Confidentiality Policy
Last reviewed: February 2025
Confidentiality is a fundamental part of counselling. Confidentiality creates trust, a space for clients to share what they would like to, with the knowledge that their personal information will not be shared externally to the counselling session, or misused. Maintaining confidentiality is an ethical commitment upheld by the counsellor that applies at all stages when a counsellor interacts with a client.
The content of counselling sessions, overall, are confidential. However, there are specific circumstances in which information discussed in the session, and personal details of a client, may need to be disclosed to services outside of the counsellor and client. Wherever possible, this will involve discussion with the client and the client giving consent for information to be passed on. Though there are also some circumstances in which confidentiality may be broken, even if consent from the client is not given. Confidentiality is only ever broken, and information disclosed, in order to protect the safety and wellbeing of the client and/or other individuals.
This policy sets out every instance in which information about a client and the content of their sessions may be shared externally, and to whom information would be passed onto. This includes both legal obligations to break confidentiality, as well as ethical responsibilities. This policy also works in alignment with the following other policies:
References to ‘the counsellor’, ‘I’ and ‘my’ relate to Alexandra Baker.
Breaking Confidentiality
There are a few specific circumstances in which there is a legal obligation to break confidentiality by disclosing information to the relevant authorities. As there is a legal obligation to report this information, this will be done even if consent from the client has not been given, or has been refused. Information relating to the following will be disclosed:
Terrorism – in accordance with the Terrorism Act (2000), the anti-terrorism hotline and / or police would be contacted.
Money Laundering – in accordance with the Drug Trafficking Act (1994), the police would be contacted.
Drug Trafficking – in accordance with the, the police would be contacted.
Court Order – in accordance with an order by a court, requested details / documents would be shared.
Police Request – in accordance with the Serious Crime Act (2007), requested details would be shared.
In addition to the above, there are also circumstances where there may be an ethical responsibility to share information with relevant authorities. In accordance with the BACP’s Ethical Framework for the Counselling Professions, this balances the commitment to the principles of beneficence (promoting the client’s wellbeing), non-maleficence (avoiding harm to the client) and autonomy (respect for the client’s right to be self-governing), this would apply to information regarding the following:
Harm to self
Harm to other adults (individuals aged 18 and above)
Harm to children / minors (individuals aged 17 and under)
In the above scenarios, the term ‘harm’ includes, but not limited to, physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, suicidal intent, suicidal ideation, self-harm and exploitation. As a result, the disclosure of information will be made to the services that are most relevant to protecting the safety of those involved, such as the emergency services, police, social services or community mental health teams.
Before disclosing information externally, consent will be actively sought from the client, where possible. This will include discussion and agreement about what information will be passed on, and to whom. Where possible, and relevant, the client will be supported in sharing information and contacting external services themselves, rather than the counsellor doing this on the behalf, to uphold their autonomy.
Whilst consent will be sought, there may also be very specific situations where the risk of harm to the client, or others, is imminent, or at such a high level or risk, that a disclosure will be made without consent from the client. This also includes situations in which stating to the client that you will be breaking confidentiality may in turn put an individual at further risk of harm. Passing on such information would be carried out with strong ethical consideration, in line with a commitment to the safeguarding of both adults and children. Please see Safeguarding Policy for further information about how risk of harm to clients / others is defined and identified, as well as the procedures in place to disclose information to uphold the safety of those involved.
Alongside the legal obligations and ethical responsibilities to share information about clients, in the case of an abuse of service, information may be passed onto the police and / or the BACP. This would be done to protect the wellbeing of the counsellor, and other counsellors / therapists within the counselling profession who the person abusing service may also make contact with. Please see Abuse of Service Policy for further information.
Confidentiality of Written Information
In order to attend counselling, information will be sought about the client in order to make contact, as well as keep a record of counselling sessions. This will include identifying information, such as name and address, as well as sensitive information such as topics discussed in counselling sessions. Confidentiality applies to all information shared between the client to the counsellor and may be found in all, or some, of the following:
Client Assessment Form
Counselling Contract
Clinical Notes
Email communication between client and counsellor
Written disclosure of information to an external service (if relevant)
Clinical notes are kept for the purpose of having a record of the session taking place and what was discussed. Clinical notes are kept as brief as possible and include fact-only statements, with no opinion or interpretation. Identifying details of the client and anyone else mentioned by the client are not included. To protect confidentiality, identifying information will be stored separately to clinical notes of sessions in password-protected documents on a password-protected computer. Clients will also be assigned a code that will be used to connect documents together whilst also ensuring that documents contain as little identifying information as possible, or none at all.
All documents and information held about a client will be retained for seven years before being destroyed. A client can request to see any information stored about them at any time within the seven-year period, as well as asking for the information to be destroyed. This is actioned in line with Data Protection and GDPR law. Please see Privacy Notice for more information.
Supervision and Process Notes
As part of my ethical responsibilities as a counsellor, I attend fortnightly supervision with a qualified counselling supervisor. The purpose of supervision is to talk about my current counselling practice to ensure that I am working safely and professionally. No identifying details about clients are shared and information discussed about individual clients is limited to only what is relevant. The purpose of sharing within supervision is to reflect on my counselling practice and ensure that I am working in the most effective, ethical, way. Supervision sessions, like counselling sessions, are confidential and a supervisor adheres to the same principles of confidentiality that apply to counselling sessions with clients. In the case of safeguarding concerns that could result in a disclosure to an external service, a supervisor may be consulted, again without an identifying information about clients being shared, to ensure that any action taken is being done in line with policy and with consideration for the wellbeing of those involved.
Alongside supervision, as part of my personal and professional development as a counsellor, I write ‘process notes’ as a way to recognise my actions within counselling sessions and how I am responding to what clients are sharing. Process notes are separate to clinical notes as they are focused on how a counsellor is experiencing their counselling work. Process notes are hand-written in a securely-stored notebook and do not contain any identifying information, or references that could be connected to individual clients. Process notes are destroyed after seven years.
Practical Considerations for Confidentiality
Further to the information already provided in this policy, the following steps are also taken to ensure the confidentiality of clients and counselling sessions are maintained:
Counselling sessions over both telephone and video call are conducted in a private room where no one else can overhear the counsellor.
For video calls, a new link to join will be created for each counselling session and sent an hour before the session is due to begin. A password can be added to the video call link if requested.
Video calls are typically conducted using speakers, but clients can request for the counsellor to use headphones if they would feel more comfortable.
If counsellor and client recognise each other in public, the counsellor will not acknowledge the client, unless the client acknowledges them first. There is also no obligation for the client to acknowledge the counsellor. A client’s confidentiality is more important than ‘being polite’. If the client does acknowledge the counsellor, no details of counselling, or content of sessions, will be discussed in this instance.
Emails to and from alexandrabaker.counselling@outlook.com should appear as ‘Alexandra Baker’ on email platforms, with no reference to counselling. Emails will also be limited to sharing essential information, such as arranging a session, and will not contain any information about topics discussed in counselling sessions.
References
BACP - Ethical Framework for the Counselling Professions (2018) - https://www.bacp.co.uk/events-and-resources/ethics-and-standards/ethical-framework-for-the-counselling-professions/
BACP – Managing confidentiality within the counselling professions, GPiA 014 (2024) - https://www.bacp.co.uk/events-and-resources/ethics-and-standards/good-practice-in-action/publications/gpia014-managing-confidentiality-lr/