Initial conversations are 30 minutes, and we aim to offer you this as soon as we are able following your registration. Following the initial conversation, you and your counsellor will decide the most supportive options for you.

To ensure you are seen as quickly as possible we ask you to let us know the times you are available so we can offer you an appointment that fits around your schedule.  The greater flexibility you have in when you are able to attend the more likely it is that you will have an earlier appointment.  We do request that you give us as much notice as possible if you are unable to attend your appointment.  This is to enable us to offer the time to another student who is waiting for an appointment.  

You will have the opportunity to talk with a counsellor about your concerns, to think together about what you might need, and decide about what help might be most useful to you. This may or may not be continuing into counselling.  You will be able to think with your counsellor if there are any other relevant support within or outside of Imperial College, which could be helpful to you. 

Following this meeting, if you and your counsellor agree that counselling with the Service is the best way forward for you, we will offer you an appointment as soon as a counsellor has space available at the time you have let them know you are available to attend. 

We aim to offer you a weekly appointment at the same day and time within 4 weeks from when you are first seen. This might be longer at times of particularly high demand. Ongoing counselling appointments are 50 minutes long. Typically we will offer you a further four consecutive meetings.

If it is agreed that further counselling within the service would be most helpful for you, we will ask for your availability in the coming weeks. We understand that being a student at Imperial College is likely to mean having a full diary, which can largely be out of your control. We will do our absolute best to be flexible around your needs. We also ask that you be as flexible as possible regarding the days and times in which you can be seen. If you have limited availability as to when you can be seen, it is likely that you will need to wait longer for counselling to begin.    

For the counselling process to be effective, it is important that students attend appointments regularly. We understand that there are times when circumstances or unexpected events will require you to cancel or to not attend a scheduled appointment, so we ask that you give us as much notice as possible so that we can offer this space to another student.  

Due to high demand and to keep the service accessible to those who need it, the service adheres to the following cancellation policy: 

Initial conversation:

We can reschedule a maximum of one initial conversation if you let us know at least 48 hours before the appointment. If you wish to reschedule with less than 48 hours notice this will count as a missed appointment, and you will be added back on to the waitlist. If you miss your appointment without letting us know before the session, you will need to re-register with the service at a later time 

Ongoing counselling appointments:

We can reschedule a maximum of one missed or cancelled appointment within an academic year.  Any subsequent missed or cancelled appointments will need to be counted as a used session. If you cancel or do not attend 3 counselling sessions, or 2 consecutively, your registration with the service will end and your file will be closed. You would be welcome to re-refer for counselling again when you can commit to regular attendance.  

Please note that we do not have a waiting room. As such, we kindly ask that you arrive at your counsellor’s room directly at the time of your appointment. In the event that you are going to be late, we would be grateful for you to let us know. We are unable to extend the length of the appointment, so please do your best to attend on time so that you can have the full session time

 

We offer a confidential space where you can talk about issues you feel troubled by. Hence we will not usually pass on personal information about you to anybody outside the Service, unless you have given us permission to do so. Further information is given in the Student Counselling and Mental Health Advice Service Privacy Notice below.  A printed copy is available from Reception.‌

You can talk with your counsellor about this at your therapeutic consultation if you have any questions

 

STUDENT COUNSELLING AND MENTAL HEALTH ADVICE SERVICE PRIVACY NOTICE

 

What is the purpose of this document?

Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine (the “College” or “Imperial”) is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you during and after your relationship with us, in accordance with the applicable data protection legislation (the Data Protection Act 1998 until 24 May 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulations (the “GDPR”) from 25 May 2018 and the College’s Data Protection Policy.

The College is a "data controller". This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.

This notice applies to all Imperial College students registered with the Student Counselling and Mental Health Advice Service. This notice does not form part of any contract of employment or other contract to provide services. We may update this notice at any time.

It is important that you read this notice, together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information.

Data protection principles

We will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal information we hold about you must be: 1. Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way. 2. Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes. 3. Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes. 4. Accurate and kept up to date. 5. Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about. 6. Kept securely.

The kind of information we hold about you

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data). There are "special categories" of more sensitive personal data which require a higher level of protection.

 

We collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:

• Personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, and personal email addresses.

• Date of birth.

• Self-identified gender

•  Who you have given us permission to communicate with

• Location of attendance with the service

• Personal information that you have provided us with

• The name of your doctor

• Medication you are taking

• Your Department

• Your year of study

• Your level of study

• Your presenting and emerging issues

• The date you first contacted us

• Dates of appointments

• Who referred you to the service

• Who we suggested you contact

• Brief themes of content of sessions as pseudonymised data

• With whom we have communicated with in the service of your care

We may also collect, store and use the following "special categories" of more sensitive personal information:

• Information about your race or ethnicity, sexual orientation

•  Information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records.

•  Information about criminal convictions and offences.

• Information provided to us by those who refer you to the service

• Your feedback about your experience of the service. 

How is your personal information collected?

We collect most of the personal information about you in person at the Student Counselling and Mental Health Advice Service in the course of providing services to you or after we have provided services to you.  We will also collect personal information from those who have referred you to the service. From August 2018 we will be using Titanium Schedule (Ti) as an electronic client record system.  This programme is in line with security measures as laid down by the University’s ICT department.  You may also provide some personal information through this programme. 

How we will use information about you and the legal basis for processing your data under the GDPR

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances: 1. Where we need to perform the contract we have entered into with you or in order to take steps at your request prior to the entry into a contract. 2. Where we need to comply with a legal obligation. 3. Where it is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in us. 4. Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. 5. Where it is necessary in order to protect your vital interests or someone else’s vital interests. 6. Where you have consented to the processing.

