These are the terms and conditions for Registration and Membership of the Counsellors’ Staffroom platform and Registration to be able to book our Events. They also apply to any other site, platform or software that we create or manage. Please read these terms before choosing to register to become a Member of the Counsellors’ Staffroom or to attend our Events - they contain important information.
The Counsellors’ Staffroom Membership & Events Terms & Conditions encompasses our Privacy Policy, our Membership & Events Registration Criteria and our Community Guidelines and should be read alongside the terms and conditions of any platform we may use to host our services. This is currently Circle, and you will need to agree to their Terms of Service when signing up to use Counsellors’ Staffroom membership spaces or access our events on or via their platform.
These Terms & Conditions form a binding agreement between you, as a Member or Events Registrant, and the Counsellors’ Staffroom.
The Counsellors’ Staffroom is based in the UK and these terms apply under English law. Any legal proceedings in relation to these terms must be made in the English courts. If a court finds part of this contract illegal, the remainder will continue in full force and effect.
By accessing our site or community spaces for business or consumer use you are indicating that you accept these terms. You acknowledge that you have not relied on any statement, assurance, promise, representation or warranty made or given by or on behalf of us which is not set out in these terms and that you shall have no claim for innocent or negligent misrepresentation based on any statement in these terms.
1. Who is the Counsellors’ Staffroom?
The Counsellors’ Staffroom is a welcoming and private membership space for counsellors and psychotherapists to find support, content and develop professionally alongside peers. We offer events to our Members and Event Registrants who have completed our registration and verification process which confirms they meet our Membership & Events Registration Criteria.
Our incorporated limited company number is 13709054.
To contact the Counsellors’ Staffroom please use our Contact Form or email us at contact@counsellors-staffroom.co.uk
To register with the Counsellors’ Staffroom to join our memberships or to be able to book our events, prospective Members or Events Registrants must be:
- A qualified counsellor, psychotherapist, Art Therapist or Counselling Psychologist (Level 4 or above), or;
- A student of counselling, psychotherapy, Arts Therapy or Counselling Psychology on a course that is Level 4 or above, as detailed in our Membership & Events Registration Criteria.
- Aged 18 years or over.
We encourage our Members, Prospective Members, Events Registrants and Prospective Events Registrants to state if they are a member of a relevant professional membership body and provide their membership identifier to enable a swift registration verification when applying to register with the Counsellors’ Staffroom. Please note you do not need to be a member of a relevant professional membership body to register with the Counsellors’ Staffroom.
We ask Members, Prospective Members, Events Registrants and Prospective Events Registrants who are registering with us as Students to provide evidence that they are currently studying a qualification that meets our Membership & Events Registration Criteria. We may require Students Members or Events Registrants to provide current evidence to show they are still registered students on the relevant course on an annual basis, or from time to time.
Please ensure you meet our Membership & Events Registration Criteria before applying to register with the Counsellors’ Staffroom for membership or to be able to book our Events.
The Counsellors’ Staffroom reserves the right on occasion to allow Membership from non-counsellors/psychotherapists/Art Therapists/Counselling Psychologists who work in relevant fields e.g. business services to support therapists or other similar professions to counselling/psychotherapy at our discretion. We ask any non-therapist member to state their relevant professional role clearly in their profile in our community spaces.
2. Are you a business customer or a consumer?
You may have different rights under these terms, depending on whether you are a business customer or a consumer. For example, qualified counsellors and psychotherapists would usually join our Membership or Events as business customers, while students of counselling or psychotherapy (at Level 4 or above) would usually join as consumers.
If you are a business customer, these terms serve as the entire agreement between you and Counsellors’ Staffroom in relation to your purchase of our Community or Professional Memberships, Events and other products and services. These terms serve as the entirety of our agreement and you acknowledge that you shall have no claim for innocent or negligent misrepresentation based on any clause or statement within these terms.
If you are a consumer, you have certain rights under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 which will be explained in these terms and conditions.
3. Registration and Membership
Your Registration with the Counsellors’ Staffroom and/or your Membership will be deemed to have started once you have accepted our terms when applying to register as a Member or Events Registrant with our community platform on Circle. At this point these terms and conditions form a contract between you and us.
