Confidentiality is an essential part of the counseling relationship and when beginning the counseling process there are often questions about what confidentiality entails. Counselors are required to follow privacy and confidentiality guidelines set up by the American Counseling Association (ACA), Ohio Laws set under the Counselor, Social Worker and Marriage and Family Therapist Board (CSWMFT), and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). These guidelines stipulate how the counselor and practice can use your information.

Confidentiality is an ethical term used to protect a client’s right to keep their information private by ensuring any information disclosed to a professional not be given to others without their consent. If information is shared it is only shared with a client’s written permission unless it meets one of the limitations to confidentiality.

Our Policy

Reflecting Hope takes your confidentiality seriously and will make confidentiality an ongoing process from the start. We will discuss confidentiality at length in the first session and then continue to bring confidentiality to the forefront as the need arises through the counseling process.

Whenever possible, clients will be informed before confidential information is disclosed and will be involved in the decision-making process of disclosure. When circumstances require disclosure of confidential information, we do our best to reveal only essential information.

Please read our Informed Consent and Notice of Privacy Policy for more details regarding how we handle your confidential information or if you have any questions or concerns about this important issue.

We will do our utmost to ensure your information remains confidential but recognize there are exceptions to confidentiality, even though infrequent, due to the law and ethical standards. We remain committed to protecting your confidentiality whenever limitations don’t impede us from doing so. These exceptions include, but are not limited to when we:

• Judge there is a strong possibility of serious harm to yourself and/or another person. The counselor may take necessary action to protect you or others by contacting people you’ve listed as an emergency contact, the individuals being threatened, a physician, and/or law enforcement.

  • Suicidal thoughts are common but should be disclosed when you are experiencing them. This creates an open dialog with counselor who can help you manage them and find others who can support you when struggling with those thoughts. A counselor may deem it necessary to take further action in order to protect the client from acting on their thoughts.

• Believe a child, elder adult, or vulnerable adult has been or may be abused, neglected, or exploited in any way. A counselor is required to make a report to the appropriate agency.

• Are ordered by the court with a valid subpoena or court order. A counselor will seek to obtain written permission from the client or take steps to limit the sharing of any information that is potentially harmful to the client or the counseling relationship.

• Counsel with a minor (under the age of 18)

• Are under required clinical supervision or other clinical counselors are consulted for diagnosis or treatment purposes

• Have others present during a session, like couple’s counseling, etc.

• Have a signed release from the client giving us permission to disclosure their information

• Have limitations surrounding electronic communication and transmissions – like texting, phone calls, and emails. These types of communication are used for scheduling purposes only.