Plain-language terms for using this website and booking counselling with The Family Room. Please read them; by booking a session you agree to them.
The Family Room ("we", "us") is a counselling psychology practice led by Dr. Scola Githinji, PhD. These terms apply to this website and to counselling sessions booked through it, whether delivered by video call, phone call, or in a facilitated group.
By using the website or booking a session you agree to these terms and to our privacy policy. If you do not agree, please do not book.
Reading this website, sending an enquiry, or requesting a call back does not create a counsellor-client relationship. That relationship begins when a session has been booked, paid for, and confirmed. Nothing on this website is a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment tailored to you.
The Family Room is not an emergency, crisis, or medical service. Our "emergency session" is a priority same-day counselling slot for urgent but non-life-threatening situations. If you or someone else is in immediate danger, or thinking about harming yourself or others, contact your local emergency services, go to the nearest hospital, or call a crisis line right away. Do not wait for a session.
We provide talk-based counselling and psychological support. We do not prescribe medication. Where medical or psychiatric care would help, we will say so and can suggest a referral. Counselling outcomes vary from person to person and cannot be guaranteed.
By booking a video or phone session you understand and accept that:
What you share in a session is confidential and is not disclosed without your consent, except in the limited situations professional ethics and Kenyan law require or permit, which include:
We will always be honest with you about these limits, and where it is safe and lawful to do so we will tell you before any disclosure.
You agree to give accurate contact details, to treat the counsellor with courtesy, and to use the service for yourself (or for a person you have lawfully booked for). We may decline or end a session, or decline future bookings, where a client is abusive, intoxicated to the point the session cannot proceed, or where we believe counselling is not the right service for the situation. In that case we will say so and suggest alternatives where we can.
The text, design, and images on this site belong to The Family Room or are used with permission, and may not be copied or reused without consent. Client stories shown on the website are illustrative unless marked as a real, consented review.
We provide our services with reasonable professional care and skill. To the extent permitted by Kenyan law, we are not liable for indirect losses, for losses arising from interruptions to third-party services (such as Zoom, mobile networks, M-Pesa, or card processing), or for decisions you take based on general information on this website. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law.
We may update these terms from time to time; the date at the top shows the current version, and material changes will be posted here. These terms are governed by the laws of Kenya, and any dispute will be dealt with by the courts of Kenya, after a genuine attempt to resolve it directly with us first.
The Family Room is the data controller for personal information collected through this website and in the course of providing counselling. Contact details are in the contact section below.
We use your information to arrange and deliver your sessions, send confirmations and reminders, take and verify payment, respond to enquiries, keep the professional notes a counsellor is required to keep, improve our service, and meet our legal and ethical obligations. Our lawful basis is the contract with you, your consent (which you may withdraw), and, for clinical records, our legitimate and professional obligations.
We do not sell your information and we do not share it for marketing. We use a small number of service providers who process data on our behalf, only for the purpose stated:
Some of these providers are based outside Kenya. Where that is the case, we rely on their contractual safeguards and only send the minimum needed (for example, an email address to send a confirmation). Beyond these providers, we disclose information only in the situations described in section 9 of the terms.
Booking and contact records are kept for as long as you are a client and for a reasonable period afterwards for accounting and professional purposes. Clinical notes are kept in line with professional guidance for psychologists in Kenya. Enquiry emails that do not lead to a booking are deleted within 12 months. You may ask us to delete your information sooner, subject to records we are required to keep.
Under the Data Protection Act, 2019 you have the right to be told how your data is used, to access a copy, to correct or delete it, to object to or restrict certain processing, and to withdraw consent. To exercise any of these, contact us using the details below. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC) in Kenya.
We keep your information on password-protected, access-controlled systems, use encrypted connections (HTTPS) for this website, and limit who can see clinical information to the counsellor and, where needed, a supervisor. No system is perfectly secure, and we ask you to keep your own devices and email account protected too.
We only collect information about a person under 18 through a parent or guardian who has booked and consented on their behalf. See section 5 of the terms.
If we change this policy in a way that matters, we will post the new version here with a new date.
Questions about these terms, or about your data: hello@thefamilyroom.co.ke, or +254 142 886 6574 on WhatsApp or by phone.