Privacy Notice

What we collect

Depending on the form you complete, we may collect your name, email address, telephone number, date of birth, and assessment responses. Please provide only information that is relevant to your request for support.

How information is transmitted

Assessment submissions are sent from your browser to Web3Forms and delivered by email. The forms use browser-side transmission only; there is no VLF server-side application component collecting these responses.

Who receives your information

Your responses are received only by Dr. Nicole E. Francis Cotton and Mr. Roy Cotton, Jr. They are never sold, shared, or passed to third parties.

Retention, copies, and deletion requests

Your assessment is retained as part of your confidential client file. You may request a copy, or ask that it be deleted, at any time by writing to dr.nfranciscotton@victoriouslivingfoundation.com.

Your Confidentiality

What you bring to counselling belongs to you. We treat it accordingly.

Everything you share with Victorious Living Foundation — in session, in an assessment, in a worksheet, or in an email — is held in professional confidence. We do not discuss your circumstances with your family, your employer, your church, your insurer, or anyone else without your written permission.

There are a small number of exceptions. Where there is a serious risk of harm to you or to another person, we are obliged to act, and we may have to disclose information without your consent in order to keep someone safe. These limits are set out in full below, and we would rather you knew them before you begin than learned of them at a difficult moment.

Who Sees Your Information

Your information is read by Dr. Nicole E. Francis Cotton and, where he is part of your care, Mr. Roy Cotton, Jr., who conducts co-therapy in marriage and relationship counselling. Nobody else reads it. We do not sell it, share it, or pass it to any third party for their own use; the only other party that handles it at all is the delivery service described below, which carries it to us and no further.

We do not employ administrative staff who handle client records. Assessments submitted through this website come directly to Dr. Nicole E. Francis Cotton. Records are kept in a password-protected account to which only the two of us have access.

No student, intern, supervisee, or observer has access to client records or sits in on sessions. Dr. Nicole E. Francis Cotton teaches and supervises, but that work is kept entirely separate from client material.

Couples and Family Counselling

When we work with a couple, the counselling belongs to the relationship as well as to each of you. A few things follow from that, and we would rather you knew them before you begin than discovered them later.

Your assessments are completed separately, and that is deliberate. We ask each partner to answer alone, without conferring, because two honest accounts tell us far more than one that has been quietly negotiated. Neither of you sees the other’s answers.

We do not, however, keep secrets between you.

If one of you tells us something the other does not know — in an assessment, in an email, or in an individual conversation — we will not hold it indefinitely on your behalf. We will not announce it, and we will not do so without preparing you first. We will work with you on how and when it is best brought into the room, and we will support you in bringing it yourself. But we will not conduct a counselling process in which one partner and the therapists share knowledge that the other partner is denied. That arrangement makes honest work impossible and, in our experience, harms the person it appears to protect.

If you are carrying something you are not ready to disclose, you are welcome to tell us that much and no more, and to work on it with one of us individually before couples work begins.

Records of couples counselling are held jointly. Where a copy of couples records is requested, we require the written consent of both partners before releasing anything, and this remains the case after a separation or divorce.

The Limits of Confidentiality

There are a small number of circumstances in which we are obliged to act, and we would rather set them out plainly than have you learn of them at a difficult moment. We may disclose information without your consent only where:

• there is a serious and imminent risk to your life or safety;
• there is a serious and imminent risk of harm to another identifiable person;
• we have reasonable grounds to believe that a child, an elderly person, or a dependent adult is being abused, neglected, or is at risk of harm;
• we are required to do so by a court order or by law.

In each case we disclose only what is necessary, only to those who need to receive it, and — wherever it is safe and possible to do so — we tell you first.

Legal Proceedings

Counselling is not conducted in preparation for litigation, and the roles of therapist and expert evaluator cannot be held at once. We will, however, consider a written request for a report or letter where there is no conflict of interest, and we decide each request on its own facts.

We will not provide a report or give evidence where:

• any other party to the matter is, or has been, a client of ours — which will ordinarily be the case in divorce, separation, and custody proceedings arising out of couples or family counselling with us;
• we would be asked to give an opinion on a person we have not ourselves assessed, including a parent, a spouse, or an employer;
• we would be asked to attribute fault, assess credibility, or make a recommendation about custody or access;
• doing so would, in our judgement, damage the counselling itself or the trust of another person who has sat in the same room.

Where we do accept a request, we will confirm in writing beforehand what we are able to speak to — ordinarily that you attended, on what dates, what you told us your concerns were, and what we observed of your engagement — and what we are not. We require your written consent, and in any matter arising from couples or family work, the written consent of every person who took part. A fee applies, and we will tell you what it is before we begin.

If a court orders us to produce records or to give evidence, we will comply with that order. We will tell you as soon as we are permitted to do so, and we will disclose only what the order requires.

Email, Video, and Online Forms

Email is not a secure medium. Messages can be intercepted, can be read by anyone with access to your device or account, and remain on both your computer and ours until deleted. The same is true of text messages. Please consider carefully what you send us in writing, and tell us if you would prefer that we contact you by telephone only, or at a particular number, or not at a particular time.

Assessments submitted through this website are transmitted by Web3Forms, a form-delivery service, which relays your responses to us by email. Web3Forms carries your answers on their way to us; it does not use them, and we have no other server collecting them. Beyond that single step, your responses reach nobody but us.

Video sessions are held on a secure platform. We ask you to join from a private room where you cannot be overheard. We do not record sessions. If you wish to record a session for your own use, please ask us first — in couples work, both partners must agree.

Our forms are not monitored continuously and are not a route to emergency help. If you are in crisis, please use the numbers below rather than a form:

Your Records

We keep a confidential file for each client, containing your assessments, session notes, and correspondence. Records are retained for at least fifteen years following your last session, and in some cases up to twenty, after which they are securely destroyed. Where we have seen you as a child or young person, the same period runs from your eighteenth birthday rather than from your last session, so that the record is still there should you wish to see it as an adult.

You may ask us at any time to see what we hold, to receive a copy, to correct anything inaccurate, or to delete your information. We will respond within thirty days. Where a record must be retained for a period fixed by law or by professional standards, we will tell you so and explain why, and we will delete what we are free to delete.

We do not sell your information. We do not share it with advertisers. We do not use it to train any automated system.

Children and Young People

We see children and adolescents from the age of seven. A young person’s willingness to speak openly depends on their trusting that what they say is not simply relayed home, and their counselling will not work without it.

We therefore discuss with parents at the outset what will be shared and what will be held. As a general practice, we tell parents how the counselling is progressing and what would help at home, rather than repeating what their child has told us. We will always tell a parent or guardian where there is a risk to the young person’s safety, and we tell the young person that this is the case before they begin.

Questions and Concerns

If anything here is unclear, or if you are uneasy about how your information has been handled, please raise it with us directly. We would far rather answer the question than have you carry the doubt.

Cookies and local storage

This website uses no tracking cookies. The couples assessment uses localStorage only to save your assessment progress on your own device; you can clear that saved progress from the assessment page.