Confidentiality and Informed Consent Policy
Counselling Services recognizes and respects your right to privacy with regards to the information you share in counselling. We are committed to keeping your information strictly confidential.
To ensure you are fully informed when consenting to access Fleming’s counselling services, we believe you must understand how your information is retained, who it can be shared with, and the fact that there are specific limits to confidentiality.
Your Counselling Record
As a professional Counselling service, we are required to keep a record of each of your interactions with us. All members of Fleming’s Counselling services can have access to these records. This includes all counsellors at any of our campuses, as well as the Director of Health, Wellness and Accessibility Services. However, in practice only those team members involved in supporting you will access your information.
Reception will be able to access only the information required to book an appointment for you, and Accessible Education Services will be able to access only the information pertinent to their services. The contents of your record will not be released without your consent, except in the circumstances described below in the Limits of Confidentiality section.
Consent to Release Personal Information
In many situations, it may be helpful to be able to share information about you outside of Counselling Services in order to provide better support to you. This may include sharing your information with another department within the college, faculty, your parents, a family doctor, or an outside agency. In all such situations, we would discuss the risks and benefits of releasing the information. We would require a signed consent from you indicating what information we may release, and to whom, in order to do this.
Limits of Confidentiality
Counselling Services is legally obligated to disclose information about you to the appropriate health care providers and/or authorities, with or without your consent, in the following circumstances:
- We have reason to believe you are a danger to yourself or others.
- We have reason to believe that a child under the age of 17 years is at risk of being abused or neglected.
- Your counselling record has been subpoenaed by a court of law.
- You disclose that you have been sexually abused by a regulated health professional.
- If you provide a signed authorization for Release of Information.
In these rare circumstances where we are obligated to disclose confidential information about you without your consent, we will 1) only release information relevant to the circumstances , and 2) only release information to those whom we are required to release it . When appropriate and safe to do so, we will advise you if we have released such information without your consent.