Accessibility Statement

Last updated: 22 September 2026. Version 1.0. This is the first version of this statement. It applies to the website at ostwalden.co.uk, which is run by OSTWALDEN LIMITED.

1. About this statement

We want as many people as possible to be able to use this website. This statement sets out what we have done to make that true, how we checked it, what we know is not yet good enough, and how to reach us if something does not work for you.

It describes the website at ostwalden.co.uk. It does not describe other websites we link to, which we do not control.

It is a statement about the website. It is not a limit on our legal duties. Our duty to make reasonable adjustments applies to everything we do as a service provider: this website, the way we write to you, and the counselling itself once you are working with a counsellor. Nothing in this statement excludes or limits that duty. Section 11 explains how to ask for an adjustment to the counselling.

The site is a small set of information pages. The only thing you can do on it, besides read, is send us an enquiry through the form on the contact page, or email us directly. There is no account to create, no password to remember, no payment, no booking system, no counsellor directory, no reviews and no chat.

2. If you need help now

Ostwalden is not an emergency service, a crisis service or a helpline. Our counselling is arranged in advance, and our mailbox is read during normal working hours only. Nobody is waiting at the other end of the enquiry form. Please do not wait for a reply from us if you need help urgently. Use one of these instead.

If someone's life is at risk, for example they have seriously injured themselves or taken an overdose, call 999 now, or go to your nearest hospital emergency department.
For urgent mental health help that is not a 999 emergency, call 111 and choose the mental health option, or go to 111.nhs.uk. This is free, at any hour.
To talk to someone straight away, call Samaritans on 116 123. Free, day or night, every day of the year.
If you would rather text than talk, text SHOUT to 85258. Free and confidential, day or night.
Your GP surgery can also arrange an urgent appointment.
If you are under 18, you can call Childline on 0800 1111, free and at any hour.

如果情况紧急，请不要等待我们回复。如果有人生命垂危——例如严重自伤或服药过量——请立即拨打 999，或前往最近的医院急诊科（A&E）。如需紧急心理健康帮助但尚未到 999 的程度，请拨打 111 并选择心理健康选项，或访问 111.nhs.uk，免费且全天开放。如想立刻与人倾诉，可拨打 Samaritans 116 123，免费，全天 24 小时，全年无休。如果您更愿意发短信，可发送 SHOUT 至 85258，免费且保密。您也可以联系您的家庭医生（GP）。未满 18 岁可拨打 Childline 0800 1111。Ostwalden 不是紧急或危机服务。

3. Who our service is for, and where

Our service is for adults aged 18 or over who live in the United Kingdom. We do not offer it to people living in the European Economic Area. We say this in the same words in our Terms and in our Privacy Notice.

4. The standard we measure ourselves against

We aim to meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, version 2.2, at level AA.

WCAG 2.2 has no special legal status for a private company like ours. UK law does not require a business to meet it. What UK law requires is that we make reasonable adjustments so that disabled people are not put at a substantial disadvantage. We have chosen WCAG 2.2 level AA as our yardstick because it is the standard UK public bodies are held to, and the standard set out in the harmonised European standard EN 301 549, and because it gives us something concrete to measure ourselves against instead of a vague promise to try.

We are not in a position to claim that the site fully conforms to it, because nobody independent has tested it. What we can do is tell you what we built in, what we checked, and what we did not check. That is what the rest of this page does.

5. What we have built in

These things were built into the site deliberately. Each one is a statement about the site as it stands on 22 September 2026, not an aspiration. We checked each of them ourselves on that date, and we check them again whenever we change the site. Section 6 sets out how we checked, and what we did not check.

Structure and navigation

Every page uses real headings, in order, so you can move through a page heading by heading instead of reading all of it.
The parts of each page are marked up as landmarks, so you can jump between the navigation, the main content and the footer. Where a page has more than one set of navigation, each set has its own name, so they are not announced as two identical things.
Every page starts with a skip link that takes you straight to the main content, past the navigation.
Each page has its own descriptive title, and the language of the page is declared, so a screen reader pronounces the words correctly. Where a passage is in another language, as the Chinese crisis information above is, that passage is marked up with its own language so that a screen reader switches voice rather than reading it as though it were English.
There is more than one way to reach any page: the navigation at the top of every page, and the full set of links in the footer.
The navigation sits in the same place, in the same order, on every page, and the way to contact us is always in the same place.
Link text says where the link goes. We have avoided links that read only "click here" or "read more".

