Definitions

The Client: the person receiving services from WowThatWorks Counselling or their legal guardian.

You: The Client

The Counsellor: the employee or representative of WowThatWorks Counselling offering counselling services to The Client

The Practitioner: The employee or representative of WowThatWorks Counselling offering counselling services to The Client


Fees, Payments & Durations

Payment for sessions is due at time of booking. All purchases are final and any refunds are at our sole discretion. Our fees include GST and we do not offer GST-free fee options unless by prior arrangement. A tax invoice is available upon request, once full payment has been made.

We are not registered to provide rebates via Medicare, private health funds or similar.
If you are entitled to claim a rebate for our services, we will endeavour to assist you with a tax invoice that supports your claim, but we take no responsibility for whether your institution accepts your claim or not.

Personal Sessions (Social-Emotional, Parenting & ADHD) are discounted and, as such, cannot be used for discussing Commercial (Management & Career) issues. All multi-session packages and all vouchers expire three years from the date of purchase.

The duration of Free 1st Sessions is 30 minutes, comprising a 20-minute consultation + 10 minutes private administration time

The duration of all subsequent (paid) sessions is 60 minutes, comprising a 50-minute consultation + 10 minutes private administration time

The standard consultation fee covers the time spent during the scheduled appointment only. In addition to scheduled appointments, our practice may charge this amount on a prorated basis (we will break down the hourly cost) for the time required to perform any other professional services that you might request.


Your Personal Information and Privacy

You must provide us with all information that we reasonably require for the purposes of your appointment/s, and promptly tell us if any information has changed or is no longer correct.

We are bound by the Australian Privacy Principles set out in Schedule 3 of the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (as amended from time to time). Our policies in respect of its management of personal information are set out in this document. The term "personal information" refers to any information or opinion about an individual whose identity is apparent or can be reasonably ascertained from the information or opinion. We will comply with all relevant privacy legislation in relation to your personal information. This includes principles related to collection, use, access, correction and anonymity.


Health Record Management

We will create and keep health records for you which will record all relevant information relating to the treatment provided to you. We may also store health information supplied by you from Third Parties such as your doctor or general practitioner. Your health records are managed and protected in accordance with all applicable local laws. Health records may be legally required to be stored for a number of years following the conclusion of your treatment with us.

A limited number of WowThatWorks Counselling employees will have access to your information for administrative purposes. WowThatWorks Counselling employees are bound by non-disclosure agreements.

It is a requirement that all Counsellors take notes during the session. These notes are subject to WowThatWorks Counselling’ Privacy Policy and these Terms and Conditions. All notes are securely stored and maintained electronically.


Confidentiality, Mandatory Reporting and Emergencies

Your treatment with us is confidential and private. This means we will not disclose the information you provide to us to Third Parties unless you consent for us to do so. It is important to note that there are limits to confidentiality in exceptional circumstances as outlined below.

Counsellors are bound, by mandatory legal and ethical obligations, to report criminal activity or threats of harm to yourself and others to relevant third parties including emergency services, police, other health professionals and/or your designated “Emergency Contact”.

All sessions are confidential between the participants, except in the following circumstances:

•    If you talk about criminal activity that is occurring, thereby making the counsellor a witness to a crime, the counsellor will need to report the crime to law enforcement authorities.

•    If you tell the counsellor that you or someone else is at immediate threat of harm, either by you or someone else, the counsellor will need to notify services that deal with such emergencies.

•    Under some legal situations in which session notes are subpoenaed by a court.

If, in your vocation you are responsible for public safety, you may be subject to additional mandatory reporting requirements in regard to disclosures of illicit drug use and other like behaviours. Such notifications may be made to the applicable governing body.

You have the right to refuse services from a counsellor. If you exercise this right after the commencement of the session, the consultant is still required to adhere to their reporting obligations under law.

If emergency services are accessed on your behalf, you will be responsible for payment of costs that we incur in accessing any emergency services.



Telehealth

All sessions are delivered via telehealth: video or phone call. In-person sessions are not available.

You are responsible for the costs associated with setting up the technology needed, so you can access telehealth services. Our practice will be responsible for the cost of the call to you and the cost associated with the platform used to conduct telehealth services.

