Privacy Policy

Name: Sojourn Counselling and Neurofeedback
Price range: $$

Last updated: October 18, 2026

This page explains what personal information Sojourn Counselling and Neurofeedback collects, why we collect it, where it is kept and what choices you have. We have tried to keep it plain. If anything is unclear, please ask us. We are glad to explain.

If you are in crisis

Our clinic does not provide crisis support, and we do not answer crisis calls. If you are in crisis, please call the Fraser Health Crisis Line at 604-951-8855 or 1-877-820-7444, or call or text 9-8-8 any time. Anywhere in BC you can also call 1-800-SUICIDE (1-800-784-2433). Young people can call Kids Help Phone at 1-800-668-6868 or text CONNECT to 686868. If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 9-1-1.

The short version

We collect what we need to answer your questions, book your sessions, provide counselling or neurofeedback, and handle payment.
What you say in counselling is confidential, with some limits, for example a serious risk of harm or a child who needs protection. Your counsellor will go over them with you at your first session. See Limits of confidentiality.
Your booking details and clinical record are kept in Jane, our practice management system, which stores our clinic’s records primarily in Canada.
Some services we use store information in the United States. These include our email, our website and its forms, website analytics, the website chat, the newsletter and the WhatsApp assistant.
On our website, Google Analytics runs only if you click Accept on our cookie banner. It then records the pages you read, which can show the kind of counselling you are looking into. We do not send Google your name or contact details, but Google can recognize your browser between visits. We have turned off the advertising features of Google Analytics on our site, including Google signals and ad personalization. If you use our Find a Counsellor tool, Google Analytics no longer receives your answers. Answers sent before October 15, 2026 are still in our Google Analytics account. Google Maps, and YouTube players on some pages, load whether or not you click Accept, so Google still receives your IP address and the page you are on.
We removed the Meta (Facebook) Pixel from our website on October 15, 2026. Before then, it sent Meta information about visits to our site to measure our Facebook and Instagram ads.
We never sell your personal information. Nothing from your clinical record is sent to Google Analytics, Meta or any advertising service.
You can ask to see or correct your information, and you can withdraw your consent. Our Privacy Officer is here to help.

Who we are

Sojourn Counselling and Neurofeedback is a private counselling and neurofeedback clinic at Unit 211, 17696 65A Avenue, Surrey, BC V3S 5N4. We are responsible for the personal information we collect, including information our service providers handle for us. We follow British Columbia’s Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) and the standards of the BC Association of Clinical Counsellors (BCACC). Canada’s federal privacy law (PIPEDA) can also apply when information crosses provincial or national borders.

Our Privacy Officer

Jonathan Wieser, RCC #3824, is our Privacy Officer. You can reach him:

By email at info@sojourncounselling.com
By phone at 778-381-5868 during office hours (Monday to Thursday 9 am to 7 pm, Friday 9 am to 7:30 pm, Saturday 9 am to 2 pm)
By mail at Privacy Officer, Sojourn Counselling and Neurofeedback, Unit 211, 17696 65A Avenue, Surrey, BC V3S 5N4

Limits of confidentiality

Counselling is confidential, with some limits. Your counsellor will go over them with you at your first session. We may need to share information without your consent:

when there is a substantial risk that you will seriously harm yourself very soon;
when there is a substantial risk that you will seriously harm another person very soon;
when we have reason to believe a child or youth needs protection. BC law requires us to report this to the Ministry of Children and Family Development or an Indigenous child welfare authority;
when we need to protect a vulnerable adult, as the law requires or allows;
when a court order, subpoena, warrant or another law requires it.

Two more things are part of how we work:

If ICBC, CVAP or another funder pays for your counselling, we share the reports that program requires. We explain this at the start.
Counselling interns, and counsellors who work under clinical supervision, discuss their work with a clinical supervisor. The supervisor is bound by the same professional duty of confidentiality.

Other times the law allows us to share

PIPA also allows us to share personal information without consent in a few other situations. When we do, we share only what is needed:

with the service providers listed in Where your information is stored, only to do work for us;
in an emergency that threatens someone’s life, health or safety. If we do this, we will mail a notice to your last known address;
to contact your next of kin or a friend if you are injured, ill or have died;
when it is clearly in your interest and we cannot get your consent in time;
to our lawyer, for legal advice;
to collect an unpaid account. We would share only your contact and billing details, never what you discussed in counselling.