Using the site without a mouse

Anything you can do with a mouse you can do with a keyboard alone, in a sensible order, and you can always tab back out of whatever you tab into.
Whatever you are on has a clear, visible outline, and we have checked that it is not hidden behind a fixed bar at the top or bottom of the screen.
Nothing on the site needs dragging, swiping or a precise movement of the pointer.
Buttons and links are at least 24 by 24 CSS pixels, or have enough clear space around them to meet that minimum.

Reading and seeing

We have measured the contrast of every text colour against its background, and of the outlines of buttons and form fields, against the level AA figures: 4.5 to 1 for ordinary text, 3 to 1 for large text, and 3 to 1 for the outlines of controls.
We never use colour on its own to carry meaning.
Text reflows into a single column at a width of 320 pixels, so you do not have to scroll sideways, and it stays readable when you zoom to 200 per cent.
Text is real text rather than pictures of text, so it responds to your own settings for font, size, spacing and colour.
Images that carry meaning have alternative text that describes them. Images that are only decoration are marked so that screen readers pass over them in silence.
Nothing appears only while you hover over it or move focus to it. Where extra information is shown, it stays on screen until you dismiss it, you can move the pointer onto it without it vanishing, and the Escape key closes it.

Movement and media

There is no video and no audio anywhere on the site. Nothing plays by itself and there is nothing to mute.
If your device or browser is set to reduce motion, the small transitions on the site do not run.
Nothing flashes, scrolls on its own or moves while you are reading. Nothing counts down in front of you. The enquiry form carries an anti-spam token that lasts twenty hours, which is long enough not to count as a time limit under the guidelines; nothing else on the site is timed.

The enquiry form

The form asks for your name, your email address, which service your enquiry is about, chosen from a short list, and a short message. One field is optional: you can tell us which language you would prefer to be contacted in, or leave it blank.
Immediately above the message box there is a short note, in ordinary body text and not in small print, asking you not to write about your health, your symptoms, a diagnosis or your personal circumstances there. Just tell us which service you are interested in, and we will reply by email to arrange a private conversation.
The form will not send until you tick one box, about how we may use anything personal you choose to put in your message. It is not pre-ticked and it does nothing else. If you would rather not tick it, email us instead: no box arises, and we ask for no consent.
The message box takes between 20 and 2,000 characters. If that limit gets in your way, email us instead and write as much or as little as you like.
One field is positioned off the screen and is not meant to be filled in at all. It is there to catch automated spam. If your browser or your screen reader reads it out to you, please leave it blank.
Every field has a visible label that stays visible while you type. We do not rely on grey text inside the box.
The name and email fields tell your browser what they are for, so if you have your browser or device set to fill them in for you, it can.
If something is wrong, we say so in words, next to the field it relates to, and we say what to do about it. We do not rely on a red outline alone.
The form is one short step. It does not ask you for the same thing twice and it does not ask you to remember anything from an earlier page.
Our own checks against automated spam are a signed single-use token, the hidden field described above, a minimum time to fill the form in, and a limit on how many submissions come from the same internet connection in a short period. None of them asks you to solve a puzzle: there is no distorted text to read and no grid of pictures to pick from. We do not use Cloudflare Turnstile on the form today. If we turn it on, we will say so here first. Separately, the security service in front of the whole site can show a challenge of its own before it lets you through; that one is not ours, and section 7 explains what to do if it stops you.

Cookies

This site stores very little: one entry that records the choice you made about cookies, one short-lived token that protects the enquiry form, and Cloudflare's own security cookies. There are no analytics cookies and no advertising cookies. Our Cookie Policy lists every one of them by name.
The notice asking for your choice can be reached and dealt with using a keyboard alone, in the normal reading order. It does not trap the keyboard, and the accept and reject buttons are the same size, in the same place, with the same prominence. Nothing is pre-selected.
You can change your choice at any time from the Cookie settings link at the foot of every page. It takes the same single click as giving it did. If you cannot operate that link, email info@ostwalden.co.uk and we will tell you how to clear the stored choice, or you can clear this site's stored data in your browser settings.