To access telehealth consultations, you will need access to a quiet, private space and the appropriate technology:

•    For phone sessions, you will need access to an Australian-based mobile or land-line telephone and service

•    For video sessions, you will need access to a device (phone, tablet or computer) with a camera, microphone, speaker and internet connection

A video consultation session may be subject to limitations such as an unstable network connection which may affect the quality of the session provided. In the case that the video session is prevented by such circumstances, the counsellor will attempt to contact you via phone. For this reason, you should ensure you have access during all sessions to calls via the phone number you have provided to us.

The privacy of any form of communication via the internet is potentially vulnerable and limited by the security of the technology used. To support the security of your personal information this practice uses Zanda which is compliant with international standards for online security and encryption. Beyond this risk mitigation, WowThatWorks Counselling and your Counsellor takes no responsibility for transmission security, including but not limited to events such as hacking by third parties etc.


Nature of Service

The name ‘WowThatWorks Counselling’ is our professional opinion of the general efficacy of Solution-Focused Counselling specifically and other evidence-based forms of Counselling more generally. It is not, however, a guarantee of the efficacy of the counselling that we may provide to you. It contains no promise, explicit or implied, that our services will work for you.

Our therapeutic technique is client-centred but primarily solution-focused. We also use elements of other contemporary evidence-based treatments, such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT), Strengths-Based Therapy, Mental Health Education and Motivational Interviewing. You may express a preference to your Counsellor regarding which therapeutic approaches we use and we will work with you to try and achieve this.

All practitioners are fully qualified and registered to provide counselling services.

Regardless of how strategies may be presented, we do not prescribe. We submit strategies for your consideration and then you decide whether to pursue them or not. Strategies are tailored according to your description of your circumstances in session. Only you know your full circumstances and therefore what decisions and strategies are right for you.

You should reflect, research, make your own enquiries and engage in due diligence before enacting any strategies submitted for your consideration by us. No legal, moral or other responsibility is taken by us for any negative consequences of you enacting or failing to enact any strategy discussed in session.


Limitations of Service

By using our services, you acknowledge and accept the following limitations of our service, including the necessity of your part in overcoming them:

Our service is generalist in nature and is not intended to be or to replace provision of specialist mental healthcare support, formal psychological assessment or psychological treatment and therapy.

Solution-focused counselling is a great way to learn work and life skills to feel better quickly. The skills learned can also be used to maintain improved mental health. They can work for anyone who is ready to enact strategy. Results, however, can vary depending on the severity of mental health challenges faced by the Client. Typically, the more complex the Client’s mental health challenges, the longer it may take to get to the heart of the issues they are facing and also the longer it may be until they are ready to enact strategies.

Depending on the severity and complexity of the difficulties you are facing, solution-focused counselling may not work for you and an alternative therapy may be more appropriate. Significant mental illnesses, including, but not limited to complex trauma, severe depression, severe bipolar disorder, psychotic disorders and personality disorders are likely to require the help of a specialist in those areas to effectively treat them. If you have a significant mental illness and are keen to learn strategies and habits for improved mental health, you are welcome at WowThatWorks Counselling but you should adjust your expectations of the primarily solution-focused counselling that we offer. Ideally you would also establish a good mental health support network that consists of, at least: a GP with a good understanding of mental health, a psychologist and a psychiatrist who each specialise in your specific condition.

Counsellors are unable to offer psychological comment or provide reports about your personal and workplace issues, your mental wellbeing, legal, workplace compensation proceedings, or your fitness for work. We don’t become involved in work cover claims or provide court reports or letters of recommendation. Counsellors do not advocate on behalf of clients.

Practitioners will only provide services that are within their professional capabilities, competence and role as a private provider. If treatment needs are identified that are outside of this scope, your practitioner may endeavour to assist you in identifying alternative suitable providers.

Treatment is provided via prearranged, scheduled appointments. Practitioners have limited availability for contact outside of scheduled appointments. Practitioners may not have an opportunity to respond to between-session contact prior to your next appointment and this should not be relied upon for emergency matters. For emergency matters please contact the appropriate emergency services.

We are not an emergency service. We are not able to respond to urgent or emergency matters and our communication channels (email etc) are not monitored outside of our hours of work.

For urgent concerns relating to your health or other emergencies, please contact the appropriate emergency services.

