TERMS OF SERVICE

The documents that make up our agreement

Our agreement with you is usually made up of more than one document. If those documents disagree with each other, this is the order we apply, from strongest to weakest:

• The signed quote, proposal, engagement letter or club agreement — this sets the specific scope, dates, deliverables and price for your engagement.
• Our Privacy Policy, and any consent or intake documents you sign — these govern how your personal and health information is handled, and they take precedence over anything said about privacy in this document.
• These Terms of Service — the general terms that fill in everything else.
• Our website, brochures and marketing material — helpful context, but not contractual promises.

The first conversation is free

We offer a free, no-obligation initial kōrero to work out whether we are the right fit and what support might look like. There is no charge for that conversation and no expectation that you go further. It is a scoping conversation rather than a session, so it does not involve assessment or individual psychological advice.

We are not an emergency or crisis service

PACT does not provide 24/7 cover, after-hours crisis response, or urgent mental health care. We check messages during business hours only. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, please use the services below rather than contacting us.

We cannot guarantee results

Psychological work is a collaboration, not a product with a fixed output. We will bring skill, care and current evidence to what we do. We cannot and do not promise a particular outcome — that you will win, be selected, recover within a set time, or feel a certain way by a certain date. Anyone who promises you that in this field is overselling.

What we do guarantee, because the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 requires it, is that our services will be carried out with reasonable care and skill, will be reasonably fit for the purpose you told us about, and will be provided within a reasonable time.

Services we do not provide

• Prescribing or advising on medication. That is a matter for your doctor or psychiatrist.
• Medico-legal reports, court-directed assessments or expert witness work, unless separately agreed in writing.
• Diagnosis or treatment outside the registered scope of the practitioner working with you. Where a presentation falls outside our scope, we will tell you and help you find the right support.
• Physical training, strength and conditioning, nutrition prescription, or medical rehabilitation.

If something comes up in our work that needs a different kind of help, we will say so, talk it through with you, and make a warm referral wherever we can. We will not simply withdraw and leave you without a next step.

Why we quote rather than publish a fixed price list

Because every programme is built around you rather than pulled off a shelf, our fees change depending on what is actually being delivered — the number of sessions, group sizes, travel, whether GROW access is included, development time for bespoke content, and the length of the engagement. A single published price list would be misleading for most of what we do.

So we work on a quote basis. Before you commit to anything, you will receive a written quote or proposal that sets out:

• Exactly what is included, and what is not.
• The total price in New Zealand dollars, or the formula we will use to calculate it (for example, an hourly rate and an estimated number of hours).
• Any travel, venue, materials or third-party costs.
• Payment timing and any deposit required.
• How long the quote stays valid — normally 30 days from the date of issue.

This approach reflects two obligations we take seriously. Under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993, where a price has not been agreed in advance you are only ever liable to pay a reasonable price. And under the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers' Rights, you have the right to be told the likely costs of your options before you decide. Quoting up front is how we meet both.

GST

PACT is not currently registered for GST. Our prices and invoices therefore do not include GST, and no GST is charged. If our GST status changes, we will tell existing clients in writing before it affects any invoice.

Invoices and payment

• Individual clients are usually invoiced after each session, or monthly for a block of sessions.
• Clubs, schools and organisations are invoiced on the schedule set out in the quote. For larger engagements we may ask for a deposit of up to 50% to confirm booking and reserve dates.
• Our standard payment term is 20 working days from the invoice date, unless your quote says otherwise.
• Payment is by direct bank transfer to the account shown on the invoice. Please use the invoice number as the reference.
• Deposits secure your dates in our calendar. They are refundable in full if we cancel, and otherwise treated under the cancellation terms in section 6.

If an invoice is not paid

We would rather talk than chase. If you are having trouble paying, contact us early — we can almost always work something out, including a payment plan.

If an invoice remains unpaid and you have not been in touch, we may: pause further services until the account is settled; charge reasonable costs we actually incur in recovering the debt; and, as a last resort, refer the debt to a collection agency or the Disputes Tribunal. We will always send at least two written reminders and give you a fair opportunity to respond before taking any of these steps. We do not charge penalty interest.

Changes to fees

Fees for an agreed engagement are fixed for the term of that engagement. For ongoing or rolling arrangements, we may review fees annually and will give at least 30 days' written notice before any change takes effect. If you do not want to continue at the new rate, you may end the arrangement without penalty before the change applies.