6. How we checked it, and what we have not checked

This is our own assessment. It is not an independent audit. The checks below were carried out in September 2026 by the person who built the site, working for Ostwalden. Nobody independent has looked at it. We have not commissioned an accessibility audit or a formal conformance report, and no one has certified this site as meeting WCAG 2.2 level AA.

What we did check:

We went through every page using only a keyboard.
We measured every combination of text colour and background colour, and the outlines of buttons and form fields, against the level AA contrast figures.
We viewed every page at a width of 320 pixels, and at 200 and 400 per cent zoom.
We reviewed the heading order and the landmark structure on every page, and read each page with its styling switched off to confirm the content still comes in a sensible order.
We turned on the operating system setting for reduced motion and confirmed the site respects it.
We submitted the enquiry form with fields left blank and filled in wrongly, to check that the error messages appear in the right place and say something useful.

What we have not done:

Structured testing with screen readers, across the range of screen readers people actually use and the range of browsers and devices they use them on.
Testing with screen magnification software, speech recognition software, switch devices, braille displays, or reading and writing support tools.
Testing with disabled people, which is the only way some problems ever come to light.
Any independent audit, expert review or accessibility conformance report.

We would rather say this plainly than imply a level of testing we have not carried out. We have committed to arranging testing with screen reader users before we add online booking, and in any event to reviewing this statement by 22 September 2027. When we have done it, we will say here what was tested, by whom, and what came out of it. If we have not done it by then, this paragraph will say so rather than quietly disappearing.

7. Known limitations

We already know about the following. If you meet something else, please tell us.

The security check in front of the site. The site sits behind Cloudflare, which provides our content delivery, our DNS and our web application firewall. Occasionally Cloudflare shows its own challenge page before letting a visitor through, and it can do that at any time. That page is designed and served by Cloudflare, not by us, and we have not tested it against WCAG 2.2. We do not control how it is built, but we do control the settings that decide how often it appears and what form it takes, and we will change those settings if they are causing people difficulty. If you are ever stopped by a page like that and cannot get past it, email us at info@ostwalden.co.uk or write to us at the address in section 15, tell us roughly when it happened, and we will send you whatever you were trying to reach and review the settings.
The enquiry form is no longer subject to a short time limit. It used to be, and this statement previously recorded it as a failure. The signed anti-spam token is now valid for twenty hours, which is above the twenty-hour threshold in the guideline on adjustable time limits (WCAG 2.2, success criterion 2.2.1, level A), and if the page has been open more than half an hour the page quietly fetches a fresh token before sending. Whatever you have typed is kept if a submission fails, so you can simply press Send again.
We have not confirmed how the form's messages sound. When you send the enquiry form, or when something is wrong with it, a message appears on the page. We have built it so that screen reader software should announce it without you having to go looking, but we have not tested that with a screen reader, so we cannot promise it. If you use a screen reader and the form goes quiet on you, email us and say so. That is exactly the kind of report we want.
Our email replies. Once we reply by email, how the message looks is decided by your email program, not by us. If you would like our replies in plain text, in large print, or laid out in a particular way, say so and we will do that.
There is no telephone line. Ostwalden has no telephone number. Everything reaches us by email or by post. We know that disadvantages people who find writing difficult or who cannot use email, and we are not going to dress it up as a choice. Section 9 sets out what we can offer instead, including post and contact through someone acting for you. We will say here when that changes.
The site is in English. Our service is built around counselling in your own language, so an English-only website is a real limitation and not a small one. The crisis information in section 2 is in Chinese as well as English. If any page on this site matters to you and you would like it in Chinese, email us and we will send you a translation, and you are welcome to write to us in Chinese or in English, whichever is easier. Where an English and a translated version differ, the English version is the one that governs.

8. Asking for information in a different format

If you need anything on this site in a different format, ask us. Email info@ostwalden.co.uk, or write to us at the address in section 15, and tell us which page or which information you need, and which format would work for you. You do not have to explain why, and you do not have to tell us anything about your health or your disability.

We can usually provide:

plain text in the body of an email;
a large print version;
a document in a format you can open and restyle in your own software;
a printed copy sent by post.

We will not charge you for any of this, and we will not treat the request as anything out of the ordinary. The law does not allow a service provider to pass the cost of an adjustment on to a disabled person, and we would not want to.