In Australia, you can contact:

Emergency    000
Lifeline             call  13 11 14
                            text 0477 13 11 14



Suicidality

Whilst WowThatWorks Counselling works in service to mental health, we are not experts in suicide prevention, however, support is always available via emergency services.

In Australia, you can contact:

Emergency    000
Lifeline             call  13 11 14
                           text 0477 13 11 14

As per our Confidentiality Policy above, if you express that you are at risk of suicide during a session, the counsellor will need to notify services that deal with such emergencies, such as those listed here. You will be supported in this process.

If you are reading this information and are considering suicide as the best solution to the mental health challenges you are facing, please call emergency services in your area immediately. They meet people facing such circumstances all day, every day and they are experts in helping people who feel just like you do. Please don’t be shy to call; your life depends on it, and remember that suicide is for people who can’t problem solve. Given that you’ve read this far into this document, this doesn’t seem to describe you. You seem a lot like a great problem-solver! We’d love you to prove us right on this point, by using the strategy of contacting one of the numbers listed here!


Cancellation, Missed / Late Cancelled Appointments

If you wish to cancel a session, you must give a minimum of 24 hours’ notice prior to the start of the session. Late notification of cancellation will result in the loss of the session. Please note that all bookings (including those booked within 24 hours) are subject to this late cancellation policy. A reminder message may be sent before your appointment. This is a courtesy reminder only, although we may ask you to confirm attendance. If ever in doubt, please feel free to email to confirm an appointment. Failure to receive a reminder does not constitute a valid reason for not cancelling within the required time-frame or missing an appointment.

It is your responsibility to supply correct contact details and ensure you are available via the contact method/s supplied and that the space you are in during the session is quiet enough for you to hear us adequately and for us to hear you adequately. We will do our best to accommodate some background noise, but if it prevents the Counsellor and Client from being able to adequately understand each other, and you are unable to mitigate the noise, the session may have to be abandoned. If this occurs, the session will be treated as though ended early by you.

If you end a session early, additional time will not be provided in lieu.

Sessions will not be conducted while you are driving or operating any type of machinery and you will forfeit any session time when you may be doing this.

You may change the date/time of a session any time up until 24 hours before the session
Within 24 hours, regardless of late cancellation by you, we will make ourselves ready to begin the session at the appointed time.

If you fail to attend the session, we will attempt to contact you twice within the first 15 minutes of the allocated time, using the contact details supplied by you at booking.

If you have cancelled within 24 hours, we will still call at the appointment time, unless specifically directed not to by you.

If you are uncontactable during the two attempts we make and you fail to initiate contact, the session will be forfeited once fifteen minutes of the session has elapsed and any payment for that session will be retained by us.

If you contact us within the session time, but after the first fifteen minutes has passed, the decision whether to proceed with the session will be at our sole discretion and we reserve the right to be unavailable after the first fifteen minutes.

If you miss a session and contact us after the allocated session time has finished, you may only rebook a session by paying for it as a ‘new’ one.

All sessions run for 50 minutes of the hour allocated, with the other ten minutes allocated to note-taking and administration.

We will typically begin the session at the start of the hour allocated, but we do not guarantee this. The session may begin up to ten minutes after the start of the hour allocated. The caring professions can be unpredictable in this way and we thank you for your patience.

If we are later than ten minutes or do not attend the session, we may, at our sole discretion, offer to: end the session 50 minutes after we begin, make up the time at a subsequent session, supply a voucher for another session, or give a full refund equal to the value of one session - calculated according to the individual value of a session within the context of how the session was purchased. We do not offer compensation beyond this for any loss, perceived or actual, by you as a result of us either not attending the session or attending late.

If we cancel a session 24 hours or more in advance, you will receive a voucher to book another session.

If we cancel a session within 24 hours, at our sole discretion, we may offer you the option of a voucher for another session or a full refund - calculated according to the individual value of a session within the context of how the session was purchased.

Please note that Third Party funders do not pay late cancellation or missed appointment costs. If you incur such costs whilst engaging our services, we take no responsibility for their payment and will not amend our documentation regarding any late-cancelled or missed appointments.


Frequency and Number of Appointments

Your counsellor may discuss the number and frequency of appointments with you. Any suggestions will be based on their professional opinion, once they have had an opportunity to understand your treatment needs and goals. Generally, it can be difficult to predict a person's response to treatment and therefore the number of sessions they may require. We expect you to exercise your own judgment about the number of sessions you feel may be beneficial to you, regardless of any opinion provided by your counsellor.


