic origin, political opinions or membership of a political organisation, religious belief or

affiliations, membership of a professional or trade association, sexual preferences or a criminal record. Sensitive

information attracts additional privacy protections compared with other types of personal information.

Consent forms and Consultation records

On your first visit for a session you will be asked to sign a Client Consent form and to provide certain personal

information for the purpose of us providing a service to you, including:

Your name, address, phone number and email contact details;
Your gender and date of birth;
Contact details for your nominated emergency contact and your doctor;
Information about your health and any medication you may be taking.

You will also be asked to consent to specific treatments and whether you are agreeable to your personal

information being shared with other practitioners or medical professionals where this may enhance your treatment.

No such information will be shared without you so consenting.

Should you choose not to provide requested information, we will advise you of what consequences this non-disclosure may have. For example, withholding certain information may limit our ability to provide relevant offers or services.

At the end of your treatment your practitioner will make a few notes about any symptoms you may have

exhibited and the treatment given. If you have a subsequent visit, these notes will be used by your practitioner for review and support of your condition, for the purposes of ongoing service provided to you. Your practitioner will not share your consultation notes or personal information without your written consent.

Counselling clients who are not able to provide informed consent (as determined by the practitioner with reference to the AASW Ethics and Practice Guidelines) will require the written consent of a parent or legal guardian. Personal information will be collected and used as described above.

Other People

Inner Spark Counselling and Consulting will try to collect your personal information directly from you. However, there may be instances where we will need to collect your information from other persons or entities. Whenever possible, we will request this other person or entity to have your signed consent or email giving your permission for them to provide us with your personal information. Exceptions may be if you suddenly take ill and are incapable of providing certain information which may be important for your treatment, such as if you have had a recent operation, illness or an implant, as well as what medication you are taking, or if collection of information from anyone other than you is required by law.

If you have provided us with information about another person, then you will need to tell that person that you

have done so, that they have the rights as set out in this policy including a right to access their information and that

they can refer to this policy for information on how we will handle their personal information.

Website

When you access our website, anonymous technical information may be collected about your activities on the

website. This may include information such as the type of browser used to access the website and the pages visited.

This information is used by us to make decisions about maintaining and improving our website and

online services. This information remains anonymous and is not linked in any way to personal identification details.

Online data collection and use

The following discloses our information gathering and dissemination practices.

If you use an online registration form for any session, event or booking of ours, or any online service (such as mailouts, e-newsletters and the like), you will be asked to give contact information, such as your name and email

address, and unique identifiers. You can choose whether to register with us online for any event or service, or not. If

you complete an online registration form, we use contact information from the registration form to send you

information about our services and products. The contact information is also used to contact you when necessary if

you have subscribed to a mail list. After subscribing to any of our services, you may opt-out of receiving future

mailings by choosing to un-subscribe by sending us an email stating so.

We use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server, and to administer our website. Your IP address is used to help identify you and to gather broad demographic information. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of third party sites that choose to place links to our site on their website. You should always check the privacy policy and terms of use of any third party site you choose to visit, as well as checking for updates from time to time.

Storage of your Personal Information

We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is stored securely and is protected

from misuse and loss from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

We will keep your personal information for as long as it is required to provide you with the services you requested and to comply with legal requirements.

If we no longer require your personal information for any purpose, including legal purposes, we will take

reasonable steps to securely destroy or de-identify your personal information.

It is your responsibility to advise us should either your health situation or your personal details change so that

your record is kept up to date.

We take all reasonable steps to take care of all data in our care. In the unexpected circumstance that there

should be any data breach, we would take all steps required by law. Therefore, we will in the case of a

data/information breach contact the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) and yourself as soon

as practicable to inform you of the nature of the breach.

Usage of your Personal Information

Personal information is used to:

contact you about your appointment or any other matter in relation to the service provided to you;
contact your nominated emergency contact or GP in an emergency;
better understand your health history and thus ensure your treatment is appropriate and of the highest
discuss your case with other practitioners and / or medical professionals if you have consented to this;
allow you to purchase products and services;
answer your enquiries and resolve complaints.

Credit card information is used only for payment processing and this information is not used for other purposes and

not retained by us.

Please note that we will never sell, rent or lease your information to anyone. We take privacy seriously and respect

your rights.

Anonymous data may be aggregated for reporting client statistics and to improve our customer support. If you

complete a questionnaire, you may do this anonymously and you will have an option to provide your name if you

have questions or are seeking further information.

Sharing your Personal Information

We take seriously the trust you place in us and on no account will we share your personal information with any third party without your permission, unless required by law enforcement action or subpoena. For example, we may be required to provide your personal information to the appointed case managers of insurance companies managing any worker’s compensation case of yours or any third-party case in the treatment of your injury or illness.

Personal information may be disclosed to anyone to whom you have given written and signed consent to have

access to this information (e.g. a solicitor, accountant or a person who has authority to act as your attorney). This

could also include referees, any financial institution nominated by you (for example in a direct debit) or anyone else

you request, unless disclosure is not permitted by law.

Accessing your Personal Information

If you have completed a consent form at this clinic you can request access to your personal information at any time

by asking for a copy which will usually be supplied to you within ten working days depending on the nature of the

request. In any event, all requests will be satisfied within 28 days. If you believe that any information is incorrect or

outdated, you may ask for a correction to be made. There is no fee for requesting access to your information.

In a very few cases we may be unable to give you access to certain information for example where:

we no longer hold or use the information;
providing access would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of others;
the request is vexatious;
providing access would be unlawful;
the information relates to existing or anticipated legal proceedings;
providing access would prejudice or be likely to prejudice the prevention, detection, investigation and

prosecution of unlawful activity;

disclosure would pose a threat to the life or health of any individual.

If your request is refused, we will tell you the reason why. If we are not required to provide you with access to the information requested, we will consider, if reasonable, whether the use of a mutually agreed intermediary would allow sufficient access to meet our mutual needs.

Correcting your Personal Information

We strive to keep your personal information accurate, however, it is your responsibility to notify us when your details change. If you believe any information held about you is inaccurate, incomplete or out-of-date, you may ask to be provided with a copy of your information to view and, following your authorisation, your information will be corrected.

To protect your privacy and security, you may be asked to verify your identity before being granted access to your

data. You will be asked to put your request in writing.

Making a Complaint

If you have any questions or concerns about this policy or about how your personal information has been handled, you can contact Madeleine Power at any time on 0494 066 198 or madeleine@innersparkcounselling.com.au.

We value your comments and opinions and will do our best to answer any questions, correct any errors or

resolve any complaint that you may have about how your information is handled.

If you do have a complaint, once you have contacted us in relation to your concerns, if you are not happy with

our response, or if you do not feel your complaint has been resolved, you are able to seek advice from the

Office of the Australian Information Commissioner by calling 1300 363 992.

If you want to make a complaint in Victoria about a health related service, you can contact the Victorian Health Complaints Commissioner by calling 1300 582 113.