9. Ways to reach us

Email is our main route, and we know it will not suit everyone.

Email. info@ostwalden.co.uk. Ordinary email is not subject to the enquiry form's time limit or spam checks, and it asks you to tick nothing.
Post. OSTWALDEN LIMITED, Suite 5, 5th Floor City Reach, 5 Greenwich View Place, London E14 9NN. A letter reaches us just as properly as an email, and we will reply by whichever means you ask for.
Someone acting for you. If a friend, a family member, an advocate or a support worker contacts us on your behalf, that is fine. Ask them to say in the message that you are content for us to deal with them, and we will.

We have no telephone number, so we cannot offer a call. We would rather tell you that than leave you waiting for one.

Our mailbox is read during normal working hours in the United Kingdom, Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays. We aim to reply to any enquiry within 2 working days. It is not monitored around the clock and it is not a route to urgent help. Section 2 has the numbers to use if you need help now.

10. Telling us about a problem

If part of this site does not work for you, we want to know, even if you are not sure the problem is at our end.

Email info@ostwalden.co.uk. It helps if you can tell us which page you were on, what you were trying to do, what happened instead, and which browser or device you were using. If you use assistive technology and are willing to tell us which, that helps us reproduce the problem, but you do not have to, and you do not have to tell us anything about your health or your disability. A single line is enough. We would much rather have that than nothing.

What we do with what you send us

OSTWALDEN LIMITED is the controller of the personal information in your message. We use it for one purpose: to answer you and to fix the problem you have told us about. Our lawful basis is our legitimate interest in running an accessible website and replying to people who contact us, Article 6(1)(f) of the UK GDPR.

We do not ask you about your health or your disability. If you choose to tell us something that amounts to information about your health, we deal with it in the way our Privacy Notice describes: we use it only to answer you and fix the problem, we will ask you to confirm in writing that you are content for us to keep it, and if you say no, or do not reply, we delete it. In any event we delete or black out anything we do not need within 14 days. You can change your mind at any time by emailing us.

We keep a record of the accessibility problems people report to us and of what we did about each one, so that nothing is lost and we can see a pattern when there is one. We remove anything that identifies you from that record once your report is closed. The emails themselves are deleted 6 months after the last message in the exchange, as our Privacy Notice says.

Our Privacy Notice, linked at the foot of every page, explains who else handles your message, where in the world it goes, including outside the United Kingdom, and what safeguards are in place. Our server is in Singapore, which is not covered by UK adequacy regulations, and we rely on the UK International Data Transfer Addendum to the EU standard contractual clauses, or the ICO's International Data Transfer Agreement, together with a recorded transfer risk assessment.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal information, you have a right under section 164A of the Data Protection Act 2018 to complain to us. Email info@ostwalden.co.uk with "Data protection complaint" in the subject line, or write to us at the address in section 15. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days, deal with it without undue delay, and tell you the outcome. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, and you do not have to complain to us first. We are completing our registration with the Information Commissioner's Office; the registration number will be shown in our Privacy Notice once it is issued: [to be confirmed].

What we will do, and by when

This is what happens when you contact us about accessibility.

What you have sent us	What we will do	By when
Any email about accessibility	Confirm we have received it and tell you what we are doing next	Within 5 working days
A request for information in a different format	Send it in the format you asked for, or agree a different one with you	Within 10 working days, or we tell you why it will take longer and give you a date
A report of a problem on the site	Tell you what we found, what we have fixed, and when we will fix anything still outstanding	Within 15 working days

Working days means Monday to Friday, not counting bank holidays in England and Wales.

If we decide not to change something, we will tell you why, and we will tell you what we can offer instead rather than leaving it there.

If you are unhappy with the way we have dealt with you, reply and say so. Ostwalden is a new and very small company with no employees, and we will not pretend to have a complaints department we do not have. Our sole director will look at it again, starting from your original message rather than simply confirming the first answer. We cannot offer you an independent review inside this company. If we take anyone on, we will pass these reviews to someone who was not involved the first time, and we will change this page when we do. The independent routes below do not depend on us, and you can use them at any point.

11. Adjustments to the counselling itself

Our duty to make reasonable adjustments covers the counselling, not only the website.

