- We are committed to the health, safety and wellbeing of our team members and our clients.
- We will put our clients first by making them our primary concern while we are working with them.
- We will be honest about what we can do; we will recognise the abilities and limitations of our trainings/qualifications/experience and signpost when necessary.
- We will ensure that our wellbeing is sufficient to sustain the quality of our work if this changes, at any point, we will try to work with the client/s to find an appropriate replacement where possible.
- We will value each client as an individual and agree with clients about how we will work together.
- We will respect the boundaries between our work with clients and what lies outside that work. For this reason, we ask you to communicate with us using our official facebook and/or twitter page, official email address and telephone number.
- Should you find a team member on social media we ask that you refrain from adding/following that person.
- We will treat all clients with kindness and respect. We ask that all clients treat team members with kindness and respect.
- We are committed to universal design and are always interested in input about how to better our services.
- In instances in which comments/complaints are made, email a senior member of staff detailing the comments/complaints. A meeting will be set up to discuss the comments/complaints as a team, if necessary.
- Our workshops, support sessions and consultations are designed to be safe spaces for everyone involved. Abusive, threatening behaviours or harassment will not be tolerated and will result in the termination of services and ejection from the group.
- We respect each individual’s right to privacy and ask that you do not film, take photographs or record workshops, support sessions or consultations without express permission from everyone involved.
- All clients have the right to terminate their use of our services at any point, should you wish to cancel an appointment for a consultation, support session or place on a workshop we ask that you give us 5 working days notice so we can give someone else the opportunity to attend in your place.
- If you have booked onto a course, we cannot offer refunds for shortnotice cancellations.
- We will not sell, share or give your data to third parties without your permission.
- Anything that you share with us will remain confidential, but may be discussed anonymously within the team so that we can tailor our workshops and support to suit you, the client.
- In instances where there is the risk of self harm, harm to others, or actual or suspected occurrence of abuse we are duty bound to disclose this to the relevant authorities
- While there is no detailed list to cover all situations in which information will be disclosed to the relevant authorities, broad guidelines are:
– when the client is clearly not in control of their own safety
– when, in the opinion of a team member, the client is in an emotional or mental state such that renders them a risk to their own life or to the lives of others
– when, in the opinion of a team member, failure to notify the appropriate authority may expose the client to the risk of significant harm, or to risk of continued significant harm to self or others.
· – There may be occasions when we are legally required to disclose material or information concerning a client or a staff member – for example in a Court of Law.
- We are often asked to describe issues that we have seen in workshops and support sessions and the validity/necessity of support work in general, in these situations, outline details of issues that we have encountered may be discussed, but no personal information will be disclosed. Such that if a situation is described, the identity of the client will not be apparent, unless their permission has been obtained.
- When the safeguarding of our clients or others from serious harm takes priority over our commitment to putting our clients’ wishes and confidentiality first, we will usually consult with any client affected, if this is legally permitted and ethically desirable. We will endeavour to implement any safeguarding responsibilities in ways that respect a client’s known wishes, protect their interests, and support them in what follows
- We will give careful consideration to how we manage situations when protecting clients or others from serious harm or when compliance with the law may require overriding a client’s explicit wishes or breaching their confidentiality
- We will never open a workshop group, support session or consultation to third parties (e.g. researchers, students) without discussing this with you first and obtaining informed consent as necessary. See our note about working with researchers below.
- In the instance that any clients chose to partake in research or allow a third party to observe a workshop, support session or consultation, we will remind them of their right to withdraw at any time.
- We will work ethically and with careful consideration of the law.
Research groups:
Any researchers who wish to approach us must have ethical clearance from a university, provide us with your proposal, ethical clearance and contact details from your supervisor. In most cases, we will contact your supervisor to clarify any questions that we might have.
Our client base are our priority, as such access to them will not be granted before we have
shared all details of the study with them, their families and carers, and we have obtained informed consent and permission to share their contact details with you. We will take all reasonable precautions to ensure the health, safety and wellbeing of our client base.