Seasons of Life Counselling is committed to providing quality services and respecting your rights. Your right to privacy and confidentiality will be recognised, respected, and protected in all aspects of your contact with us. This statement outlines our ongoing obligations to you in respect to how we manage your Personal Information.

Seasons of Life Counselling complies with the requirements of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) [as well as Code of Conduct for Certain Health Care Workers (Community Services Complaints Regulations 2019)

 

What is Personal Information and why do we collect it?

 

Personal Information is information or an opinion that identifies an individual. Personal Information includes Health Information, which is information about the physical or mental health or disability of an individual.

Examples of Personal Information we collect includes: names, phone number, email address, residential addresses, date of birth, religious affiliation, medical information relevant to the service being provided, psychological history, goals/reasons for counselling and emergency contact.

We collect your Personal Information in many ways including: intake forms, interviews, correspondence, by telephone, by email, via our website, from our Customer Relations Management Software (Dubsado/Splose) and from other publicly available sources and from third parties where applicable and with consent. Seasons of Life Counselling will only request and retain Personal Information that is necessary to the service we are providing.

When we collect Personal Information, we will explain to you why we are collecting the information and how we plan to use it.

 

Third Parties

 

Where reasonable and practicable to do so, we will collect your Personal Information only from you. However, in some circumstances we may be provided with information by third parties (such as other health services). In such cases we will take reasonable steps to ensure that you are made aware of the information provided to us by the third party.

 

Privacy and our website

 

Our domain is hosted on an Australian based server to comply with Australian data storage standards. Our website host is Squarespace which is a US company. The security of your personal information is important to us, but no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

 

Cookies

 

To improve your experience on our site, we may use ‘cookies’. A cookie is a small text file that our site may place on your computer as a tool to remember your preferences. You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser, however, please note that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of our website. Seasons of Life Counselling website is GDRP compliant and requests that you consent to the use of ‘cookies’.

The Facebook Pixel and Google Analytics are both cookies which may be used by Seasons of Life Counselling, exclusively for the purpose of tracking which pages on the company website you have visited and for how long. These types of cookies are used by us to ensure we deliver content our visitors enjoy and find useful, as well as to create effective marketing campaigns. If you are on social media, such as Facebook or Instagram, they may result in you seeing our ads. Although most browsers are initially set to accept cookies, you may reset your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie or to reject cookies generally. Most browsers offer instructions on how to do so in the ‘Help’ section of the toolbar.

 

Links to other websites

 

Our website may contain links to other websites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites, and these websites are not subject to our privacy policy. We are not responsible for the content of these websites or the privacy practices of these sites. If you navigate to other websites via our website, we advise you to read their privacy policy.

 

Disclosure of Personal Information

 

Your Personal Information will only be disclosed:

• to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to the life or health of you or another person;
• to outside agencies with your or your representative’s permission;
• with written consent from a person with lawful authority;
• or when required by law, or to fulfil legislative obligations such as mandatory reporting and court subpoena.
• Security and Destruction of Personal Information

Your Personal and Health Information will be stored in a manner that reasonably protects it from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.

When your Personal and Health Information is no longer needed for the purpose for which it was obtained, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify it.

 

Access to your Personal Information

 

You may access the Personal or Health Information we hold about you, including to update or correct it, subject to certain exceptions. If you wish to access your Personal or Health Information, please speak to a staff member.

In order to protect your Personal or Health Information we may require identification from you before releasing the requested information.

You have the right to:

• request access to personal information we hold about you;

• access this information; and

• make corrections if you consider the information is not accurate, complete or up to date.

However, access may be denied in part or in total where:

• the request is frivolous or vexatious;

• providing access would have an unreasonable impact on the privacy of other individuals;

• providing access would be likely to prejudice an investigation of possible unlawful activity;

• providing access would pose a serious and imminent threat to the life or health of any individual; and

• denying access is required or authorised by or under law.

We aim to address all requests to access or correct information within 14 days. We will not charge any fee for your access request but will charge an administrative fee for providing a copy of your information.

 

Maintaining the Quality of your Personal Information

 

It is an important to us that your information is up to date. We will take all reasonable steps to make sure that your Personal Information is accurate and complete. If you find that the information we have is not up to date or is inaccurate, please advise us as soon as practicable so we can update our records and ensure we can continue to provide quality services to you.

Seasons of Life Counselling Privacy Policy v4. March 2023