Counsellors’ Staffroom offers a range of products, services and benefits as part of our Community and Professional Memberships and Events services. We reserve the right to amend or remove these products, services, events and benefits for any reason and at any time and we are under no obligation to continue to offer a particular product, service, event or benefit to our Memberships or to our Events Registrants.
We will always endeavour to give 30 days’ notice of any changes in products, services, events or benefits, but this may not always be possible.
4. Pricing and payment
Membership payments are billed monthly via Stripe, which is integrated with Circle, our platform provider. We may offer annual Membership payment options or payments at alternative frequencies as part of these terms.
Events are purchased individually via Stripe within our community platform.
Your payments and subscriptions including Memberships, Events purchases, and any other purchases are managed in Circle. Once your registration is verified and you have joined our Membership or booked an Event, click on your member name in the bottom left-hand corner of your screen and choose ‘billing’ to see active subscriptions. You can upgrade your Membership and manage subsciptions here. Verified Members or Events Registrants can also access Circle’s help regarding upgrading their Membership or managing purchases, subscriptions and billing in the ‘billing’ area.
The price of the Membership, Event, product or service payment is the price advertised when purchased. Please note this price may include a discounted rate (or you may be offered a coupon to apply at checkout to receive a discounted rate), for a specific period of time, as advertised or confirmed in the checkout process or in our Membership spaces. We may at our discretion offer discounted Membership rates on an individual or ongoing basis for Members who meet certain criteria. We are not obliged to offer these and may discontinue discounted Membership offers at any time. Memberships, discounted Membership rates and coupons are strictly non-transferable.
By purchasing our monthly or annual Membership you agree to be charged our Membership fee on an ongoing basis. The relevant Membership fee will be deducted via the payment method you have chosen via our payment provider Stripe on our platform provider, Circle.
You may choose to purchase or subscribe to Counsellors’ Staffroom additional products, Events and services via Stripe on Circle at your discretion from time to time on an individual, time-bound or ongoing, recurring basis. These products, Events and services can be purchased in their relevant spaces and groups and can be managed or cancelled in your Circle account (within your profile, under ‘billings’).
Membership fees and any products or services purchased through Circle on an ongoing subscription basis will continue to be deducted without requiring further consent from you or notice from Counsellors’ Staffroom until the end of the time-bound product or service or such time as you or we cancel the contract between us.
Counsellors’ Staffroom reserves the right to review and adjust Membership, Event and additional product and service pricing at our discretion. If your Membership price may change we will notify you of the change with a minimum of 30 days’ notice.
5. Ending this contract
If you have any questions, complaints or concerns about your Membership or Events Registration please use our Contact form or email us at contact@counsellors-staffroom.co.uk
As a business customer or a consumer, if you wish to cancel your Membership of the Counsellors’ Staffroom community or your access to paid spaces, Events, groups or other products or services on Circle, you can do this from your billing dashboard within Circle (click on your profile name and choose ‘billing’). Once you confirm the cancellation of a subscription, it will be set to expire at the end of your current billing cycle. You will be able to access all the Membership content until then.
Once registered and verified you can use your billing dashboard within Circle to restart or renew expired subscriptions if available.
If you are a consumer, you have the right to change your mind about your purchase of a Membership, an Event or the purchase of other products or services under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013. If you change your mind within 14 days of the date your Membership or Event is purchased, please email the Counsellors’ Staffroom team to let us know. We will arrange a refund of your purchase within 14 days of your purchase date. We may, at our discretion, make proportionate deductions from your purchase price refund to cover the supply of our Membership, Event, products or services between the date your Membership was verified (when you were able to access your full Membership, Event, product or service) and the date you informed us that you have changed your mind.
Counsellors’ Staffroom provides digital content and services. If you are a consumer you have certain rights regarding the provision of that digital content and those digital services. For example, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 states that digital content must be:
- Of satisfactory quality
- Fit for particular purpose
- As described
Regarding the provision of services, for example, The Consumer Rights Act 2015 states that digital services must be:
- Performed with reasonable care and skill
- Information about the trader or service to be binding
- Reasonably priced
- Performed within a reasonable time
The above are examples of rights included within the Consumer Rights Act 2015. You can find out more about your rights as a consumer on the Citizens Advice website.