Children and youth

For younger children, a parent or guardian usually gives consent for counselling. A young person under 19 can consent to their own counselling when their counsellor has explained it, is satisfied they understand it, and believes it is in their best interests, as BC’s Infants Act allows. When a young person consents to their own counselling, we do not share what they tell us with parents or guardians unless the young person agrees, apart from the limits of confidentiality above. Young people can ask to see their own information when they understand what they are asking for. The WhatsApp assistant and the website chat are for adults 19 and older.

What we collect and why

This section explains what we collect and why. We ask for your consent on our intake and consent forms and at your first session. When you send us a message, we take it that you agree to us using your details to reply. We never make it a condition of your care that you agree to anything beyond what your care needs.

Booking and sessions

We use Jane, a practice management system made by Jane Software Inc., for booking, intake forms, billing and clinical records. When you book through our Jane booking site at sojourncounselling.janeapp.com, Jane collects the details you enter on the booking and intake forms, such as your name and contact details. We use them to schedule your sessions, contact you about appointments and prepare for your first session.

Your clinical record

Your counsellor keeps a clinical record of your sessions, as BCACC standards require. It can include notes about what you discuss, assessments, consent forms and records of neurofeedback sessions. We use it to provide your care. Counselling is confidential, within the limits explained in Limits of confidentiality above.

Online and phone sessions

Before your first online or phone session, your counsellor will explain the video service we use, what you need at your end and the privacy risks, and ask for your consent. Phone calls travel over the ordinary phone network, which gives less privacy protection than an encrypted video service. For any online or phone session, please find a private space where you will not be overheard.

Paying and billing

If you pay by card through Jane, your card is processed by Stripe, Jane’s payment partner. Stripe holds your card details and Jane keeps only a coded stand-in for your card, so your full card number is not stored in Jane. Stripe processes Canadian card information in the United States.

If you ask us to bill your extended health plan directly, we send the claim through TELUS eClaims. If ICBC, the Crime Victim Assistance Program (CVAP) or another funder pays for your counselling, we share what that program requires, such as invoices, attendance and reports. We explain this and ask for your consent before we start.

Phone calls and email

When you call us, leave a voicemail or email us, we keep your name, your contact details and your message so we can reply. Our email runs on Google Workspace, which stores email in the United States and other countries. Ordinary email is not encrypted from end to end, so please keep health details out of email where you can. Your counsellor can talk them through with you in session.

Forms on our website

Our website has four forms:

Get In Touch, at the bottom of every page: name, email, phone and your message.
Appointment request, on our appointment page: name, email, phone, a preferred date and time, and your message.
Home neurofeedback, on our home neurofeedback page: name, email, phone and your message.
Send Us a Message, on our contact page: name, email, phone and your message.

The first three forms also send us the title of the page you were on, which can show which service you were reading about. Form messages go to our website server, hosted by SiteGround in the United States. Depending on each form’s settings, the server emails the message to us, keeps a copy in our website’s database, or both. We use form messages only to reply to you. If you have clicked Accept on our cookie banner, Google Analytics records that the Send Us a Message form was sent, but not your name or what you wrote. Please do not include health details. We can talk about those at your first session.

If you sign up at the bottom of any page, we collect your email address and use it only to send our newsletter: articles on mental wellness and updates from our clinic. We send it only to people who have signed up. The list is kept by Mailchimp (owned by Intuit), which stores it in data centres in the United States. Every newsletter has an unsubscribe link, and unsubscribing takes effect promptly, always within 10 business days. If you have clicked Accept on our cookie banner, Google Analytics records that someone signed up, but not the email address.

