Privacy Policy

The First Responder Mental Health Resiliency Pilot Program (FRRP) is a grant-funded program available to the first responders in the cities of Cedar Hill, Desoto, Duncanville, Grand Prairie, Lancaster, Mansfield, Midlothian, Red Oak, and Waxahachie.

Responderresiliency.com is the official website of FRRP. Throughout the remainder of this document, responderresiliency.com will be referred to as simply "our website".

Privacy is in important principle in all operations of FRRP and its official website. Every effort is taken to safeguard the privacy of individuals in the collection, use, storage, and disclosure of personal information. This document: a) describes the privacy policy of FRRP and its official website, and b) outlines the types of personal information we receive and collect, as well as the steps we take to safeguard information so that you can make an informed decision about sharing personal information with us. FRRP strives to maintain the highest standards of decency, fairness and integrity in all our operations, including the protection of privacy of our therapy clients, customers and visitors to our website.

WHAT IS PERSONAL INFORMATION?

Personal information refers to information about an identifiable individual. Personal information includes information that relates to an individual's personal characteristics (e.g., name, date of birth, home address and telephone number), health (e.g., presenting problem, health history, health services received by the individual, social situation) or activities, views and opinions (e.g., opinions expressed by an individual, an opinion or evaluation of an individual). Personal information is to be contrasted with business information (e.g., an individual's business address and telephone number), which is not protected by privacy legislation.

USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

The primary purpose that FRRP obtains personal information is to provide referral to counseling services. For example, personal contact information may be gathered in order to make a referral to a sub-contracted counseling agency when requested by the individual. This information will be used to send a referral form to the counseling agency. Each individual will be assigned a Case ID Number that will be used for all further communication in order to prevent the need for use of personal identifiable information.

It would be rare for FRRP to collect such information without the client's express consent, but this might occur in an emergency (e.g., the client is unconscious) or where it is believed the client would consent if asked and it is impractical to obtain consent (e.g., a family member passing a message on from a client and there is no reason to believe that the message is not genuine).

A secondary purpose of obtaining personal information by FRRP is to assess the overall satisfaction with the grant program. For instance, satisfaction surveys offer participants the opportunity to include their email address in the event that they would like to be contacted regarding their submission. This entry is optional. Case ID numbers will be a required portion of this form in order to ensure legitimacy of the form entry. However, this ID will not be linked to personally identifiable information when assessing overall satisfaction with the therapy received.

A third purpose is to advise the general public (or previous and ongoing clients) of special events, resources or services, such as seminars or new services in development, that are available through FRRP, and to make such services or resources accessible to the public. Only that personal information necessary for this purpose is collected. (For example, a first name and email address would be the only required information for a newsletter subscription. No other personal information would be necessary to receive free newsletters.)

A related purpose is to advise the general public (or previous and ongoing clients) of resources that are independent of FRRP. For example, sub-contract counseling agencies may want to inform clients of certain resources that are available through their company. Clients would be asked to consent to their information being used in this manner.

A fourth purpose is to advise clients that their service should be reviewed (e.g., to ensure the service is still relevant to their needs).

Individuals associated with FRRP will contact you only: a) in response to a question or suggestion initiated by you, b) in accordance with your prior consent to be contacted, (i.e. to complete feedback evaluations about the process of counseling, or to receive newsletters or promotions for upcoming events such as workshops, etc.), or c) as necessary to conduct the normal business affairs associated with the provision of services that you have initiated (i.e. scheduling matters, reminders about upcoming appointments, follow-up to services being provided, etc.).

If you choose at any time to provide personal information such as your name, contact information (i.e. email address or telephone number) or any other personal information via email, online form, paper-and-pencil format, or otherwise, be assured that this information will never be given out, sold to advertisers, or used for any purpose other than what you intend.

Our website may collect and use your personal information for the following purposes:

To run and operate our site.
To display content on the site correctly.
To improve customer service.
To help us respond to your customer service requests and support needs more efficiently.
To personalize your user experience.
To understand how our users as a group use the services and resources provided on our site.
To improve our site.
To improve our products and services.
To run a promotion, contest, survey or other site feature.
To send information to you that you agreed to receive about topics we think will be of interest to you.
To send periodic emails, which may include electronic newsletters and/or autoresponder series of emails.
To respond to your inquiries, questions, and/or other requests.