Counsellors’ Staffroom reserve the right to end this contract if we believe, at our absolute discretion, that you have breached our Community Guidelines or these terms and conditions. We may temporarily or permanently withdraw your access, give you a warning or take legal action against you or any other action we feel is necessary if you do not comply with these terms and conditions or our Community Guidelines, or we believe, at our absolute discretion, that you no longer meet our Membership & Events Registration Criteria, whether temporarily or permanently.
If you joined the Counsellors’ Staffroom as a student Member or Events Registrant and are no longer able to provide evidence, when asked for that evidence, that you have qualified as a counsellor or psychotherapist, Art Therapist or Counselling Psychologist in line with our Membership & Events Registration Criteria, or if you are no longer able to provide evidence that you are continuing to be registered as a student on a counselling or psychotherapy course at Level 4 or above, then we may end this contract.
We also reserve the right to suspend your Registration, Membership, access to Events, products or services because of technical challenges, changes in law or regulatory requirements or other relevant reasons. We do not need to enforce this contract immediately following a breach in service - even if we delay in enforcing this contract we reserve the right to enforce it later at our discretion. If we decide to end your Membership for any reason we will inform you in writing.
This contract is between you and the Counsellors’ Staffroom and nobody else has any rights to enforce any of its terms. We do not need to obtain the agreement of any other person to end the contract or make changes to these terms.
It is unlikely, but we may transfer our rights and obligations under these terms to another organisation. We will always tell you in writing if this happens and we will ensure that the transfer will not affect your rights under the contract.
You may only transfer your rights or your obligations under these terms to another person if we agree to this in writing.
6. Privacy and data
Counsellors’ Staffroom have chosen to work with the third parties detailed in our Privacy Policy to enable us to manage our platform and provide our services. As a Member or Events Registrant of the Counsellors’ Staffroom you may be required to sign up to, create accounts with, provide personal information to or otherwise engage with third parties who we have chosen to work with in order to access and use our Membership, Events or other services. We may add, remove or otherwise change at any time and for any reason the third parties we use to facilitate our provision of the Membership, Events or other services, or any element of it. We are not responsible for these third parties. Please be aware that you engage with these third parties entirely at your own risk.
If access to our platform or services is impacted by an event outside of our control then we will contact you as soon as possible to let you know, and we will take steps to minimise any impact. Provided we do this we will not be liable for delays or other issues caused by the event, but if there is a risk of substantial impact you may contact us to end our contract.
7. Third parties
Counsellors’ Staffroom relies on third parties to provide services to facilitate our products and services. For example, we use Circle to host our community, Kiku to provide practice management software, Stripe to manage our payments and Mailerlite to manage our mailing and member lists. When registering with Counsellors’ Staffroom or joining our Membership you may be required to create accounts with or give details to these third parties to enable their services.
We are not responsible for these third parties or the provision of their services. Please be aware that you engage with third parties wholly at your own risk. If there is an event or situation outside our control that impacts our, or our third parties’ ability to provide our Membership, Events, subscriptions, products or services, we will endeavour to contact you as soon as possible to inform you of the event or situation and its expected impact. We are not liable for delays or issues accessing our Membership, Events, products or services in these events or situations. If you wish to cancel your Membership or purchase of an Event or other product or service because of these delays please be aware of our cancellation terms. We may at our absolute discretion refund you for all or part of the previously paid Membership, Event, products or services that you have not received.
8. Platform content
The Counsellors’ Staffroom team reserve the right to change the conditions of Membership, Events, products and services or the content and services provided by our platform, for example to:
- Make technical changes, improvements and updates, especially in the case of a security threat.
- To respond any relevant change in law or regulatory requirements
- To add, remove, change or update the content of the platform and our Events at our discretion.
