General Professional Policies

My professional services are all supported by specific policies designd to align with ethical and legal guidelines, as well as best practices. Due to operating within multiple jurisdictions, I have specific sets of policies to best align with the jurisdictions I am operating in (Canada and the United Kingdom). During the intake process, we will discuss these policies further as they relate to the service you are accessing. The below policies apply to all services offered.

Cancellation & Late Policy
Missed appointments and short notice cancellations (less than 48 hours) impact me directly. Please advise as soon as possible by email or phone if you are unable to attend at your reserved time, so that time slot can go to another client. An appointment is considered missed fifteen minutes into the scheduled time. Time shifting the appointment to another time 24 hours before or after is offered at my sole discretion and subject to availability, to mitigate emergency situations. If our booking falls on a Friday, I will look to Monday to rebook. Currently, I only work with clients virtually and so if a client is available but ill, we can choose to do a virtual session with cameras off for the comfort of the client.

Should you give less than 48 hours’ notice of cancellation of an appointment or miss our appointment, 100% of session fee will be charged. Exceptions to this policy include accidents and illness, at my sole discretion.

If a chronic medical issue is present, we can discuss flixibility around this policy. For example, if a condition causes a symptom to flare up hours before out session, flexibility will ofcourse be applied.

Emergency Services
I do not provide emergency or crises services. In the event of emergency or crises, please contact 911/999 or the various crises line services available. I maintain a referral list of specific services available if the client feels they may benefit from having those.

Fees
Fees are structured to be in line with industry standards. Payment is due at the end of each session. There are no late fee penalties for overdue accounts, but all sessions are required to be paid by end of month. If falling into arrears, future sessions will not be booked if there is an outstanding balance from the previous session. Extending a counseling session, if the schedule allows, will incur extra fees. Select sliding scale fees are available for those who fit certain criteria. Fees are established and agreed to at the commencement of services. All services are provided with a receipt of payment.

There is a limited number of sliding scale fee slots available and are offered to clients based upon certain criteria. More information about eligibility can be discussed with me further.

Sliding scale arrangements are not perpetual, major breaks inbetween sessions or reduction of session frequencies will result in sliding scale fee options being rearranged or cancelled.

Unless specifically stated, all services offered are final sale and non-refundable. Course registrations are non-transferrable.

Collection of Personal Information
I have designed my policies to be inline with Canadian and UK data protection laws (UK GDPR & PIPEDA) to best protect client information. More specific information about each law and my data policy can be found in the service specific tabs below.

Social Media & Electronic Communication Policies

Professional Ethical Frameworks
As an individual member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), I work within the “Ethical Framework for the Counselling Professions” which are the guiding framework of conduct, principles and ethics of the BACP. As such, I adhere to the rules of membership developed to protect both client and counsellor in the therapeutic relationship. BACP offers continuing professional development opportunities, support, and guidance for the associations’ 50,000 members across the United Kingdom and worldwide. The association also supports clients in offering information, referrals and support through a complaints process. Registered members also abide by the following additional criteria:

  • Ensuring adequate supervision is in place. Supervision is a continuing professional relationship with another membr of the field, supervisors are there to coach, challenge and offer suggestions on how to approach client cases.

  • Keeping knowledge and skills up-to-date through continuing professional development (CPD). Continuing development as a professional counsellor is vital to updating skills and knowledge, this takes the form of workshops, courses, and other smaller opportunities throughout the year.

  • Recording all your CPD activities on the mandatory template. Part of our membership with BACP is to log our CPD to meet association guidelines.

  • Having adequate, current and ongoing professional indemnity insurance. It is crucial that my work with clients is covered by indemnity insurance.

Due to the nature of online communication and the communities I work within, please be advised of the following general policies to safeguard privacy and maintain appropriate professional boundaries in settings where dual-roles may be present

  • I do not generally engage with my clients in public, unless we have previously agreed to do so. If we come across each other in the public, I will take the lead of my client in interacting so as not to break the potential confidential nature of our work. I also ask that clients respect my own privacy boundaries and it is preferred that only simple exchanges of pleasentries take place to respect my own right to a private life outside of our work together.

  • Communication relating to professional services will be restricted to email, in-person or phone calls only. I will not engage with clients via text or personal messeging on social media, unless this is previously agreed to. I regret that at this time I do not offer a service of texting to remind clients of our sessions apart from the automatic reminders sent via my appointment system.

  • My professional social media accounts are there primarily to advertise my services and activities, they are not intended as an avenue for out of office communications. It is not generally expected that clients will follow public social media platforms, if counselling and spiritual direction clients do follow my social media care will be taken to safeguard confidentiality.

Confidentiality
Confidentiality is a cornerstone of all helping professions. In essence, a client has a reasonable right to expect confidentiality when engaging in counselling work. Breach of confidentiality is a very serious ethical issue.
There are specific situations where confidentiality might be broken for the purposes of my own professional development. During the course of meeting with my supervisor, it will become necessary to discuss with them client cases in order to gain support and professional advice. Supervisors are fully trained and adhere to the ame strict practices to safeguard confidentiality as I am. Clients will be informed before commencing services about the extent of information shared.
While operating in two different jurisdictions (Ontario and the United Kingdom), I have different legal obligations as to when it is appropriate to break confidentiality, and what information I may disclose. These different legal responsibilities are applied to residents of each jurisdiction.

Dual Relationships
One of the most important aspects of ethical practice is gauging when a dual role may pose serious threat to a clients’ ability to undertake therapy or impact my impartiality as a professional. In this way, a determination of any dual relationships will be undertaken and a referral to another professional given if a dual relationship is deemed to be large enough to pose a challenge.
As I offer various services outside of counselling and spiritual direction, it may be that a client of a one-on-one service wishes to partake of my various other offerings. This would not be deemed a dual relationship, but an established client utilizing another service. In those circumstances, care will be taken to maintain confidentiality.

  • I maintain personal and professional social media accounts. I do not accept friend requests from clients on my personal social media accounts, but will gladly accept follow/friend requests on my professional pages/profiles. If someone who has previously been following my more personal accounts decides to engage working with me, my general policy is to restrict access to my account for the interest of maintaining appropriate social distance.

  • With some agreed upon exceptions, I do not reply to my professional emails after business hours or on weekends. I endeavour to respond to most emails within 24-48 hours upon receiving said email.

  • One of the realities of working within the LGBTQ+ community and shared spiritual communities, it is likely that we may come across one another on communiy specific social apps (GRINDR, SCRUFF, or other dating apps) or may come across each other in community specific spaces. As such, we will discuss further policies to maintain professional boundaries in those circumstances so as not to interfere with each others personal lives. Being a member of smaller, marginalized populations means the general guidance by BACP on dual relationships becomes greatly nuanced.