Confidentiality and the Safe Keeping of Information in the Student Counselling Service
General principles:
The counsellors are members of the British Association for
Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and are bound by its
Ethical Framework for Good Practice. The service maintains its
own, discrete, records of students who use the service. Students
who attend the service for counselling are assured of
confidentiality in the following ways:
• The counsellors will not
normally divulge information about whether or not a student has
attended a counselling session, or what was discussed within a
session, to any third party. This includes fellow students, GPs,
members of staff or parents.
• If a counsellor believes that it is in the interest of the
client that information given in counselling be passed on to a
third party (eg for a referral to the client’s GP), she/he would
obtain their permission to do so, and discuss with them the
nature and form of such a communication. Similarly, If a
counselling client requests that information is passed on to a
third party, the counsellor would discuss with them the form
that that communication should take.
• In exceptional circumstances, where the counsellor has good
grounds for believing that a client is at serious risk of
harming him/herself or others, or in the event of certain court
proceedings, the counsellors may judge that it is necessary to
breach confidentiality. Normally such action would only be taken
after the situation had been discussed with both the client
concerned, and with a supervisor or experienced colleague.
• The counsellors attend regular counselling supervision in
which aspects of the work with clients are discussed, but the
identity of the client is disguised.
Record Keeping:
The records system has been reviewed to ensure compliance with
the Data Protection Act (1998).
All records concerning clients are kept within the service, including the counselling records database. Paper records are marked ‘confidential', and are kept in locked filing cabinets to which only the counsellors and their secretarial assistant have access.
Information concerning the identity of clients, which includes data on the counselling service database, is restricted to the student counsellors and their secretarial assistant. and is protected by a coding method. Counsellors usually also make notes after each session, and these are kept in a separate locked cabinet and carry only the clients code number. Letters from tutors, GPs and other agencies about clients are also filed separately.
Client record cards, counsellors’
case notes and letters concerning clients are shredded after six
years.
