Privacy policy · Elaine Ward Counselling

This policy explains what personal information Elaine Ward Counselling (“we”, “us”, “Elaine”) collects through this website, why, and what your rights are under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. It covers the website only — information you share during counselling itself is covered by a separate counselling agreement and confidentiality policy.

The short version

This website does not have a database and does not store your messages.
When you use the contact form, your message is forwarded straight to Elaine’s email inbox and nowhere else.
We use essential cookies only. No advertising or tracking cookies, no third-party analytics that identify you.
If you choose to join the newsletter or download a resource, your email address is stored by our email provider (Brevo) until you unsubscribe.

Who is responsible for your data

The data controller is Elaine Ward Counselling , contactable at hello@elainewardcounselling.co.uk. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) — see our ICO registration.

What we collect, and why

1. Contact-form enquiries

When you complete the contact form we process the name, email address, phone number (if you provide one), and the content of your message. This is used solely to reply to you.

How it’s handled: the form submission is sent through our hosting provider’s form-forwarding service directly to Elaine’s email inbox. It is not written to any database on this website and is not retained by the website.
Lawful basis: your consent (given when you tick the consent box and submit), and our legitimate interest in responding to enquiries.
Retention: once your enquiry reaches Elaine’s inbox it is held and retained there as ordinary email correspondence, in line with Elaine’s own records policy, and deleted when no longer needed.
Spam protection: the form uses a simple hidden “honeypot” field to deter automated spam. It does not track you.

2. Newsletter & downloadable resources

If you sign up for the newsletter or request a downloadable resource, we collect your email address and store it with our email marketing provider, Brevo (Sendinblue SAS), to send you the resource and occasional updates.

Lawful basis: your consent. We use double opt-in — you confirm your subscription by clicking a link we email you.
Retention: until you unsubscribe, which you can do at any time via the link in every email.
Provider: Brevo is an EU-based provider and acts as our data processor. See Brevo’s own privacy policy for details of how they handle data.

Cookies

We use essential cookies only — the minimum required for the site to work securely. We do not set advertising or profiling cookies, and we do not load third-party trackers. Fonts are self-hosted, so your browser does not call any third-party font service. See our cookie notice for the full list.

Who else is involved (processors)

Cloudflare — hosts this website and processes form submissions in transit (forwarding them to email). Cloudflare may process limited technical data such as IP addresses for security and to keep the site online.
Brevo — stores newsletter subscribers’ email addresses and sends emails, only if you opt in.
Email provider — Elaine’s email inbox, where enquiries are received.

We do not sell your data or share it for advertising. Some providers may process data outside the UK; where they do, appropriate safeguards (such as UK/EU adequacy or standard contractual clauses) apply.

Your rights

Under UK GDPR you have the right to:

Ask what personal data we hold about you and get a copy (access);
Have inaccurate data corrected (rectification);
Ask us to delete data (erasure);
Restrict or object to processing;
Withdraw consent at any time (e.g. unsubscribe);
Complain to the ICO.

To exercise any of these, email hello@elainewardcounselling.co.uk. You also have the right to complain to the ICO at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.

Children

This website and Elaine’s counselling services are intended for adults. We do not knowingly collect data from children through this site.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The “last updated” date at the top shows when it last changed.

Drafting note (remove before publishing): confirm the email retention wording matches Elaine’s counselling records policy, and confirm the final list of processors once hosting and Brevo accounts are live.