If you provide content to our site we have the right to use, move, copy, publish and distribute that content for any purpose. We also reserve the right to reveal your identity if it is suspected by any party that the content you have provided has breached their right to privacy or their intellectual property rights. Please ensure you don’t share any content on our platform that you don’t have intellectual property rights for and written permission to share. The Counsellors’ Staffroom is not responsible for any content Members, Events Registrants or any other Users of our platform post and we are not liable to any third party. Any views expressed in blogs, comments, chats or other content belong solely to the Member providing that contact, not to the Counsellors’ Staffroom, its affiliates or team.
We expect Members and Events Registrants, if relevant, to provide content or other contributions to our services that are honest and genuine, accurate (if facts are provided) and kind, in line with our Community Guidelines. Any content provided which goes against our Community Guidelines and/or breaks any English law or promotes illegal, discriminatory, offensive, violent, sexually explicit, threatening or abusive or misrepresented may be removed without warning or explanation and your Membership and/or Events Registration may be terminated.
Unsolicited private/direct messages, comments or other content containing promotional material or advertising is not allowed on our platform. Any reported unsolicited promotional material or advertising sent or helped to be sent by you may result in your Membership and/or Registration being terminated with immediate effect.
The Counsellors’ Staffroom team will aim to keep abreast of how the platform is being used by our Members and Events Registrants, but we are under no obligation to moderate content or comments on forums on our platform or in our Events spaces left by Members or Events Registrants, and we are not liable for any loss or damage resulting from the use of forums or other interactive services on our platform or at our Events.
We cannot guarantee that our website or the platform providers that we use will be safe from viruses or other malicious material that may cause technological or other harm. Please ensure you use virus-protection software. Any attempt to attack our website or platform or gain unauthorised access to our platform or service connected to our platform is a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and we may inform relevant authorities, take legal action and remove your ability to use our platform.
9. Intellectual Property
Counsellors’ Staffroom are the owners and licensees of all intellectual property rights to the Counsellors’ Staffroom website and community spaces and rights related to your Membership and Events Registration, including data held in our systems or databases. You may only use your Membership and access our Events or other spaces or platforms in accordance with these terms and conditions.
You must not redistribute, transmit, assign, sell, rent, exchange, commercially exploit, broadcast, modify, adapt, copy, edit, sub-licence, share, lend, or transfer any Counsellors’ Staffroom website, Event or Membership content, or part content, unless agreed with the Counsellors’ Staffroom team and any relevant Members or Event Speakers, Hosts or Registrants, in writing.
However, content provided in our Resources section may be printed off or downloaded for your business use in private practice, but any printed or digital copies must not be altered and you must not use any media (photographs etc.) separately from the main text. You must always acknowledge Counsellors’ Staffroom and the identified author or contributor of the content. You must not use any content from our platform for commercial gain.
You are responsible for ensuring that you do not lose, destroy, or damage any Membership or Event content, or part of the Membership or Event content, you access through the Counsellors’ Staffroom website or platform and for ensuring that any hardware you use to download and/or access the Membership, Events, products or services functions correctly with this website or any alternative platform on which we make the products available. You acknowledge and agree that the provision of all these requirements is your responsibility and is at your own cost.
We reserve our right to take legal action if our intellectual property rights are breached in any way. If requested, you must destroy or return any copies you have made of content on or from the Counsellors’ Staffroom site.
10. Your personal information and confidentiality
We may require mandatory data from you so that we can supply the Membership and Events Registration services to you, as detailed in our Privacy Policy. If you do not give us this information within a reasonable time of us asking for it, or if you give us incomplete or incorrect information, we may be forced to end this contract. We reserve the right to make a charge of a reasonable sum to compensate us for any extra work that is required as a result. Please note, we will not be responsible for supplying the Membership or access to Events late or not supplying any part of it if this is caused by you not giving us the information we need within a reasonable time of us asking for it. We reserve the right to delete the data you have provided to us if you fail to provide the information we need to supply the Membership, Events Registration or other products or services to you within a reasonable timeframe.
