GDPR Policy
Where you will find this policy:
On my website at: www.samepage.org.uk/GDPR/
Mentioned in, and referenced as, an appendix to the counselling, mentoring and training contracts
Within my email signature that links directly to the GDPR policy above
Upon request directly from me at kat@samepage.org.uk
1) Introduction
Your privacy is very important to me, and you can be confident that your personal information will be kept safe and secure and will only be used for the purpose it was given to me. I adhere to current data protection legislation, including the General Data Protection Regulation (EU/2016/679) (the GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003.
This privacy notice tells you what I will do with your personal information from initial point of contact through to after any interaction with my business, including therapy, mentoring or training, has ended, including:
Why I am able to process your information and what purpose I am processing it for
Whether you have to provide it to me
How long I will store it for
Whether there are other recipients of your personal information
Whether I intend to transfer it to another country
Whether I automated decision-making or profiling, and
Your data protection rights
I am happy to chat through any questions you might have about my data protection policy, and you can contact me via email at: kat@samepage.org.uk
‘Data controller’ is the term used to describe the person/organisation that collects and stores and has responsibility for people’s personal data. In this instance, the data controller is me (Kat Roberts).
‘Services’ is the term used to describe any services provided by myself, including: counselling/therapy, therapeutic mentoring, training, and course facilitation.
I am registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (TO ADD: REG NUMBER AND COMPANY REG DETAILS IF APPROPRIATE).
My business postal address is:
Kat Roberts Same Page 61 Bridge Street Kington HR5 3DJ United Kingdom
My phone number is: 07356 013 991
My email address is: kat@samepage.org.uk
2) My lawful basis for holding and using your personal information
The GDPR states that I must have a lawful basis for processing your personal data. There are different lawful bases depending on the stage at which I am processing your data. I have explained these below.
If you have engaged in any services with me and these have now ended, I will use legitimate interest as my lawful basis for holding and using your personal information.
If you are currently engaging in any services or if you are in contact with me to consider my services, I will process your personal data where it is necessary for the performance of our contract.
The GDPR also makes sure that I look after any sensitive personal information that you may disclose to me appropriately, within therapy or therapeutic mentoring sessions. This type of information is called ‘special category personal information’. The lawful basis for me processing any special categories of personal information is consent initially. I will then retain any therapy or therapeutic mentoring records in case of need to reference them in the future (the official legal basis is to defend against potential legal claims).
3) How I use your information
Therapy and mentoring:
Initial Contact
When you contact me with an enquiry about therapy or mentoring, I will collect information to help me satisfy your enquiry. This will include:
Your first name
Your surname
Your email address
The content on your enquiry message
Alternatively, your GP or other health professional(s) may send me your details when making a referral, or a parent, legal guardian or trusted individual may give me your details when making an enquiry on your behalf.
If you decide not to proceed, I will ensure all your personal data is deleted within 12 months. If you would like me to delete this information sooner, please ask. Please note that, under GDPR UK law, counsellors are not required to delete notes if there is a lawful basis for retaining them, such as: such as legitimate interests, legal obligations, insurance requirements, or establishing, exercising or defending legal claims.
While you are accessing therapy or mentoring:
Rest assured that everything you discuss with me is confidential. That confidentiality will only be broken when:
(if you are OVER the age of 18)
You disclose to me that you are at risk of harming yourself or others.
You disclose a child or vulnerable person is at risk of harm.
You disclose information about serious crime, including terrorism, money laundering, and/or drug trafficking.
A judge or coroner make a legal order for the release of client notes.
(if you are UNDER the age of 18)
You disclose to me that you are at risk of harming yourself or others.
You disclose a child or vulnerable person is at risk of harm.
You disclose information about serious crime, including terrorism, money laundering, and/or drug trafficking.
A judge or coroner make a legal order for the release of client notes.
I have any concern about a child under the age of 18 that is at risk of abuse, neglect or other kinds of harm. (Section 31(9), Children Act 1989) ‘Where the question of whether harm is significant turns on the child’s health or development, the child’s health or development is to be compared with that which could be reasonable expected of a similar child’. Harm is defined as: ill treatment including sexual abuse, neglect, emotional abuse and psychological abuse, the impairment of physical or mental health (including that suffered from seeing or hearing another person suffer ill treatment), the impairment of physical intellectual, emotional, social, or behavioural development (including that suffered from seeing or hearing another person suffer ill treatment) (https://safeguarding.wales/en/chi-i/chi-i-c3pt1/c3pt1-p2/)
I will always try to speak to you about this first, unless there are safeguarding issues that prevent this.
I will keep a record of your personal details to help the counselling services run smoothly. These details are kept on the practice management software, WriteUpp. More information about WriteUpp is provided throughout this policy.
I will keep notes of each session, this are kept on a practice management software called WriteUpp. Please read more about this in this policy.
For security reasons, I do not retain text messages for more than 12 months. If there is relevant information contained in a text message, I will store this within my notes, which will be stored as stated above. Likewise, any email correspondence will be deleted after 12 months if it is not important. If necessary, I will store relevant information within my notes, stored as stated above.
After therapy and/or mentoring has ended.
Once therapy and/or mentoring has ended, your records will be kept for 7 years from the end of our contact with each other and then securely destroyed. If you want me to delete your information sooner than this, please ask. Please note that, under GDPR UK law, counsellors are not required to delete notes if there is a lawful basis for retaining them, such as: such as legitimate interests, legal obligations, insurance requirements, or establishing, exercising or defending legal claims.
