Kinergy takes privacy very seriously and is committed to being transparent about why we need your personal data and what we do with it. We want everyone to feel comfortable with how shared personal information is collected, recorded, stored, shared, and destroyed. We ensure that all the Kinergy team (including staff, volunteers, and trustees) adhere to keeping personal information strictly confidential.

When you visit our website, contact us, or complete any of our forms, you may be asked to provide certain information about yourself, including your name and contact details. Kinergy will process your data because:

• We have a legal obligation to do so - under the General Data Protection Regulation 2016 (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA).

• In order to contact you and provide information in response to your query or to provide the service you have requested.

• We want to ensure that we provide high quality care and support. By law, we need to have a lawful basis for processing your personal data.

If you have given explicit consent, we may use your information to contact you by post, phone, email, or text message to provide you with information on our services; for your views and feedback; for research purposes; or to notify you of any important changes or developments to our services. Contact for marketing purposes will only be done via email when explicitly requested by completing our mailing list sign up form, or by giving your consent on any other form including an opt in on event registration and counselling sign up forms.

We may also process your data with your consent, under Article 6.1.A of the GDPR. If we need to ask for your permission, we will offer you a clear choice and ask that you confirm to us that you consent. We will also explain clearly to you what we need the data for and how you can withdraw your consent at any time.

We hold notes of counselling sessions to facilitate the counselling process and only essential details will be recorded, which will be stored securely. Any information used for statistical, reporting, research or advertising purposes will be completely anonymised. All information shared between a client and their therapist is confidential and no information will be shared with a third party without written consent from the relevant person. The only exception to this is when there is a serious risk of harm to the client or someone else, or if there is a court order or other legal requirement to share. We are legally and ethically required to report this to the most suitable agency.

So that we can provide you with high quality care and support, we need specific data. This is collected from or shared with:

1. you or your legal representative

2. Third parties as outlined below.

Communication may be done via email, telephone, text or post.

Third parties are organisations we might lawfully share your data with. These include:

• Parts of the health and care system (hospitals, GPs, the pharmacy, social workers, clinical commissioning groups, and other health and care professionals),

• The Local Authority,

• Your family or friends - with your permission,

• Organisations that we have a legal obligation to share information with,

• The police or other law enforcement agencies, if we have to by law or court order.

A client will always be informed prior to any action being taken or sharing of information to the relevant bodies, unless to do so would put a person at risk.

Security and data retention

We store relevant personal information in line with data protection laws (GDPR & DPA) and ensure that it is securely stored and password-protected where necessary. Some of your information might also be kept in paper records, which are securely locked away.

All the information provided is for the purposes of therapeutic benefit, to support funding aims and/or research goals. We will keep information safe from unauthorised access, unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction or damage. We will retain your information for 7 years or as long as the law requires. It will then be safely destroyed. For more information, please go to: http://www.bacp.co.uk/terms/dataprotection.php

Your rights to access, update or delete your information

You can request to access information held about you, amend it if there are inaccuracies, or, if it is not a legal requirement to keep it, ask to have it deleted.

Your Data Subject Access Rights as set out by the GDPR are as follows:

• The right to be informed

• The right of access

• The right to rectification

• The right to erasure

• The right to restrict processing

• The right to data portability

• The right to object

For more information please go to:

https://www.gov.uk/data-protection

https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/your-right-to-get-copies-of-your-data/

For full details on how to access your data or to give any feedback on how we are performing, please contact Kinergy on 0117 9087712, contact@kinergy.org.uk or Mary Carpenter House, Britannia Road, Kingswood, Bristol, BS15 8DB. If you feel we are not processing your information fairly and lawfully, you can report your concern to the Information Commissioners Office:

Website: https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/

Head Office: Wycliffe House Water Lane, Wilmslow SK9 5AF.