The Find a Counsellor tool

Our Find a Counsellor page asks a few questions and suggests counsellors who may fit. The suggestions are worked out in your browser. If you have clicked Accept on our cookie banner, Google Analytics records that you started and finished the tool. If you then click a button to book, view a counsellor’s profile, see all counsellors or contact us, it records which kind of button you clicked and which counsellor it was for. The tool does not send clicks to our topic pages, but if you open one, Google Analytics records that page and the page you came from, like any other visit. None of your answers are sent, including who the counselling is for, the topics you tick, the fee range, language, session format and schedule. We do not send your name or contact details. Google links what it records to the random ID it keeps in your browser. Before October 15, 2026, the tool also sent Google Analytics who the counselling was for, the topics ticked, the fee range and, when you clicked one, which topic page you opened from the results. It sent them whether or not you had clicked Accept. That information is still in our Google Analytics account, and we have not yet confirmed how long it will stay there. The counsellor photos on this page load from Jane’s servers, so Jane receives your IP address (the number that identifies your internet connection) and the page you are on.

Our website, cookies and analytics

Our cookie banner

The first time you visit, a banner asks you to Accept or Decline optional cookies. Your choice controls Google Analytics. It does not load unless you click Accept, and declining will not affect your care in any way. If you click Decline, our site deletes any Google Analytics cookies it finds (_ga, _ga_94D0XMBY5W, _gid and _gat). It also deletes any older copy of Google’s advertising cookie, _gcl_au. If you had clicked Accept before, the page then reloads. Each time a page loads, our site also deletes any Meta Pixel cookies (_fbp and _fbc) left in your browser from before we removed the pixel. Jetpack Stats, the website chat, Google Maps, YouTube players on some pages, the counsellor photos from Jane on our Find a Counsellor page, our search engine tool and our server logs work whether or not you accept. Your choice is saved in your browser for one year. Before October 15, 2026, the banner asked only about the Meta Pixel, which we have since removed, so we now ask everyone again. To change your choice at any time, use the Cookie choices link at the bottom of every page.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics, from Google LLC, runs only if you click Accept on our cookie banner. If you click Decline, or make no choice, it does not load. When it runs, it records:

the pages you visit, with their titles and addresses, which can show the kind of counselling you are reading about;
the page you came from, how far you scroll and how long you read;
your device, your browser and your approximate location, which Google works out from your IP address;
clicks on links to book or join a wait list in Jane, including the counsellor and the type of service in the link (for example EMDR or ICBC counselling);
clicks on our phone number, our email address and links to other websites;
which counsellor profiles you view;
whether you arrived from an AI tool such as ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini or Claude;
your use of the Find a Counsellor tool, as described above;
the words you type into the search box on some of our blog pages, because they become part of the page address.

Google Analytics stores a random ID in cookies so it can recognize your browser on later visits. We see reports about visits. We do not send your name, email address or phone number to Google Analytics. You can stop Google Analytics at any time with the Cookie choices link at the bottom of every page, or in a desktop browser with Google’s opt-out add-on.

Google advertising features

We have turned off Google’s advertising features for Google Analytics on our site. Our site tells Google not to use advertising cookies, not to send your information to Google for advertising and not to use it to personalize ads. It also turns off Google signals, a feature that can connect visits with signed-in Google accounts (Google’s explanation). Because of this, our site does not set Google’s advertising cookie, _gcl_au. You can also turn off personalized ads from Google in My Ad Center. Google handles information it receives from our site under the Google Privacy Policy.

Meta Pixel, removed October 15, 2026

Our site no longer uses the Meta Pixel from Meta Platforms, Inc. Until we removed it on October 15, 2026, it sent Meta information about visits to our site. Once our cookie banner was in place, it loaded only if you clicked Accept. Meta handles information it received before then under its own privacy policy. If you have a Facebook or Instagram account, you can review activity that businesses have shared with Meta, and disconnect it from your account, in Meta’s Accounts Center under Your activity off Meta technologies.

Jetpack Stats

Jetpack Stats, from Automattic Inc., counts visits to our site. For each visit it receives your IP address, your browser, the page you are on, the page you came from, the time, your browser language and country, and your WordPress.com username if you are logged in to WordPress.com. Automattic keeps logs with IP addresses for 28 days and then keeps only totals (Jetpack’s explanation). We see only totals. It runs whether or not you accept cookies.