Situations in which we will use your personal information

We need all the categories of information in the list above primarily to provide our service to you.   The situations in which we will process your personal information are listed below.

• To provide you with the services that you request from us

• To contact you in relation to your contact with the service

• To help us plan services for Imperial College students in the future

• To ensure we meet any and all legal obligations with regards to the service we provide to you

• account for our decisions and investigate complaints

• To comply with British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy guidelines

•  To assess the use and effectiveness of the Student Counselling and Mental health Advice Service

•  To ensure the information we hold about you is up to date and accurate

Some of the above grounds for processing will overlap and there may be several grounds which justify our use of your personal information.

 

If you fail to provide personal information

If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may be unable to provide our service to you. 

 

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

How we use particularly sensitive personal information

"Special categories" of particularly sensitive personal information require higher levels of protection. We need to have further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of personal information. We may process special categories of personal information in the following circumstances: 1. In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent. 2. Where it is necessary in the context of employment law, or laws relating to social security and social protection. 3. Where the processing is necessary to protect your vital interests (or those of another person) where you are incapable of giving consent. 4. Where the processing is carried out in the course of our legitimate activities as a charity, with respect to our own members, former members, or persons with whom we have regular contact in connection with our purposes. 5. Where the processing relates to personal data which have been manifestly made public by you. 6. Where the processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims, or for courts acting in their judicial capacity. 7. Where the processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest, and occurs on the basis of a law that is, inter alia, proportionate to the aim pursued and protects your rights as a data subject. 8. Where the processing is required for the purpose of medical treatment undertaken by health professionals, including assessing the working capacity of employees and the management of health or social care systems and services. 9. Where the processing is necessary for reasons of public interest in the area of public health (e.g. ensuring the safety of medicinal products). 10. Where the processing is necessary for archiving purposes in the public interest, for historical, scientific, research or statistical purposes, subject to appropriate safeguards.

Our obligations

We will use your particularly sensitive personal information in the following ways:

•  To assess the impact and effectiveness of our service to you.

• To assess the impact and effectiveness of our service to students at Imperial College London.

• To monitor student need and trends of those attending the Student Counselling and Mental Health Service in order to improve what we offer

• To create a department annual report using pseudonymised data

Automated decision-making

You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making, unless we have a lawful basis for doing so and we have notified you.

We do not envisage that any decisions will be taken about you using automated means, however we will notify you in writing if this position changes.

Data sharing

Under usual circumstances we do not share your personal data with a third party except when identity has been removed (anonymised data).   We need to share anonymised data with third-party service providers and with other entities in College. 

We require third parties to respect the security of the data and to treat it in accordance with the law. 

Why might you share my personal information with third parties?

We may share your personal information with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to administer the relationship with you or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so. In the Student Counselling and Mental Health Advice Service this will be:

• Where we have the express consent of the student to disclose the information

• Where we believe the student or a third party is in significant and serious danger

• Where we would be liable to a civil or criminal court procedure if the information was not disclosed

• To provide an appropriate service to you

  Which third-party service providers process my personal information?

  "Third parties" includes third-party service providers (including contractors and designated agents) and other entities within the College group. The following activities are carried out by third-party service providers:

  ICT – in order to maintain technology and communications

  Titanium Schedule – in order to maintain client record system

  SilverCloud – in order to maintain service provision for SilverCloud users

  How secure is my information with third-party service providers and other entities in our group?

  All our third-party service providers and other entities in the College group are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

  What about other third parties?

  We may share your personal information with other third parties, for example in the context of the possible sale or restructuring of the business and operations of the College. We may also need to share your personal information with a regulator or to otherwise comply with the law.

Data security

We have put in place measures to protect the security of your information

Third parties will only process your personal information on our instructions and where they have agreed to treat the information confidentially and to keep it secure.

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

Data retention

How long will you use my information for?

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. Details of retention periods for different records the College holds are available in our retention policy which is available on this website: http://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/administration-and-support-services/records-and-archives/public/Retention-Schedule-version-2010.pdf . To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

In the Student Counselling and Mental Health Advice Service we retain your records for a period of six years in addition to the academic year you were last seen in the Service.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you.

Rights of access, correction, erasure, and restriction

Your duty to inform us of changes

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes during your relationship with us.

Your rights in connection with personal information

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

• Request access to your personal information (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.

• Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.

• Request erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).

• Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.

• Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.

• Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.

If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact the College’s Data Protection Officer in writing.

To maintain your confidentiality within Imperial College you may also contact the Head of Student Counselling and Mental Health Advice service regarding personal data kept within this service only. 

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

Right to withdraw consent

In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact the College’s Data Protection Officer and the Head of Student Counselling and Mental Health Advice Service. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

Data Protection Officer

We have appointed a Data Protection Officer to oversee compliance with this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact the Data Protection Officer at:

 

Imperial College London
Data Protection Officer
Exhibition Road
Faculty Building Level 4
London SW7 2AZ

e-mail: dpo@imperial.ac.uk     

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues.

Changes to this privacy notice

We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.

 

 

"This is my first year at College… I’ve never lived away from home before; I feel homesick. I used to be top of my class; now the work is so much more demanding and there are people on my course who are more intelligent than me!"

"I can’t focus on my work; I feel low and I don’t understand what’s happening to me. Sometimes I feel anxious for no apparent reason."

In addition, students bring a range of issues associated with relationship difficulties, bereavement, sexuality, self-harm, and other personal difficulties.