If you need an adjustment to the counselling itself, for example written material in a particular format, a longer or a shorter session, breaks during a session, or a different way of communicating between sessions, tell us when you enquire, or tell your counsellor at any time. You do not have to give us a diagnosis or medical evidence to ask.

We will make the adjustment where it is reasonable to do so, we will tell you plainly if we cannot and why, and you will never be charged for asking or for the adjustment itself.

Counsellors are independent practitioners, registered with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy or with the UK Council for Psychotherapy, and they answer for their own practice. That does not push the duty away from us. If you tell us what you need, we will pass it on, and if it is not being met, tell us and we will take it up.

12. The law

OSTWALDEN LIMITED is a private company. It is not a public body. The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 apply to public sector bodies, so they do not apply to this website, and nothing in those Regulations requires us to publish an accessibility statement, to meet a particular standard, or to have the site independently checked. We publish this statement because we think you are entitled to know where we stand.

What does apply to us is disability discrimination law. In England, Wales and Scotland that is the Equality Act 2010: as a business providing a service to the public, we must not discriminate against disabled people, and we have a duty to make reasonable adjustments. That duty sits in sections 20, 21 and 29 of the Act and in Schedule 2, and Schedule 2 makes clear that we owe it to disabled people generally, not only to the person in front of us.

The Equality Act 2010 does not extend to Northern Ireland. If you are in Northern Ireland, the equivalent protection is in Part 3 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. We will deal with a request from anywhere in the United Kingdom in exactly the same way.

Three things about the duty are worth knowing:

It looks forward. We are expected to think about the barriers disabled people are likely to meet and deal with them in advance, rather than waiting until someone is turned away.
It includes providing information in an accessible format where it is reasonable to do that.
We cannot ask you to pay towards an adjustment. Asking for one will never cost you anything.

What counts as reasonable depends on the circumstances, including what a company of our size can practically do. Where something is not reasonable for us, we will say so and say what we can do instead.

You can also get free, independent advice about your rights.

In England, Scotland and Wales, the Equality Advisory and Support Service: telephone 0808 800 0082, textphone 0808 800 0084, or the contact form at equalityadvisoryservice.com.
In Northern Ireland, the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland: telephone 028 90 500 600, or equalityni.org.

If your concern is about how we handle personal information rather than about accessibility, section 10 above and our Privacy Notice explain how to complain to us and how to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.

13. Why we have taken this seriously

People often come to a counselling website at a difficult moment, when concentration and patience are in short supply. A site that is cluttered or fiddly to operate is not a small irritation then. It can be the thing that stops someone getting in touch at all.

So we have kept the writing short and plain, put as little as possible between you and the contact page, asked for as little information as we can, and avoided anything that hurries you. There are no countdowns, nothing that follows you down the page as you scroll, and nothing moving while you read. The only notice that appears over the page is the cookie notice, which appears once, stays where it is and waits for you. The one time limit anywhere on the site is on the enquiry form, and section 7 sets out what is wrong with it and what we are doing about it.

Accessibility here is not only about screen readers and contrast ratios. It is also about being able to read a page while you are distressed, being able to close it and come back to it next week, and being able to reach a person in the way that suits you rather than the way that suits us.

Ostwalden is not an emergency or crisis service, and this mailbox is not monitored around the clock. If you need help now, the numbers are in section 2, If you need help now, near the top of this page.

14. Keeping this statement up to date

This statement was prepared on 22 September 2026 and describes the site as it stands on that date. It is version 1.0.

We will review it by 22 September 2027 at the latest, and sooner whenever we change the site. We will rewrite it before we add online booking and payment, because a booking and payment process raises accessibility questions that a set of information pages does not. If we ever add video or audio, we will caption it, publish a transcript, and say so here.

15. Who we are

Ostwalden is a trading name of OSTWALDEN LIMITED, a company registered in England and Wales with company number 17119228, incorporated on 26 March 2026. Registered office, and the address for post: Suite 5, 5th Floor City Reach, 5 Greenwich View Place, London E14 9NN. Xinze Guo is our sole director, and Ostwalden has no employees.

For anything in this statement, email info@ostwalden.co.uk or write to us at that address.

This statement is written by reference to the law of England and Wales, and any dispute about it is governed by that law. Nothing here takes away your right to bring a claim in the courts of the part of the United Kingdom where you live.