FRRP does not collect any private, personally identifiable information about you without your knowledge. Our official website collects only the personal information you provide and only uses that information for the purpose you provided it (e.g., to respond to email, to register for a course, to subscribe to a newsletter, to provide feedback about progress, etc.). No personal information whatsoever is required or requested in order for you to access the information and services on our official website. No one accessing this website will ever be required to subscribe to any newsletters or services.

Non-Personally identifiable Information

We may collect non-personally identifiable information about you whenever you interact with our website. Non-personally identifiable information may include the browser name, the type of computer and technical information about your method of connecting to our site, such as the operating system and the Internet service provider you used, and other similar information.

Use of Third-Party Service Providers, Agencies and Organizations

FRRP uses a number of consultants and agencies that may, in the course of their duties, have limited access to the personal information held by FRRP. These consultants and agencies include bookkeepers and accountants, lawyers, computer consultants, financial institutions, marketing personnel and website managers. As much as reasonably possible, FRRP restricts their access to any personal information held in confidence by FRRP, and has their assurance that they will follow appropriate privacy principles.

METHOD OF COLLECTING PERSONAL INFORMATION

Personal information is collected from clients of FRRP or from members of the general public by various means including verbal exchange (i.e. over the telephone or in face-to-face meetings), paper-and-pencil forms, voicemail, email, and online forms submitted to us from our official website (i.e. order forms, contact forms, online questionnaires, etc.).

Some online feedback forms on our official website provide clients of FRRP with the opportunity to give personal information about their perceptions of the counseling experience. Use of these forms is voluntary and any information submitted is stored directly on our webhost's secure server in United States (see "Data Storage" below). These forms are also available in paper-and-pencil format if a client prefers.

Our website may collect personally identifiable information from you in a variety of ways, including, but not limited to, when you visit our site, register on the site, or fill out a form, and in connection with other activities, services, features or resources we make available on our site.

If you subscribe to our newsletter, we will ask you for your first name and your email address.

If you complete a form on our website, we will require your name and your email address, and will ask for information relevant to the purpose of the form.

If you submit content to us, we will ask for your name and email address. Details you include in your submission may personally identify you.

If you request to be notified about comments on any content you submit to us, or request to be notified when others submit content, we will require your first name and your email address.

If you purchase a product or service from us, we will collect your name, email address, billing address, and credit card number.

You can always refuse to supply personally identifiable information and visit our site anonymously. However, it may prevent you from engaging in certain site-related activities.

If we make material changes in the collection of personally identifiable information, we will inform you by placing a notice on our site. We will use personal information received from you for internal purposes only and will not sell it or provide it to third parties.

We also collect each visitor's IP address, which helps us combat spam and fraud. We do not use IP addresses for any other purpose.

Our website contains links to other websites that may be of interest to you. However, once you have used them to leave our site, we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information you provide while visiting such sites. These sites are not governed by this privacy statement. Always exercise caution by reviewing the privacy statement of the website in question before continuing to use it.

ABOUT OUR COOKIES

A cookie is a string of information that our website stores on your computer, which your browser provides to our website each time you return to the site. We use cookies to help us identify and track visitors, their use of our website, and their website access preferences.

Refusing Cookies

You can set your browser to accept or refuse all cookies automatically, or notify you when a cookie is being requested. Taking this action should not cause a problem with the continued use of our site. Consult the Help section of your browser for guidance on how to refuse all cookies or to notify you when a cookie is requested.

If you choose to refuse our website's cookies, you may not be able to fully experience the interactive features of the site.

DISCLOSURE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

FRRP will not reveal your personal information to any other person or agency without your written permission, with some exceptions to this policy which are outlined below. Before exchanging any information with a third party, you will be consulted first about what information is to be exchanged.

There are certain situations which may require FRRP to disclose your personal information in accordance with ethical and legal requirements and standard business practices.

First, in cases where a person is subject to a foreseeable and imminent risk of bodily harm or death, a duty exists to protect the safety of such person(s). This means FRRP may need to disclose confidential information to appropriate authorities or individuals who can intervene on behalf of the person(s) at risk. The person(s) at risk may be a client of FRRP or may be someone associated with the client who is at imminent risk of bodily harm or death because of a client's actions.

Second, as it is required by law to notify the appropriate authorities about child abuse/neglect or elder abuse/neglect. This includes cooperating with government agencies, such as Child Protective Services, who are conducting an investigation regarding abuse or neglect of a specific child or children.