Map, videos and fonts

Google Maps. The map at the bottom of each page comes from Google Maps. When it loads, Google receives your IP address, your browser information and the page you are on, and may use its own cookies. Use of the map is subject to the Google Maps Additional Terms of Service and the Google Privacy Policy.

YouTube. Some of our neurofeedback pages include YouTube video players. If a player loads or you play a video, YouTube (Google) receives your IP address, your browser information and the page you are on, and may set its own cookies.

Fonts. The fonts on our site are served from our own website, not loaded from Google.

Search engine tool

Our site uses a tool from SEO Platform (cdn.seoplatform.io) that adjusts page titles, descriptions and similar details for search engines. It does not track visitors or set cookies. Like any file your browser downloads, the request shows your IP address, your browser and the page you are on. If the tool runs into an error, a report that includes the page address may be sent to Sentry, an error reporting service in the United States.

Website hosting

Our website is hosted by SiteGround on Google Cloud servers in the United States. Like all web servers, it keeps logs of each visit, including your IP address, the page, your browser and the time. We use these logs only to run the website and look into problems.

Search box on our blog pages

If you use the search box on some of our blog pages, your search words become part of the page address. That means Jetpack Stats and our server logs receive them along with the rest of the visit, and so does Google Analytics if you clicked Accept.

Links to Jane and social media

Booking and wait list links take you to our Jane booking site, where Jane collects your booking details for us. Links to our Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, X and YouTube pages are ordinary links: the links themselves send nothing until you click one. Google also receives information from our site in the other ways described above (Google Analytics, only if you click Accept, and Google Maps and YouTube).

Cookies and browser storage on our site

_ga and _ga_94D0XMBY5W (Google Analytics): recognize your browser between visits. Google lists these as lasting up to 2 years. Set only if you click Accept, and deleted if you click Decline.
_gcl_au (Google advertising measurement): not set by our site. If an older copy is in your browser, our site deletes it when you click Decline.
chatbase_anon_id (website chat): a random ID for the chat. It normally ends when you close your browser. Set on every visit.
_fbp and _fbc (Meta Pixel, removed October 15, 2026): no longer set by our site. If older copies are in your browser, our site deletes them each time a page loads.
sj_consent_v2 (browser storage, not a cookie): remembers your Accept or Decline choice for one year. You can change your choice at any time with the Cookie choices link at the bottom of every page.
sj_ai_ref (browser storage for one visit): notes that you arrived from an AI tool, so the visit is counted once.
Google Maps and YouTube may set their own cookies on Google and YouTube domains.

Website chat

What it is. A chat button called Sojourn Support appears on every page of our website. The chat window opens only if you click it. The button itself loads from Chatbase on every page and sets a cookie, as explained below. The chat is an AI chatbot that Chatbase Inc., a company in San Francisco, runs for us. It is a computer program, not a person or a counsellor, and no one at the clinic reads the chat as it happens. The replies are written by an AI model. They can contain mistakes, and chatting does not make you a client of the clinic. The chat is for adults 19 and older. If you are under 19, please call us at 778-381-5868 or ask a parent or caregiver to contact us. Jonathan Wieser, RCC #3824, is responsible for it. Please do not use the chat in a crisis. The crisis lines are at the top of this page.

What it collects. Everything you type into the chat, plus basic technical details such as the page you are on and your browser. If you give a reply a thumbs up or down, that is recorded too. When any page loads, the chat sets a cookie with a random ID (chatbase_anon_id). This happens before you make a choice in our cookie banner. Please do not share health details or anything private in the chat. It does not need personal information to answer general questions about our services, fees and booking.

Where it goes. Chatbase stores conversations in the United States, on Amazon Web Services. To write the replies, it sends your messages to an AI model. Chatbase lists the model our chat uses as GPT-6 Luna from OpenAI. Chatbase publishes a list of the companies it uses, including AI providers such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google. We have not yet confirmed where OpenAI processes messages for Chatbase or how long it keeps them. Chatbase says in its privacy policy that it does not use your data to train AI models.