4) Vital Interests
In the event that I believe you or someone else is at risk of serious harm, I may need to use search engines, social media and other avenues to find you/them or process other data. This is a very rare circumstance and is only used when other legal avenues are not available to me. Please read my Social Media Policy to better understand my use of social media and search engines. Please review the Information Commissioners Office’s page on Vital Interests for more information about the law surrounding processing data for vital interests.
5) Third-party recipients of personal data
II sometimes share personal data with third parties, for example, where I have contracted with a supplier to carry out a specific task. In such cases, I will have carefully selected which partners I work with. I take great care to ensure that I have a contract with the third-party that states what they are allowed to do with data I share with them. I ensure that they do not use your information in any way other than the task for which they have been contracted. The third-party practice management software I use is called WriteUpp, and is specifically designed for my field of work, with clients’ confidentiality in mind.
WriteUpp
To help manage my counselling practice securely and efficiently, I use WriteUpp, a specialist practice management system designed for healthcare professionals.
WriteUpp securely stores information that is needed to provide counselling services. This may include:
your contact details
appointment dates and attendance records
completed registration and consent forms
invoices and payment records
counselling notes and other records relating to your therapy
any correspondence relating to your care
I remain the Data Controller for your personal information. This means I decide why and how your information is used. WriteUpp acts as my Data Processor, meaning it processes your information only on my instructions and in accordance with UK data protection law.
WriteUpp has appropriate technical and organisational security measures in place to protect your information. Data is encrypted, securely stored, regularly backed up, and access is restricted to authorised users only. WriteUpp also has procedures in place to detect, investigate and respond to any data security incidents.
Your information is stored securely within data centres located in Europe. If WriteUpp or any of its approved service providers need to transfer personal information outside the UK, this will only take place where appropriate safeguards required under UK GDPR are in place.
I only access your records where necessary to provide counselling, manage appointments, maintain accurate clinical records, comply with my professional and legal obligations, or manage my practice.
Your information is treated as confidential and will not be shared with anyone else unless:
you have given your consent;
there is a legal obligation to do so; or
there is a safeguarding concern or serious risk of harm where disclosure is permitted or required by law.
I retain your records in accordance with my professional, legal and insurance requirements. Once the retention period has expired, your information will be securely deleted or destroyed.
Under UK GDPR you have rights regarding your personal information, including the right to request access to your personal data, request correction of inaccurate information, request restriction of processing in certain circumstances, object to certain processing, and, where applicable, request erasure of your data. Some of these rights are subject to legal and professional obligations to retain counselling records.
If you have any questions about how your personal information is handled, or if you wish to exercise any of your data protection rights, please contact me in the first instance.
Squarespace
I use the platform ‘Squarespace’ to run my website. They have their own privacy policy that informs you how information collected through my website (including cookies and information input by the user, such as into the contact form) is handled. Please see their privacy policy for more information: https://www.squarespace.com/privacy
6) Your rights
I try to be as open as I can be in terms of giving people access to their personal information. You have the right to ask me to delete your personal information, to limit how I use your personal information, or to stop processing your personal information. Please note that, under GDPR UK law, counsellors are not required to delete notes if there is a lawful basis for retaining them, such as: such as legitimate interests, legal obligations, insurance requirements, or establishing, exercising or defending legal claims.
You also have a right to ask for a copy of any information that I hold about you and to object to the use of your personal data in some circumstances. You can read more about your rights at: https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/
If I do hold information about you I will:
Give you a description of it and where it came from;
Tell you why I am holding it, tell you how long I will store your data and how I made this decision;
Tell you who it could be disclosed to;
Let you have a copy of the information in an intelligible form.
You can also ask me at any time to correct any mistakes there may be in the personal information I hold about you. Please put the request in writing addressing it to: kat@samepage.org.uk
If you have any complaint about how I handle your personal data, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me by writing or emailing to the contact details given above. I would welcome any suggestions for improving my data protection procedures.
If you want to make a formal complain about the way I have processed your personal information you can contact the ICO which is the statutory body that oversees data protection law in the UK. For more information go to: https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint
7) Data security
I take the security of the data I hold about you very seriously and as such I take every effort to make sure it is kept secure.
Sensitive personal information, such as contracts and notes, is stored digitally on a highly secure practice management software called WriteUpp. If any sensitive personal information is collected on paper, it is stored in a locked filing cabinet. All sensitive personal information is stored for 7 years before being destroyed.
I use a separate, password protected smartphone to receive calls and texts. Your number will never be saved under your name. All call logs and texts are deleted every 12 months from this device. If sensitive personal information is received via text message to this device, a note is made and stored to WriteUpp and then the text is deleted.
8) Visitors to my website
When someone visits my website, I use a third-party service, Squarespace, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. I do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. This information is only processed in a way that does not identify anyone. I do not make, and do not allow Squarespace to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting my website.
I use legitimate interests as my lawful basis for holding and using your personal information in this way when you visit my website.
I use Google Analytics and Squarespace so that I can continually improve my service to you. You can read Google Analytics’ and Squarespace’s privacy notices here: https://policies.google.com/privacy & https://www.squarespace.com/privacy
I use Squarespace as the content management system for my website. Please read the privacy notice on my website to learn more about this.
Like most websites, I use cookies to help the site work more efficiently – find out about my use of cookies.
No user-specific data is collected by me or any third-party. If you fill a form on my website, that data will be temporarily stored on the web host before being sent to me.
This policy was last updated in July 2026. Please be aware that all policies are regularly updated and so may be subject to change. I will endeavour to let you know of changes to policies where possible.