The practice of psychotherapy in Ontario is regulated under the provincial Regulated Health Professions Act (RHPA). All identifiable information collected by a social worker about an individual while engaging in psychotherapy services is considered “personal health information” under the Personal Health Information Protection Act (PHIPA, 2004). This includes your name and contact information as well as any information collected and/or recorded in the course of providing services to you.
Collection of Your Personal Health Information: We collect your personal health information directly from you except: (a) when you have provided consent to obtain such information from others (i.e. reports, assessments or other relevant services); and (b) when the law requires or allows us to collect information without your consent (i.e. urgent situations, when information is needed to prevent potential harm).
We collect only information from you that we believe is needed: (a) to provide you with the psychotherapy services you have requested; (b) to maintain contact with you for service-related purposes; and (c) to prevent harm (i.e. an emergency contact).
By law and in accordance with professional standards, we are required to keep a record of services and contacts with you or your minor child. Your record includes information you provided to us or authorized us to receive. This may include results of assessments, consent forms, session notes, billing information, contact logs, and correspondence that we have sent or received related to your service. The electronic records are the property of the practice. However, you have rights regarding access to your record and disclosure of information from your record (see below).
In this office, information is recorded in electronic form. In electronic form this practice uses Jane.app (www.jane.app) a Canadian fully-encrypted service that is private, confidential and meets all of Canada’s privacy laws (PHIPA).
Use of Your Personal Health Information: is to provide psychotherapy and/or counselling and/or consultation services to you. This includes carrying out all of the functions reasonably necessary to provide those services.
Electronic information is secured in encrypted, password protected files and computers. Electronic information is transmitted through the services of Jane.app (www.jane.app), a Canadian fully-encrypted service that is private, confidential and meets all of Canada’s privacy laws (PHIPA).
The Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers (OCSWSSW), the organization that regulates social workers in Ontario, may at times access and inspect client records as part of an external audit. All professional persons involved in these activities are required by law to maintain confidentiality of any accessed information.
Disclosure of Your Personal Health Information: With only a few exceptions, your personal health information will not be disclosed to persons outside this practice without your knowledge and expressed, written consent. The exceptions known as limits of confidentiality are: (a) when allowed by law (i.e. clear and imminent risk of serious bodily harm to someone; professional or legal consultation); and (b) when required by law (i.e. mandatory reporting of a child who might be in need of protection; mandatory reporting of a regulated health professional who has sexually abused a client; a court order to release information from a record).
Please note that the law requires any disclosure of your personal health information to be limited to information that is reasonably necessary for the purpose of the disclosure and not to include private information provided by a third party. Professional ethical standards require that any information that might cause serious harm to someone not be disclosed, unless required by law. When consenting to the disclosure of your personal health information, you may restrict us from sharing all or any part of your information. However, if in your therapist’s opinion the information is reasonably necessary for another health service provider to provide appropriate services, we are required by law to inform the other provider that you have refused consent.
Right of Access to Your Personal Health Information: With only a few exceptions, you have the right to access any record of your personal health information and to request copies of the information (we reserve the right to charge a nominal fee for record copying). If the physical record contains personal health information about another individual, that individual’s information must be redacted (removed) from the record before you may access the record. Other exceptions include information provided in confidence by a third party, and information that could result in serious harm to someone’s treatment or recovery, or in serious bodily harm to someone. If you believe that information in your record is not accurate, you have the right to request a correction. This applies to factual information and not to the professional opinion of your therapist. Your request to correct the record must be written and will require 30 days to review. Where we agree there is an error, your therapist will make the necessary correction and notify all persons to whom the information may have been sent. If there is not an agreement to correct the record as requested, you may file a notice of disagreement into your record and your therapist will forward that notice to all persons to whom the information has been sent.
Retention and Destruction of Personal Health Information: We must retain personal health information for some time to ensure that we can answer any questions you might have about the services provided and for our own accountability to regulatory bodies. The Ontario College of Social Workers and Social Service Workers (OCSWSSW) requires that client records be kept for at least 7 years past the date of last contact for adults, and 7 years past the date at which the client would turn 18 years of age. We remove electronic information through deletion.
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Intellectual Property
All content published and made available on our Site is the property of Me Again Collective and the Site's creators. This includes, but is not limited to images, text, logos, documents, downloadable files and anything that contributes to the composition of our Site.
Log Files: Like most standard website servers, we use website statistic packages such as Google Analytics to analyze trends in how our website is accessed and utilized. Information monitored includes internet protocol (IP) addresses, geographic location of visitors (country, city), browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, platform type, date/time stamp, time spent on pages, and keywords used to find our site via search engines. This information is anonymous and cannot be directly linked to individual users. We may use it to identify high-use or low-use areas of the site, pinpoint problem areas of the site, analyze broad demographic trends in our visitors, and make decisions about how to make it easier for people to find and navigate our website.
Google Analytics: This website uses Google Analytics to help understand how visitors engage with the site. Your web browser automatically sends certain information to Google. This includes, for example, the web address of the page that you’re visiting and your IP address. Google may also set cookies on your browser, or read cookies that are already there. If you would like further information on how Google uses data when you use our website you may visit, www.google.ca/policies/privacy/partners/.
Links: This website may contain links to other sites. Please be aware that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites and we take no responsibility for the content on such other sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every website that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this website.
Affiliate Marketing: Me Again Collective is not responsible for any links to third-party websites, apps or other services, including social media platforms. We may sometimes participate in affiliate marketing and may allow third-party affiliate links to be encoded on some of our blog or email newsletter Services. This means that we may earn a small commission when you click on or make purchases via third-party affiliate links.
Changes to Privacy Policy: We reserve the right to amend this Privacy Policy at any time. We will notify you of any changes to this Privacy Policy by posting the updated Privacy Policy to this website or application.
Questions: If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact Jackie Ponomariov, MSW, RSW at jackie@meagaincollective.com.