Insurance

We hold the statutory prescribed professional indemnity cover for our professional services. By using our services, you accept that our liability to you is limited to our professional indemnity insurance cover.


Data Security

We take reasonable steps to keep all personal information secure and to protect that personal information from misuse, interference and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. If we determine that your personal information is no longer needed for any purpose, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify that personal information, unless the information is contained in a Commonwealth record or we are required by law or a court/tribunal order to retain the information. When using our online service, you should be aware that no data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed as totally secure. We do not warrant the security of any information transmitted over the internet.


Personal Information Access, Corrections and Complaints

We endeavour to keep accurate records of personal information. If any person wishes to access, review or request corrections to their personal information held, the person may do so at any time by initially contacting Lloyd Johnson. To obtain access to your personal information, you may have to provide proof of identity to ensure that personal information is provided only to the individual to whom the information relates and that the privacy of others is protected.

We will endeavour to respond to your request to access or correct your personal information within 30 days of your request or complaint being received.

If you are dissatisfied with our refusal to grant access to or correct your personal information, you may make a complaint to us or the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.


Service Complaints

If you have any concerns about our level of service, you may submit a complaint to us via our Client Experience Survey or by sending us an email. When we receive a complaint from you, we will deal with your complaint in accordance with our Service Complaints Process. In filing a complaint, you give permission for our staff involved in professional review to access your information to investigate the complaint.

We reserve the right to update and amend our complaints handling and dispute resolution at any time. Any updates or amendments to our complaints handling and dispute resolution procedures will apply to your complaint lodged with us after the updates or amendments take effect.


No Recording or Publishing

Payment and attendance at any WowThatWorks Counselling session gives you the right to record your own notes (hand-typed or handwritten) during the session for your personal use only. It is prohibited to record the session in any other way, including, but not limited to: audio or video recording, transcription or artificial intelligence summary. 

Additionally, your notes or any other recording of the session you might make are prohibited from being used (in whole or in part) for any purpose other than confidential personal use. Prohibited purposes include, but are not limited to: publication, broadcast (including social media), transmission in any form or by any means, copying, electronic or physical reproduction, training artificial intelligence, hiring, showing or performance in public.


Resolution of Disputes and Non-Disparagement: Our Service is offered only under Australian Law

The services of WowThatWorks Counselling are offered only in Australia, under Australian Law, regardless of the Client’s geopolitical location, home or other geographical situation. In engaging in this service, the Client waives all rights to seek legal remedy through litigation, arbitration, or any other available legal process, as applicable under the law of any country other than Australia, regardless of any opportunity to do so being offered by that country.

In the event that you are dissatisfied with WowThatWorks Counselling, it’s services or the Counsellor, and are unable to satisfactorily resolve this via the WowThatWorks Counselling Service Complaints Process, you agree to only seek to resolve your concerns through legal remedies offered under Australian Law.

It is almost impossible for WowThatWorks Counselling or the Counsellor to adequately defend against client critique of the conversation during a counselling session without breaching client confidentiality for that session. This defenselessness in the face of disparagement gives rise to the need for a Non-Disparagement Obligation.

Non-Disparagement Obligation: The Client agrees not to post, publish, or otherwise share any negative, derogatory, or disparaging statements regarding WowThatWorks Counselling, it’s services or the Counsellor through social media, online reviews (including but not limited to Google Reviews, Yelp, or similar platforms), or any other public forum or communication channel.

Breach and Remedies: If the Client breaches this Non-Disparagement Obligation, the Counsellor and/or WowThatWorks Counselling reserves the right to seek legal remedies which exist under Australian Law, including but not limited to damages and/or injunctive relief, to prevent further violations.

Exceptions: This Obligation does not limit, restrict, or otherwise impair the right of the Client to seek legal remedy through litigation, arbitration, or any other available legal process, as applicable under Australian Law. Additionally, it does not limit the Client in relation to reporting the Counsellor to their professional association and/or professional standards and registration body. It also does not prevent the Client from providing honest feedback directly to WowThatWorks Counselling or the Counsellor, or sharing opinions in a manner that is not harmful, defamatory, or misleading.