Social Media Policy
With the prevalence of social media in our day to day lives, this document will outline my policies regarding the interaction of social media use and counselling. Please read it to understand how you can expect me to conduct myself in and out of session, what I requests of clients who work with me, and various potential security risks.
Given the evolving nature of technology and our use of it, this document is subject to possible updates in the future. If you have any questions, please be sure to bring them up in our session or by email if appropriate.
SOCIAL MEDIA AND CONFIDENTIALITY
One of the core ethical tenants of my counselling is confidentiality, and this applies to the use of technology as well. I will not disclose the existence of a counselling relationship with you except when I am legally required to (if you will harm yourself, harm another, a child is believed to be at risk or a court subpoenas clinical records). You have the freedom as the client to decide what aspects of the counselling relationship you decided to keep confidential and what to disclose. If you decide to post on any of my social media pages or websites, you are opening up the possibility of people inferring a counselling relationship between us or asking about the nature of your connection with me. You are both free and responsible for what you reveal about yourself online. I will not reveal my connection to you or any personal information about you.
FRIENDING
I do not accept friend or contact requests from current or former clients on any social networking sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc). I believe that adding clients as friends or contacts on these sites can compromise your confidentiality and our respective privacy. It may also blur the boundaries of our therapeutic relationship. I also do not interact with clients on social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn.
FOLLOWING
There is no expectation for you as a client will want to follow any blog, business Facebook page, Instagram account or other professional social media and online presence I have. I do not solicit testimonials from clients in any form and as such none will be published on any public platform.
You are free to choose at your own discretion whether or not to follow any of my professional online accounts. Be aware that I will not follow you back in accordance with the “Friending” policy above. I mainly follow other health professionals or local businesses on professional social media accounts, and I do not follow current or former clients on either my professional or personal social media accounts. Drawing a clear boundary such as this is done in order to avoid any confusion as to the nature of the therapeutic relationship and avoid blurring any interpersonal boundaries.
INTERACTING
Do not use messaging on social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram or others to contact me. Do not use wall postings, @ replies or other means of engaging with me in public online communication if we have already established a client/therapist relationship. These sites are not secure forms of communication, and if it were an emergency I would not be able to respond in a timely manner to forms of communication such as these.
The best way for clients to reach me is by email at curtisdueckcounselling@gmail.com.
If you attempt interact with me online, it is possible that these exchanges may become part of your legal or medical record and will need to be documented in your client file.
If you have an emergency, please call 911 or the crisis line at 604 872 3311. Some clients will additionally to send me an email letting me know they have used a crisis service, which is appropriate and we can discuss at the next session. However, the use of 911 or the crisis line is needs to be the primary support service accessed as I am unable to provide immediate crisis support or intervention in my position.
As stated above, I prefer using email to arrange or modify appointments. Please do not email me content related to your therapy sessions, as email is not completely secure or confidential. If you choose to communicate with me by email, be aware that all emails are retained in the logs of your and my Internet service providers. While it is unlikely that someone will be looking at these logs, they are, in theory, available to be read by the system administrator(s) of the Internet service provider. You should also know that any emails I receive from you and any responses that I send to you become a part of your legal or medical record as part of your client file.
USE OF SEARCH ENGINES
You may have a Facebook page, Instagram account, Twitter account or otherwise use social media platforms. I do not “google” or search information on my clients. It is important that my understanding of you is what you choose to reveal to me during our sessions. My reasoning is that any viewing of clients’ online content outside of the therapy hour can create confusion in regard to whether it is being done as a part of your treatment or to satisfy my personal curiosity.
It is possible that client information may show up on my newsfeed or other public domain (such as the explore page on Instagram). If I come across your information online, know that I will chose to avoid reading any content.
Extremely rare exceptions may be made during times of crisis. If I have reason to suspect that you are in danger or you have not been in touch with me via our usual means (coming to appointments, phone or email) there might be an instance in which using a search engine to find you, find someone close to you, or check on your recent status updates becomes necessary as part of ensuring your welfare. These are unusual situations and if I ever resort to such means, I will document this and discuss it with you when we next meet.
BUSINESS REVIEW SITES
You may find my psychology practice on sites such as Yelp, Google, Yahoo Local, Bing, or other places which list businesses. Some of these sites include forums in which users rate their providers and add reviews. Many of these sites comb search engines for business listings and automatically add listings regardless of whether the business has added itself to the site. If you should find my listing on any of these sites, please know that my listing is NOT a request for a testimonial, rating, or endorsement from you as my client.
You have a right to express yourself on any site you wish. However, due to confidentiality, I cannot respond to any review on any of these sites whether it is positive or negative. I urge you to take your own privacy as seriously as I take my commitment of confidentiality to you. You should also be aware that if you are using these sites to communicate indirectly with me about your feelings about our work, there is a good possibility that I may never see it.
If we are working together, I hope that you will bring your feelings and reactions to our work directly into the therapy process. This can be an important part of therapy, even if you decide we are not a good fit. None of this is meant to keep you from sharing that you are in therapy with me wherever and with whomever you like. Confidentiality means that I cannot tell people that you are my client and ethically I am prohibited from requesting testimonials. But you are more than welcome to tell anyone you wish that I’m your therapist or how you feel about the treatment I provided to you.
If you do choose to write something on a business review site, I hope you will keep in mind that you may be sharing personally revealing information in a public forum. I encourage you to create a pseudonym that is not linked to your regular email address or friend networks for your own privacy and protection.
If you feel I have done something harmful or unethical and you do not feel comfortable discussing it with me, you can always contact the agencies which I am registered with, and they will review the services I have provided.
LOCATION-BASED SERVICES
If you use location-based services on your mobile phone, you may wish to be aware of the privacy issues related to using these services. I do not and will not place my practice as a check-in location on various sites such as Foursquare, Facebook, etc. However, if you have GPS tracking enabled on your device, or applications such as “Find my Friends,” it is possible that others may become aware that you are a therapy client due to your location.
CONCLUSION
Thank you for reviewing the Social Media Policy. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the policy and procedures outlined above, please bring them to my attention so that we can dialogue about them.
If you would like to contact me regarding anything found in this policy, please feel free to get in touch using the CONTACT button at the top of this site.
Thank you,
Curtis Dueck, MA, RCC