Who can see it and how long it is kept. We can read chat conversations in our Chatbase account and may review them to check the quality of the answers. Conversations are not deleted automatically. They stay in our account until we delete them. You cannot delete a chat yourself from the chat window, but you can ask our Privacy Officer to delete it. Tell us roughly when you chatted so we can find it. We will delete it from our account and, if you ask, send Chatbase a written deletion request. Chatbase’s terms say it deletes the data, including backups, within 30 days of such a request.

Automated WhatsApp assistant

What it is. Messages sent to our WhatsApp number, +1 778-800-2750, are answered by an automated assistant. It is a computer program, not a counsellor or a person. It tells you this in its first message and asks you to reply YES, confirming you are 19 or older, before it continues. It can explain our services and fees, help you find a counsellor who may fit practical preferences such as days, budget and online or in person, and send you a link to book in Jane. You book yourself. The assistant never books for you and never sees your clinical record. It can also reply in Spanish if you send ESPAÑOL.

What it is not. No one at the clinic reads the chat as it happens. Chatting with the assistant does not make you a client of the clinic and does not start counselling. Its answers can contain mistakes. Your fee and appointment time are the ones Jane shows you when you book. The service is for adults 19 and older. Jonathan Wieser, RCC #3824, is responsible for it.

Not for emergencies. Our clinic does not provide crisis support. If you are in crisis, call the Fraser Health Crisis Line at 604-951-8855 or 1-877-820-7444, call or text 9-8-8 any time, or call 9-1-1 if you are in immediate danger.

What we collect. Your WhatsApp phone number and display name (WhatsApp shares these with us), the messages you send, their message IDs, and the practical preferences you choose to tell us. Please do not send health details, voice notes, photos or files. The assistant cannot open attachments, but our providers still store them for the periods below.

Who handles it and where. WhatsApp (Meta), Twilio, Make and Anthropic process these messages for us on servers outside Canada, mainly in the United States. The laws of those countries apply there, and authorities there may be able to access the messages. Anthropic provides the AI model that writes the replies.

How long messages are kept.

The assistant keeps your conversation for up to 24 hours after your last message so it can follow the thread, then deletes it.
Make keeps a log of incoming messages for up to 3 days.
WhatsApp (Meta) and Anthropic keep their copies for up to 30 days. Anthropic can keep a message for up to 2 years if its automated safety systems flag it.
Twilio keeps message records for 30 days, and we have turned off its backup storage. Twilio says data can stay in its back-end systems for up to 30 days more.
Any of these providers may keep information longer where the law requires it.

AI training. Anthropic, the company whose AI model writes the replies, does not use your messages to train its models (Anthropic’s commercial terms). Meta says it uses the WhatsApp messages it carries for a business only on that business’s behalf and at its instruction. Twilio’s privacy notice says it may use message content to train systems that detect fraud and security threats. We have not found a statement from Make on this.

Alerts to our Privacy Officer. An email goes to our Privacy Officer, through our Google Workspace account, when:

a message suggests someone may be at risk, even before you reply YES. The email includes the message, your number, your WhatsApp name and whether Twilio accepted the assistant’s reply with the crisis lines and, for messages caught by our keyword check, whether you had replied YES;
you reply HUMAN or PERSONA. The email includes your number and WhatsApp name, not your message;
the assistant has a technical problem and cannot reply to you. The email includes your number, not your message.

We read these alerts afterwards, usually by the end of the next clinic day, to check how the assistant handled the conversation. We do not call you back about a crisis message; the assistant gives you the crisis lines instead. If you are already our client, we may let your counsellor know, and we report to child protection services when BC law requires it. If you replied HUMAN or PERSONA, or the assistant had a technical problem, we may contact you about your enquiry. Alert emails stay in our clinic mailbox until we delete them. We aim to delete them within 30 days of review, unless the law requires us to keep them. We may also receive a daily summary email that lists the time and type of each message and which counsellor’s link was sent, with a short coded reference instead of your phone number and without message content. We aim to delete summary emails on the same schedule.

What we keep for 24 months. A record that you agreed to continue: the time, the version of the notice you saw and the WhatsApp message ID. We also keep an activity log with the time and type of each message (for example a booking question, a request for a person or a possible crisis), which counsellor’s booking link, if any, was sent, and a coded version of your phone number. The log does not contain the words you wrote. We delete both after 24 months.