Individual sessions

If you are running late, message us. We will do what we can to adjust, but a session that starts late will usually still finish at the scheduled time so that we do not disrupt the client after you.

Workshops, group programmes and club packages

These amounts are a genuine estimate of what a late cancellation actually costs us in preparation time, travel commitments and lost bookings. They are not a penalty. If our actual loss is lower — for example, because we fill the slot — we will reduce the charge accordingly.

When we have to cancel

If we cancel or postpone, we will give you as much notice as we can and will offer you the choice of a rescheduled date or a full refund of any amount you have paid for the cancelled service. If we cancel with less than 24 hours' notice for any reason other than an emergency, illness or an event outside our control, we will also waive the fee for the rescheduled session.

Weather, venues and events outside anyone's control

For outdoor or on-site delivery, if a session cannot safely go ahead because of weather, a venue closure, a natural event, a public health direction, or something similar, neither of us is at fault. We will reschedule at no additional cost. If rescheduling is not possible, we will refund the fee for that session.

Consent

• Before any individual work with a client under 18, we meet with their parents or legal guardians, either separately or alongside the young person, to explain our approach and walk through our Privacy Policy and these terms. One-to-one sessions begin only after that conversation.
• Under section 36 of the Care of Children Act 2004, a young person aged 16 or over can give their own informed consent to psychological services. We will normally seek their consent directly, while strongly encouraging whānau involvement.
• For those under 16, we require written consent from a parent or legal guardian. We also recognise the principle of Gillick competence — where a young person under 16 demonstrates a mature understanding of the nature, purpose and consequences of the support, they may, in the practitioner's clinical judgement, be able to consent independently to aspects of it.
• For group workshops delivered through a club or school, we rely on the consent processes the club or school runs — but we ask them to confirm in writing that consent has been obtained, and we will provide plain-language information for parents on request.
• We always seek the young person's own agreement to take part, whatever their age. A young person who does not want to be there will not be made to participate.

What parents and clubs are told

Young people need to be able to speak honestly. Parents and whānau are vital partners, but they do not have an automatic right to the content of a young person's sessions. At the start of our work we set out a clear, documented agreement with both the young person and their whānau about what high-level themes may be shared with home, and what stays between the young person and the psychologist. We will always tell you if there is a safety concern.

Clubs and schools that commission our work receive reports that do not contain individual identifiable information. They focus on programme delivery, themes and aggregate observations. We tell athletes when a report is being prepared. If an individual athlete's experience or input would appear in any way, we ask that athlete for explicit consent first, and if they decline, we remove it. The same applies to verbal debriefs. Coaches and selectors do not get access to individual psychological information. This is not negotiable, and we will not vary it by contract.

Where we work in a team or high-performance environment alongside coaches and other performance staff, we operate on a strict need-to-know basis. A coach may be told that an athlete is working through something affecting their availability. The detail behind it stays private unless the athlete gives written consent.

Safeguarding

We maintain a child protection policy covering identification and reporting of abuse and neglect, and our practitioners are safety-checked, including Police vetting, and re-checked at least every three years. Where we have reasonable grounds to believe a child or young person has been, or is likely to be, harmed, we will report that to Oranga Tamariki or the Police in line with the Oranga Tamariki Act 1989. We will normally tell the young person and their whānau that we are doing this, unless doing so would increase the risk to them.

One-to-one work with a young person is arranged so that it is observable and interruptible wherever practical — an open door, a visible room, a nearby adult. If you have a concern about the conduct of anyone working for PACT, please contact James Orritt directly using the details in section 24.

Confidentiality, and its limits

What you tell us stays between us. There are a small number of exceptions, and we would rather you knew them now than discovered them later. We may disclose information without your consent where:

• There is a serious and imminent threat to your safety or the safety of an identifiable other person.
• We hold a genuine concern that a child or vulnerable person is at risk of abuse, neglect or serious harm.
• We are compelled by a court order, statutory summons or other valid legal requirement.
• The New Zealand Psychologists Board or the Health and Disability Commissioner requires it as part of a formal process.

In every case where it is safe and practicable, we will discuss the disclosure with you before it is made, and we disclose only the minimum necessary. Separately, our psychologists are required by the Board to engage in regular professional supervision. Your case may be discussed there with identifying information removed, by a supervisor bound by the same Code of Ethics.

