Privacy
This website belongs to Valerie Alt, LCSW, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (California LCSW #74704) practicing in Berkeley, California. I built this site to collect as little about you as possible, and this page explains exactly what it does collect, why, and what happens to it.
This policy covers the website only. If you become a therapy client, your health information is protected by much stronger rules — federal law (HIPAA) and California law — and you’ll receive a separate Notice of Privacy Practices when we begin working together. Nothing on this website is part of your clinical record.
There are only three ways this website collects information you can be identified by, and all of them are forms you choose to fill out:
When you submit the contact or reservation form, its contents are sent to my email inbox and nowhere else — the website keeps no database copy. Training interest-list signups are the one exception: your name and email are also saved to a private list so I can reach you about upcoming trainings, as noted above. There are no user accounts on this site, and no payments are taken through it.
The contact form and email are ordinary internet channels — convenient, but not a secure medical communication system, and I can’t guarantee their confidentiality in transit. Please share only what you’re comfortable sending this way; a sentence or two about what brings you is plenty, and we can talk about the rest by phone. Reaching out through this website does not, by itself, make you my client or create a therapist–client relationship.
This form is not monitored for emergencies. If you are in crisis or thinking about harming yourself or someone else, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) or call 911 now.
I use what you share through the forms for one purpose: to respond to you — to answer your question, schedule a free consultation, hold your training spot, or let you know about a training you asked to hear about. I don’t add you to any mailing list you didn’t ask for, and I never sell your information or share it with anyone for advertising. Ever.
This site counts its visitors itself, without any third-party analytics service (no Google Analytics, no advertising pixels of any kind). The counting works like this:
This site sets no cookies, which is why you won’t see a cookie consent banner. It does not respond to “Do Not Track” or Global Privacy Control browser signals, because there is nothing for those signals to switch off — the site does not track you, profile you, or sell or share personal information with anyone.
Like nearly every website, this one runs on infrastructure operated by other companies. Each sees only what its narrow job requires:
Beyond these providers, I disclose personal information only if the law requires it.
Form submissions live in my email inbox. I keep them as long as I need them to respond to you and follow up, and I delete inquiries that don’t lead to further contact within about two years.
You can always email me at hello@valeriealt.com to ask what information I have from your form submissions, to correct it, or to have it deleted. California residents have privacy rights under state law, and I’m glad to honor the spirit of them regardless of which statutes technically apply to a solo practice.
This website is meant for adults and is not directed at children. I do not knowingly collect information through this site from anyone under 16.
If I change how this website handles information, I’ll update this page and its effective date. Meaningful changes will be noted here so you can see what changed.
Questions about this policy or your information: hello@valeriealt.com · (510) 761‑9172 · 830 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA (Root & Bloom Institute).