Your choices. You can reach a person during office hours at 778-381-5868, or by email at info@sojourncounselling.com. Reply HUMAN in the chat to get our contact details. Choosing not to use the assistant never affects your access to our services. Reply STOP (or PARAR, BORRAR or DELETE) at any time to end the chat and delete the assistant’s copy of the conversation. Our providers then delete their copies on the schedule above. Replying STOP does not delete alert emails already sent to our Privacy Officer. We delete those as described above, or sooner if you ask. You can ask to see or correct your information as described in Seeing and correcting your information.

Where your information is stored

We remain responsible for information our service providers handle for us. Here is who they are and, where we have confirmed it, where they keep information:

Jane (Jane Software Inc.): booking, intake, billing and clinical records. Primarily Canada (Jane lists Montreal and Calgary for Canadian accounts).
Stripe: card payments made through Jane. United States.
TELUS Health (eClaims): direct billing to your extended health plan, only if you ask for it. We have not yet confirmed where TELUS stores this information.
Our phone service: calls and voicemail. We have not yet confirmed where our phone provider stores voicemails.
Google Workspace: our email, including WhatsApp alerts. United States and other countries.
SiteGround: our website, its forms and server logs. United States.
Google: Google Analytics (only if you click Accept), Google Maps and YouTube. United States and other countries.
Automattic: Jetpack Stats. United States, and possibly other countries.
Meta: WhatsApp, and information the Meta Pixel sent from our website before we removed it on October 15, 2026. United States and other countries.
Chatbase: the website chat. United States. Chatbase sends chat messages to an AI model that it lists as GPT-6 Luna from OpenAI. We have not yet confirmed where OpenAI processes them.
Mailchimp (Intuit): our newsletter list. United States.
Twilio, Make and Anthropic: the WhatsApp assistant. United States.
SEO Platform: the search engine tool on our website. We have not yet confirmed the company’s legal name or country.
Sentry: error reports from our search engine tool. United States.

Information stored outside Canada is subject to the laws of those countries and may be accessed by their courts, law enforcement and national security authorities. Your clinical record is kept in Jane, which stores it primarily in Canada.

How we protect your information

Jane encrypts information on its way between your device and its servers (128-bit) and when it is stored (256-bit), and its backups are encrypted.
Our counsellors follow BCACC standards on privacy and confidentiality.
The WhatsApp assistant uses encrypted connections and accepts only messages passed on by our own Twilio account.
We ask you, in this policy and in the WhatsApp assistant’s first message, not to send health details by email, website forms, the website chat or WhatsApp.
When records reach the end of the periods in How long we keep information, we destroy them so they cannot be read or rebuilt.

Even with these steps, no system removes every risk, which is one more reason we ask you to keep health details out of messages to us. If a privacy breach affects your information, we will report it to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia, as our professional standards require, and we will tell you if there is a risk of harm to you.

How long we keep information

Clinical and billing records: at least seven years after the last entry in your record. If you were under 19 when you were our client, we keep them for at least seven years after the last entry or seven years after your 19th birthday, whichever is later. We may keep records longer where the law requires it.
Enquiries (emails, voicemails and website form messages) that do not lead to an appointment: kept in our mailbox, our voicemail and, for some website forms, our website’s database until we delete them. We aim to delete them within 12 months of our last contact with you. If you become a client, what is needed for your care goes into your Jane record.
Newsletter: your email address stays on the list until you unsubscribe or ask us to remove it. We keep a record of when you signed up and unsubscribed, so we can show you agreed.
Google Analytics: in our Google Analytics account, information about individual visits is kept for no more than 14 months. Reports that count visits without identifying anyone can be kept longer. Information that our site sent to Google’s advertising services before we turned off those features is kept under Google’s own policies.
Meta Pixel: information it sent to Meta before we removed it on October 15, 2026, is kept under Meta’s own policies.
Jetpack Stats: logs with IP addresses for 28 days, then totals only.
Website chat: until we delete it, as described in Website chat.
WhatsApp assistant: the conversation for up to 24 hours after your last message; alert and summary emails until we delete them, which we aim to do within 30 days of review; and the consent record and activity log for 24 months. Our providers keep their own copies for up to 30 days, or longer where the law requires it. Twilio says data can stay in its back-end systems for up to 30 days more, and Anthropic can keep a message its safety systems flag for up to 2 years. Details are in Automated WhatsApp assistant.
Cookie choice: one year, in your own browser.

