Privacy Policy
Your privacy is important to us. Rest assured that your information is safe and secure.
Who we are and how we process your personal data
Joanne Sweat-West of The Empowerment Therapist complies with obligations under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by keeping personal data up to date; by storing (and destroying it) securely; by not collecting or retaining excessive amounts of data; by protecting personal data from loss, misuse, unauthorised access and disclosure and by ensuring that appropriate technical measures are in place to protect personal data.
The information collected about you is provided by you and comes from the following sources:
Telephone call, Email or Website contact form
Information shared in your initial telephone call, online consultation/ contact form (held on Jotform), consultation or therapy sessions
Pay Pal or Bank transfer if use these as your method of payment
Signing up to receive my newsletter and occasional emails about offers (Held on Mail Chimp)
Privacy Polices for Jotform, Pay Pal and Mailchip can all be found on their websites
We use your personal data for the following purposes
To deliver the services that you have requested
To contact you as necessary in accordance with the information and services you have requested
To contact you via surveys to ascertain your opinions on the service you received from us
To process payments and maintain our own accounts, and records.
To distribute our newsletter and occasional offers if you have agreed to receive them
N.B. From time to time it may be necessary for your therapist to reflect on her practice and discuss cases with her supervisor during supervision, all such data will be sufficiently anonymised to the extent that individual clients cannot be identified.
Confidentiality
All personal information shared with Joanne Sweat-West of The Empowerment Therapist is to be kept confidential. Your data will never be passed to a third party without your express consent.
However, there are times when it is required to break that confidentiality these are;
1. Direct disclosure
2. Treats of harm to self (suicide) or others
3. Required by Law (e.g. Terrorism Act or Trafficking & Slavery Act).
As Joanne Sweat-West of The Empowerment Therapist is a sole trader and under takes both roles as Data controller and Data processor she has put provision in place a therapeutic executor. Should the event arise that she is unable to continue in practicing as a therapist for any reason either temporary or permanently the executor will make the necessary arrangement for the continuation of your therapy and storage of your personal data.
Data storage and retention
Your personal data as detailed above may be stored both electronically and/or, in paper format in line with data protection GDPR guidance and retained for a period of 8years (For clients under the age of 18, data will be retained until their 25th birthday) as required by professional bodies and insurers. After this period you data will be destroyed securely in line with GDPR guidance.
Your rights and your personal data
Unless subject to an exemption under the GDPR, you have the following rights with respect to your personal data:
Your right of access – You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.
Your right to rectification – You have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.
Your right to erasure – You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.
Your right to restriction of processing – You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
Your right to object to processing – You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
Your right to data portability – You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.
If you wish to make any of the above requests, you will need to put your request in writing to Our data controller and data processor Joanne Sweat-West by emailing Joanne@theempowermenttherapist.co.uk
Complaints Notice
If you have concerns regarding how your data is processed you have a right to complain to the Independent Commissioner’s Office (ICO)
(see https://ico.org.uk/concerns/handling/).
Oct 2025