Notes may be made during or after your appointment. These notes are stored securely for 6 years after your counselling sessions have ended. You have the right to access these notes should you wish.

All Wellbeing staff regularly discuss their work with a Supervisor, an experienced practitioner who supports them and monitors their work. Work is discussed anonymously and your identity is protected. There may be exceptional occasions when information will be shared within the Health, Wellbeing & Disability Service regarding clients who are giving cause for concern and who may be supported by both a Counsellor and a Mental Health Adviser.

Everything discussed during your sessions will remain confidential to the Service except in the most extreme circumstances. The circumstances when confidentiality will need to be extended are:

• When you or someone else is in serious danger or at risk of serious harm.
• When disclosure is required by law (including law relating to public health).

Usually in such circumstances Wellbeing staff would discuss the situation with you before breaching confidence. However, in high-risk situations this may not be possible. If this were not possible, you would be told what information has been disclosed at the earliest opportunity.

Counselling Confidentiality

All Counsellors within the Health, Wellbeing & Disability Service abide by a strict Confidentiality Code and the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy’s Code of Ethics

We take your confidentiality most seriously.

Your name will not appear on any notes nor on the questionnaire we ask you to complete; instead there will be a code number allocated to you. Paperwork is stored securely for 6 years after the end of your counselling sessions.

Support services keep records of client appointments on the university’s online diary. Access to personal information on this system is limited to Counselling staff and Manager of the Service. Only relevant information will be shared in extreme circumstances to third parties as outlined in the service’s Confidentiality Code.

It is our policy that you will have an opportunity to discuss the Confidentiality Code in more detail at the beginning of your first counselling appointment. 

We will ask you to complete a brief Outcome Measure questionnaire at the beginning and end of your counselling. Your name will not appear on the questionnaires and are stored securely for 6 years after the end of your counselling sessions.

Use of this questionnaire during your counselling can help you establish how well we are helping you, and your responses also help us to evaluate the effectiveness of our service on a regular basis. We positively welcome your honest feedback on whether or not we are meeting your needs, in order that we can work together with you to do so.

University staff who are concerned about a student can email [email protected] for advice. This should be done with the student’s consent, where possible, but may be done without if necessary. Consideration should be given as to whether it is essential to identify the student, or whether it is possible to preserve their anonymity unless it becomes necessary to identify the student to Wellbeing staff.

Students can be advised to book a Wellbeing Advice Appointment on Advice Zone Online. This is a 45 minute appointment where the student can discuss their situation, problem or feelings with a Wellbeing Adviser. The adviser may arrange to speak to them again and may signpost them to additional support, or refer them to a Mental Health Adviser or Counsellor.

We are always pleased to receive your feedback. It helps us to meet your needs more effectively and improve the Wellbeing Service.

You can give feedback by contacting us via email. We also undertake evaluation questionnaires where you can give anonymous feedback about the support you were given.

The Wellbeing Service is part of USW Student Services. If you are dissatisfied with any part of Student Services the University asks that you speak to or put your complaint in writing to the relevant service manager in the first instance.

For the Wellbeing Service complaints should be directed to:

Manager of Wellbeing & Disability Service
Hirwaun Building
Treforest Campus
University of South Wales,
Llantwit Road
Pontypridd 
CF37 1DL

This forms part of the University Complaints Procedure which is updated frequently.

Please find the policies for the Disability Service on their policies page.