Third, confidential client records can be subpoenaed by a court of law. All client records for counseling sessions will be maintained by the sub-contract counseling agency as stated in their company privacy policy. All participants can request those privacy policies from the company at anytime.

Finally, the finances of the grant were provided by the State of Texas Criminal Justice Division. In the event of an audit, FRRP agencies (Readiness Group, City of Cedar Hill, and subcontract agencies) will be required to provide paperwork verifying that work has been completed. Information will be provided regarding Case ID number only, without inclusion of personal name or contact information. In addition, FRRP agencies are required to submit quarterly progress reports. These reports include numbers only and do not include personally-identifiable information.

PROTECTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

Paper information is either under supervision or secured in a locked or restricted area.

Electronic hardware is either under supervision or secured in a locked or restricted area at all times. In addition, passwords are used on computers. Encryption keys are used on wireless access terminals.

Where possible, electronic information is transmitted either through a direct line or is anonymized or encrypted. Email is not utilized to transmit personal information unless it can be encrypted, or unless it is requested by a client who has given consent to its use, or unless it is sent in response to a direct question or concern emailed to FRRP. In the latter case, great care is still taken to transmit only personal information that is necessary to the request and to consider more secure means of communicating highly sensitive information.

Electronic information is stored on secure computer hardware and is password protected.

Staff are trained to collect, use and disclose personal information only as necessary to fulfill their duties and in accordance with this privacy policy.

Data Storage

Personally identifiable information and non-personally identifiable information collected by our official website is stored on our host's servers. That host is SquareSpace. Contact information can be found at www.squarespace.com.

RETENTION OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

FRRP retains personal information for some time to ensure that any questions you might have about the services provided can be addressed and to ensure that FRRP remains accountable to external regulatory bodies.

Any personal information relating to general correspondence (i.e., with people who are not clients), such as newsletters, seminars and marketing activities are kept for about six months after the newsletter ceases publication, or after an individual terminates their subscription to a newsletter (i.e. seminar participants are given the opportunity to voluntarily join a mailing list for newsletters) or after a seminar or marketing activity is over. However, an individual’s contact information will be destroyed immediately if asked.

Paper files containing personal information are destroyed by shredding. Electronic files containing personal information are destroyed by deleting them. When the hardware is discarded, the hard drive is physically destroyed.

ACCESS AND CORRECTION

We provide this privacy policy as a statement to you of our commitment to protect your personally identifiable information. It is the policy of FRRP that clients have a legal and moral right to know what information is contained about them in their record.

If you believe there is a mistake in the information about you that FRRP has on file, you have the right to ask for this information to be corrected. This applies to factual information and not to any professional opinions that your therapist may have formed. You may be asked to provide documentation that our files are wrong. If changed, a statement of changed information is included in the record and anyone to whom we sent this information will be notified of the change. If the request for a change is declined, you may file a notice of disagreement in the record.

UPDATES AND EFFECTIVE DATE

FRRP and its official website at responderresiliency.com reserve the right to make changes to this policy. If there is a material change in our cookie and privacy practices, we will indicate on our site that those practices have changed and provide a link to the updated privacy policy. We encourage you to periodically review this policy so that you will know what information we collect and how we use it.

Date of Last Policy Update: November 4, 2019

AGREEMENT ON TERMS

If you do not agree to our privacy policy as posted here on this website, please do not consent to the setting of cookies and the collection and storage of your personally identifiable information.

Your explicit consent indicates acceptance of this privacy policy in its entirety.

IF YOU NEED MORE INFORMATION

For more information about our privacy policies and procedures, please contact Dr. Brenda Tillman at:

7908 Summit Cove Fort Worth, TX 76179
Telephone: 817-683-5300

If you wish to make a formal complaint about our privacy practices, you may make it in writing to Dr. Brenda Tillman. She will acknowledge receipt of your complaint, ensure that it is investigated promptly and that you are provided with a formal decision and reasons in writing.

If you have a concern about the professionalism or competence of our services we would ask that you discuss your concerns with us. However, if we cannot satisfy your concerns, you are entitled to complain to the regulatory body, the State of Texas Criminal Justice Division.

This policy will go into effect on November 5, 2019. FRRP reserves the right to change the terms of this privacy policy and to make new policy provisions effective for all personal information maintained by FRRP.

PRIVACY POLICY