IMPORTANT CONFIDENTIALITY INFORMATION
- Your counsellor is obligated to confidentiality in accordance with the Australian law.
- Exemptions exist where your counsellor may have to disclose to a third party, including;
- Your counsellor has either knowledge or reasonable ground to assume that you, the client, may pose a threat to yourself, to your own health or life, or you are proposing harm to another person, their life, health, or property.
- A mandatory reporting duty is placed upon your counsellor in the event of child abuse. A child is a person under 18 years of age.
- Counselling confidentiality is waived in the event of police warrant, or court subpoena.
DISCLAIMERS AND EXEMPTIONS
- Affirmotive Sex Addiction Australia (ASAA) does NOT provide counselling services for sex offences.
- Affirmotive Sex Addiction Australia (ASAA) strictly prohibits recording or distributing of any materials or correspondence, including voice and text messages, emails, images, or videos relating to any part of ASAA’s confidential client/counsellor sessions.
- Unauthorised recording, copying, or distributing of confidential client/ counsellor sessions is a criminal offence in Australia.
SEXUAL CONSENT INFORMATION
The criminal law in Australia outlines the age of giving sexual consent as an age of emotional and sexual maturity of fully understanding the consequences of sex and sexual acts with another person. A person, who is engaging in a sexual act or sexual behaviour with another person under the legal age of sexual consent giving, is committing an offence, such as child abuse.
Age of sexual consent laws are designed to protect children from sexual exploitation and abuse. In relation to sexual abuse charges, in each state or territory, the defining criteria between adult sexual assault and child sexual assault is regarded as the absence of sexual consent in adult sexual assault, while the need for sexual consent in child sexual assault is superseding.
The law discriminates between willingness and consent. A child may be willing to engage in sexual behaviours with another person, but does not have the psychological capacity to give sexual consent.
AGE OF SEXUAL CONSENT INFORMATION
The age of sexual consent is 16 years of age in New South Wales (NSW), the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), Northern Territory (NT), Victoria (VIC), and Western Australia (WA).
In Tasmania (TAS), and South Australia (SA), the age of sexual consent is ruled to be 17 years of age.
Queensland (QLD), makes a distinction between the age of consent for anal sex (described as sodomy) being 18 years of age, while the age of giving sexual consent to all other sexual behaviours (described as carnal knowledge) is 16 years of age.
CHILD PORNOGRAPHY INFORMATION
The term ‘Child Pornography’ refers predominantly to sexually explicit images or films featuring children, known as ‘child abuse images’.
Explicit erotice storytelling, featuring children, may be classed as ‘Child Pornography’.
Child sexual abuse occurs during producing, recording, and distributing sexual materials, involving a child.
The criminal law may prosecute persons who produce, record, distribute, or download erotic text, images, or films containing Child Pornography, as an act of child abuse. Those laws are designed to protect the rights of children.
CLIENT CONSENT NOTICE
I (the client)
I have read the above information carefully. I understand and accept the terms and conditions under which services will be provided to me.
If anything about my situation or circumstances changes in a way which may impact on the effectiveness of my counselling therapy, I will immediately inform my counsellor Heide McConkey.
I understand that a person’s reaction to counselling and sex therapy can vary, and that occasionally, and despite best practises, an adverse outcome may be achieved.
I release my counsellor, Heide McConkey, from liability for any damage, which I may sustain as a result of counselling and sex therapy, and any adverse outcome I may achieve.