Who does not see your information

• Coaches, selectors, managers and club committees do not receive individual information.
• Parents of clients aged 16 and over receive information only with that person's consent, except in a safety situation.
• Organisations that pay for your sessions receive confirmation of attendance and invoicing information only — never content.
• We will never sell, rent or trade your personal data to any third party.

If you would like us to talk to your GP, coach, physio or anyone else, we are usually glad to. We will just ask you to confirm that in writing first, and to be specific about what may be shared.

Records and how long we keep them

Clinical records are held in Carepatron, a practice management platform built for the health sector, not on personal devices, in email, on paper or on general cloud storage. We are required to keep health information for at least 10 years from the day after we last provide you with a service, under the Health (Retention of Health Information) Regulations 1996. For records relating to a young person, we keep them until they turn 25, or for 10 years from the last service date, whichever is longer.

Email, text and messaging apps are convenient but not fully secure. We use them for scheduling and general administration only. WhatsApp is used solely for adult programmes, solely for logistics, and only with your consent. We do not share clinical content there. We do not currently use any AI-assisted note-taking, transcription or note-generation tools in your care. If we ever introduce one, we will complete a Privacy Impact Assessment, update our Privacy Policy, and ask for your consent first.

Your rights and how to raise a concern

You can ask to see the information we hold about you and to have it corrected. We respond to access requests within 20 working days, as the Privacy Act 2020 requires, and to privacy complaints within 10 working days. Our Lead Privacy Officer is James Orritt, designated under section 201 of the Privacy Act 2020, and Jason Yuill Proctor is Co-Privacy Officer. If you remain unhappy, you can complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner on 0800 803 909 or at privacy.org.nz.

Step one: tell us

Contact the practitioner directly if you feel able to, or contact James Orritt as Director. You can complain in whatever form works for you — email, letter, phone or in person. You are welcome to have a support person with you.

What we will do

These timeframes come from Right 10 of the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers' Rights. They are the minimum we owe you, and we aim to do better.

Taking it further

You do not have to come to us first, and you can go to any of these bodies at any time:

What we do not limit

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes:

• Your rights under the Consumer Guarantees Act 1993, where you are acquiring services as a consumer.
• Your rights under the Fair Trading Act 1986, the Privacy Act 2020, or the Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers' Rights.
• Our liability for fraud, or for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, to the extent the law does not allow that to be excluded.

Personal injury and ACC

New Zealand's accident compensation scheme covers personal injury and generally bars claims for compensatory damages for that injury. Nothing in these terms affects your right to lodge an ACC claim, and we will support you to do so where relevant.

Where we do limit liability

For business clients — clubs, schools and organisations acquiring our services for business purposes — and only to the extent the law permits:

• Our total liability for any claim is limited to the total fees you have paid us for the specific service the claim relates to, in the 12 months before the claim arose.
• We are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, including lost profits, lost opportunity, or loss of results or selection outcomes.
• We are not liable for decisions you make based on our general recommendations, or for how coaches or staff apply what they learn in our workshops.

These limits are a deliberate part of how our fees are set — we price on the basis that catastrophic commercial risk is not being transferred to us. If you need a higher limit for a particular engagement, tell us and we will discuss it, including any change to the fee. We recognise that the unfair contract terms provisions of the Fair Trading Act 1986 apply to standard form contracts of this size, and we have written this section with that in mind.

Your responsibility

If a claim is brought against us because of information you gave us that was wrong or incomplete, because you did not obtain a consent you told us you had obtained, or because of the state of a venue you provided, you agree to cover our reasonable costs in dealing with it.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. The version that applies to your engagement is the one in force when you accepted your quote or proposal. If we make a material change that affects an ongoing arrangement, we will give you at least 30 days' written notice, and you may end the arrangement without penalty if you do not accept it.

Events outside our control

Neither of us is liable for failing to meet an obligation because of an event genuinely outside our reasonable control — a natural disaster, a public health direction, a major infrastructure failure, or similar. We will each do what we reasonably can to reduce the impact, and will discuss rescheduling or a fair refund.

The rest

• If a court finds part of these terms unenforceable, the rest continues to apply.
• You may not transfer your rights under our agreement to someone else without our written consent.
• No third party can enforce these terms, except as expressly stated.
• These terms are governed by New Zealand law, and the New Zealand courts and tribunals have jurisdiction.
• Before going to court, we both agree to attempt to resolve a dispute by good-faith discussion, and then mediation if that does not work. This does not stop either of us seeking urgent relief, or you making a complaint to any of the bodies listed in section 18.