Seeing and correcting your information

You can ask to see the personal information we hold about you, how we have used it and who we have shared it with. Please send your request in writing to our Privacy Officer, by email or by mail. Tell us what you are looking for, and we will help if you are not sure. We may ask you to confirm your identity.

Timing. We respond within 30 business days of receiving your request. PIPA does not count Saturdays, Sundays or holidays. If your request needs more detail, is very large, or we need to consult another organization, PIPA lets us take up to 30 more business days, or longer if the Commissioner allows. If we need more time, we will tell you why, when to expect our answer, and that you can complain to the Commissioner.
Cost. A copy of your own clinical record is free. If we ever need to charge a small fee for other information, we will give you a written estimate first.
What we may need to hold back. Information about other people, for example in couples, family or group counselling. Information that could put another person’s safety or health at risk, or cause immediate or serious harm to your own. The identity of someone who gave us information in confidence and has not agreed to be named. We will still give you the rest.
If we say no. We will tell you in writing why, which part of PIPA we relied on, who can answer your questions, and that you can ask the Commissioner to review our decision within 30 days.
Corrections. If you think something in your information is wrong or missing, ask us in writing to correct it. If we agree, we will correct it as soon as we reasonably can and send the correction to any organization we shared that information with in the year before. If we do not agree, we will add a note to your record showing the correction you asked for. Changes to clinical records are dated and signed, so the original stays visible.

Withdrawing your consent

You can withdraw your consent at any time by letting us know. We will never stop you from withdrawing, and we will explain what it means for you. For example:

Counselling. Our professional standards require us to keep a clinical record, so we cannot continue counselling without one. If you are thinking of withdrawing your consent, please talk with your counsellor or our Privacy Officer first. We can explain your options and suggest other support. Records already made are kept for the period above.
Newsletter. Use the unsubscribe link in any newsletter.
Cookie banner. Use the Cookie choices link at the bottom of every page to change your choice at any time.
Google Analytics. Click Decline on our cookie banner, or change your choice with the Cookie choices link at the bottom of every page. You can also use Google’s opt-out add-on in a desktop browser, or a content blocker.
Google advertising. Turn off personalized ads from Google in My Ad Center.
Meta Pixel. Our site no longer uses it. If you have a Facebook or Instagram account, you can review information it sent to Meta before October 15, 2026, and disconnect it from your account, in Meta’s Accounts Center under Your activity off Meta technologies.
WhatsApp assistant. Reply STOP.
Website chat. Ask our Privacy Officer to delete your conversation.
Anything else. Contact our Privacy Officer.

Saying no to anything optional, such as Google Analytics, the newsletter, the website chat or the WhatsApp assistant, never affects your care or your access to our services.

Questions and complaints

If you have a question or a concern about how we handle your information, please write to our Privacy Officer first, using the contact details in Our Privacy Officer. We will look into it and reply within 30 business days.

If you are not satisfied with our answer, or we have not replied within 30 business days, you can complain to the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner for British Columbia (OIPC). There is no cost. If you want the OIPC to review our answer to a request to see or correct your information, you generally need to ask within 30 days of our answer.

Website: www.oipc.bc.ca
Email: info@oipc.bc.ca
Phone: 250-387-5629. Outside Victoria, call Service BC and ask to be transferred: 604-660-2421 in Vancouver, or 1-800-663-7867 elsewhere in BC.
Mail: PO Box 9038 Stn. Prov. Govt., Victoria, BC V8W 9A4
Office: 4th Floor, 947 Fort Street, Victoria, BC V8V 3K3. Monday to Friday, 8:30 am to 4:30 pm.

Changes to this policy

We review this policy when our practices or the law change, and at least once a year. The date at the top of this page shows when it was last updated. If we make a significant change to how we use information you have already given us, we will tell you before the change takes effect and ask for your consent where needed.