Privacy and Related Policies

We collect personal information to contact you, provide invoices and receipts, assess your needs, develop a treatment plan, provide services, evaluate our services, respond in the case of an emergency, or provide your records or a consultation to other parties, with your consent.

We are required to keep a record of all of our clients. Your record will include:

• Contact information
• Emergency information
• Consent forms and contracts
• Assessments and previous records
• Treatment plans, session notes, and summaries
• Billing information
• All correspondence we send to or receive from you related to your treatment

We keep our physical files under supervision when in use, or in locked filing cabinets in a locked room when not in use.

We keep our electronic files on a password- and firewall-protected server that is only accessible by our clinic and that is backed up regularly, and on a secure, web-based practice management system that is encrypted, complies with guidelines for personal health information, and is routinely backed up.

We are required to keep your record for at least 10 years beyond our last contact with you.

We destroy paper files and documents containing personal information by shredding. We destroy electronic information by deleting it, and when hardware is discarded we ensure that it has been destroyed.

You have the right to see your file. If you are our client, or have recently been our client, we will schedule a time to go through the file with you.

If you believe that there is a mistake in factual information, you may ask that it be corrected. We will not change information related to our professional opinions. We may ask you to provide documentation correcting any erroneous information. If we do not agree with your request to change something within the file, you may write a note explaining your proposed changes, which we will include in your file.

We will not share any personal health information outside of Synapse Psychology Group without your knowledge and consent, except in the following circumstances, as required by law:

• When there is a clear and imminent risk of serious harm to someone
• When we suspect that a child under the age of 18 years is at risk of abuse or neglect
• When a client tells us that they have been sexually abused by a regulated health professional
• When we suspect that a person in a long-term care facility is being abused
• When a court of law subpoenas the record
• When approached by police based on an urgent demand document or a court order, in accordance with the Missing Persons Act
• When the licensing or governing body inspects records as part of their regulatory activities in the public interest

We communicate with our clients, their families, and other service providers through a wide range of electronic means, including phone, fax, email, text, and mail.

We realize that there can be risks to privacy with any out-of-session contact. Clinicians at Synapse Psychology Group will do their best to be careful with your privacy when using these forms of communication, but are not able to guarantee privacy. If you have a preference for certain forms of communication over others due to privacy concerns, please tell the clinicians and admin staff involved in your care.

We keep a record of all clinical or substantive contact — emails, texts, phone calls, faxes — in your health record.

The contact and consultation-request forms on this website are processed by our website host, whose servers are located outside Canada. Information you submit through those forms is transmitted and stored by that provider before reaching us.

For that reason, our web forms ask only for the information needed to contact you and arrange a consultation. Please do not include detailed health information in a web form or email. We will discuss your concerns with you by telephone, or you can message us securely through the Owl client portal, which is a Canadian, PHIPA-compliant system.

By submitting a form on this website, you acknowledge and accept the risks of communicating personal information by unencrypted web form and email, and wish to continue despite those risks.

This website does not use advertising or tracking cookies, and it does not use any third-party analytics or visitor-tracking service. We do not sell or share visitor information.

We believe it is important to participate in the training of future clinicians. Synapse Psychology Group provides opportunities for behavioural wellness students to contribute to our work and to learn through observation, direct learning, supervision, participation in admin and clinical tasks, and in some cases the provision of clinical services.

We screen and interview all students, and provide them with appropriate training and supervision. Students must adhere to our standards of privacy and confidentiality. Some students are in the early stages of their training and have limited responsibilities; others have already acquired extensive training and experience, and may play a significant role in group facilitation or in the provision of clinical services.