Counselling Agreement
Information confidentiality and collection
Beyond reflections collections information about clients to ensure that your care is effective, supportive and meets your individual needs. Client records are held electronically on our database.
All Beyond Reflections staff and volunteers have a responsibility to keep all client information confidential.
In emergencies we may share information about our clients with other agencies, in very rare situations this may be without your consent although we will always try to contact you to discuss it with you first. Some examples of this are if there are serious concerns that you or someone else is at serious risk of harm, if we have been instructed to give information to services by the court, or if the information is vital to the investigation of a crime.
Clients agree to:
- Attend sessions on time. If there is a reason you are unable to attend, please give your counsellor at least 48hours notice, unless you are unable. In this case, please let them know as soon as you know that you will be unable to attend
- Commitment to regular sessions, and view this as a priority
- Participate in sessions and minimise potential distractions by having devices away or on silent
- Do not record sessions without your counsellor being aware & giving consent. This includes uploading any details or recordings online.
- Talk to your counsellor if you are unclear or unhappy with any aspect of your care from Beyond Reflections. Raise issues with the office if you are unable to do so, or are dissatisfied with the response from your counsellor.
- Make a commitment to behaving and responding in a respectful way with the charity
Understand that Beyond reflections has a zero-tolerance policy to aggression, violence or bullying
Beyond Reflections will:
- Provide support following BACP’s ethical framework and guidelines
- Ensure that you are aware of your options and rights in regard to the service
- Attend sessions doing our utmost not to cancel these last minute
- Work with you to improve your mental health and wellbeing
- Ensure that counsellor-client allocations are made with consideration given to the ability of the counsellor and the presenting issues of the client
Non-attendance, ending, and other issues
When reaching the end of a period of counselling, the client and counsellor will, in best practice, discuss an ending date and plan an ending session suitable for that client. This will typically be within sixteen to twenty sessions, however in some cases this may be longer.
Please note that if you do not attend more than one appointment without warning, you will be asked to contact the service to reschedule. If you do not contact us within fourteen days of the missed appointment your counselling will be stopped, with immediate effect and your slot will be offered to someone else. However, if in the future you then wish to re-engage you will be able to refer in at any time.
If you decide that this is not the right time for counselling, or you are unhappy with your counsellor please discuss this with the person. If you are not able to do this, then please contact [email protected]
This agreement was last updated December 2024.