We adhere to current data protection legislation, including the General Data Protection Regulation (UK-GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018, and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003. In accordance with our obligations under Data Protections Laws, our Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect from you, how and why we collect, store, use and share such information, your rights in relation to your personal information and how to contact us and supervisory authorities if you have a query or complaint about the use of your personal information. We will only use your personal information as set out in our Privacy Policy. We will at all times comply with our obligations and responsibilities under the Data Protection Laws in relation to any personal information we collect about you.
If you have any queries about how your personal information is dealt with, or you would like to exercise any of your rights in relation to personal information that we hold about you, please contact the Staffroom Team via our Contact Form or by email at contact@counsellors-staffroom.co.uk.
As a Member or Events Registrant, you may choose to share personal or sensitive information in your profile on our community platform(s), in our spaces, in content such as blogs, or any other product, service or area of our platform, as detailed in our Privacy Policy. We do not require you to share any personal or sensitive information.
As a Member, or on occasion, Events Registrant, you may choose to use the services of third-party providers. Please note, it may be necessary to transfer personal data between the Counsellors’ Staffroom and specific third parties for the purpose of identifying which Members or, on occasion, Events Registrants, are using that third-party provider, ensuring their eligability for that service, and to make sure the service can be provided.
As a Member or Events Registrant of Counsellors’ Staffroom you may have access to other Members’ personal and sensitive information. Without reservation you agree to keep all matters, opinions, personal and sensitive data shared in written, verbal, audio or visual format confidential and you agree to take all reasonable actions to ensure that the confidentiality of such information is protected and maintained. Any requests to share information, (e.g. for referrals or business/personal networking) must be made to the relevant Member or Events Registrant in writing and confirmed in writing by them before information may be shared.
If you feel that any information you come across on our website or in our community spaces is incorrect or inappropriate please contact us via our Contact Form or by email at contact@counsellors-staffroom.co.uk. Please note we do not endorse, certify or approve the information (including qualifications) provided by Members or Events Registrants.
We strongly recommend you navigate this space mindfully, as with any online space. Please consider how safe any information you share on the internet may be. You acknowledge and agree that any information you share on this platform is done so entirely at your own risk. We take no responsibility or liability for the release of any information by any Members or Events Registrants.
You must not disclose any membership or registration links, discount codes, coupons, log-ins, passwords, Membership numbers or other identifiers, or information as part of our security procedures with any third party. Such information is confidential and not transferable. We may disable your password or other user data at any time if, in our reasonable opinion, you have breached our Community Guidelines or our terms and conditions.
11. Liability
By accepting these terms you understand and agree that we are not and will not be liable or responsible for any of your actions, inaction, direct or indirect results arising from or in connection with your Registration with or Membership of the Counsellors’ Staffroom, the platform, Event or Membership content, your ability or inability to use our platform or access our Events, or your reliance on any content on the platform. We do not guarantee any specific outcome from your use or participation in the Membership or your Events Registration. We do not endorse and we are not liable for the content provided to our platform by Members or for any loss or damage linked to Member or Events Registrant information on our platform or the content of other sites linked to our platform.
If we fail to comply with these terms, we are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breaking this contract or our failing to use reasonable care and skill, but we are not responsible for any loss or damage that is not foreseeable. Loss or damage is foreseeable if either it is obvious that it will happen or if, at the time the contract was made, both we and you knew it might happen, for example, if you discussed it with us during the sales process.
We do not exclude or limit in any way our liability to you where it would be unlawful to do so. This includes liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence or the negligence of our employees, agents or subcontractors; for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; or for breach of your legal rights in relation to the products.
We are not liable for any loss of profit, opportunity, damage or other business losses.
Please note, if you are a consumer we only supply our Membership, Events, products and services for your personal use. If you use our Membership, Events, products or services for business or commercial purposes, our liability is limited to the liability provided if you were a business customer.
You must not use this site in any way that harms or could harm children or minors, in any way that may be construed to be fraudulent or unlawful or that breaks any law.
If you have any questions about these Terms and Conditions please contact the Counsellors’ Staffroom using our our Contact Form or by email at contact@counsellors-staffroom.co.uk.
Last reviewed: 21 February 2023.