Supportive Womin-Affirmative Counseling Solutions

For Your Mind, Body & Spirit . . .

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Our Private Practice Social Media Policy

This document outlines our policies related to the use of Social Media or other Internet/ electronic/ digital tools. Please read these to understand how we use social media and other internet, electronic, or digital tools as  a mental health professional services provider.

After reading our policy, you'll also know how you can expect us to respond to various interactions which might occur between us on the Internet as it relates to your privacy as our current or former client.

Please note that if you do select to access our professional or business web pages, we can only assume that you have selected to do so while fully recognizing the limitations and risks to our being able to protect your privacy as a current or former client as we have mindfully outlined here.

If you have any questions about anything we've discussed here, we encourage you to discuss them with us when we meet. As new technology develops and the Internet changes, there may be times when we'll need to update this policy. If we do so, we'll make this information available to you in writing.

Making Friend Requests or Contact Requests:

In order to protect your confidentiality and to preserve the boundaries of our provider and client/patient relationship, we do not accept friend or contact requests from any current or former clients/ patients on any social networking site (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc).

Following Our Professional Blogs, Tweets, and Other Online Activity:

We may have professional pages blogs or psychology related postings online (for example: on Facebook, Twitter or my website blog). If you feel strongly about following these online, we suggest you look at; and use those more private ways to to follow us (example: RSS feed or locked Twitter list) in order to protect your confidentiality as a current or former client.

However, we also recognize that these are choices you should make after reviewing the privacy polices of any of these also, since we can't endorse nor recommend any of them regarding their confidentiality or privacy.

Regarding Our Professional/ Business Facebook Pages:

Our professional/ business Facebook pages are educational pages, which are available to everyone in the general public to "like" and have access to; so please be mindful that when you "like" these pages that it means that you will be sent general educational information notices, unless you select other choices otherwise under your Facebook options.

Please check with Facebook Help regarding it's uses and privacy polices, as we can't protect nor insure your privacy when using this social media format.   

We maintain Facebook pages for our professional practice to allow the general public to share our educational blog posts and our practice events and workshops updates with other Facebook users.

Our Facebook business pages are only intended for general educational & informational use and aren't meant for client/ therapist interactions, so please don't use these pages for client / therapist-related interactions. Much of the information shared on this page is also available on our websites.

You're welcome to review our Facebook business pages and read or share articles posted there, but do be mindful that as our current  [or former] client, we do not in any way request that you endorse our pages as our clients [this includes "liking" our pages] in that it could compromise your privacy by your choosing to do so.

Please note that you should be able to subscribe to the pages via RSS without becoming a Fan or "liking" and without creating a visible, public link to our SRWCCS page. You are more than welcome to do this. 

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Following Former or Current Clients/ Patients Online:

We will not make any social networking contact requests of former or current clients/ patients. We also do not follow your blogs, tweets, or other social media or internet postings. If you would like to share aspects of your online life with us, please feel free to bring these to your sessions to discuss them.

Contacting Us Online or via Text Message:

Please do not use text/ media messaging or messaging on Social Networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn to contact us. These sites are not secure and we may not read these messages in a timely fashion. We will not be able to respond to any requests or responses via these sites or via text message.

Do not use Wall postings, @replies, or other means of engaging with us in public online if we have an already established client/ therapist relationship. Engaging with us this way could compromise your confidentiality. It may also create the possibility that these exchanges become a part of your legal medical record and will need to be documented and archived in your chart. If you need to contact me between sessions, the best way to do so is by phone.

Business/ Provider Review Sites:

You may find AfraShe Asungi or our psychotherapy/ counseling practice on sites such as Yelp, Yahoo, Goggle 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 or not.

If you should find our listing on any of these sites, please be aware that we are not requesting a testimonial, rating, or endorsement from you as our client/ patient. We're ethically and legally obligated to protect your confidentiality.

Also, to protect confidentiality, so we will not respond to any such postings/ reviews. However, please feel free to discuss your thoughts, feelings and concerns about our work during your sessions with us. And note that we do have evaluation forms which you can complete regarding your thoughts about our services.

Location Based Services:

If you use location-based services on your mobile phone, you may wish to be made aware of the privacy issues related to using these services.

We don't place our practice as a check-in location on various sites such as Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, etc. However, if you have GPS tracking enabled on your device, it is possible that others may surmise that you are a therapy client due to regular check-ins at our office on a weekly basis.

Please also be aware of this risk if you're intentionally “checking in,” from our office locations or if you have a passive LBS application enabled on your cell phone.

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Email Usage:

Please don't email us content related to your therapy sessions, as email is not completely secure or confidential and we may not be able to respond.  We prefer using email only to arrange or modify appointments.

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's 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 providers.

You should also know that any emails we receive from you and any responses that we send to you become a part of your legal record. If you need to discuss an appointment, please contact us via telephone.

Online Searches And Exceptions To Policy:

We don't regularly search for clients /patients online, using Google or other search engines. Extremely rare exceptions may be made during times of crisis.

If we have an ethical or legal reason to suspect that you are in danger and you have not been in touch with us via our usual means (coming to appointments, phone, etc.) there might be an instance in which using a search engine or some other online search to attempt to locate you, or even find someone close to you, or to check on your recent status updates becomes necessary as a part of ensuring your safety.

However, these are very unusual situations and if we ever find it necessary to resort to such processes, we'll fully document them and we'll discuss them with you when we next meet.

We thank you for taking the time to review our Social Media Policy. Again, our goal here is to insure your informed consent as to how we  endeavor to protect your privacy regarding the therapy/ counseling services which we provide to you.

If you have questions or concerns about any of these policies and procedures or regarding our potential interactions on the Internet, do bring them to our attention so that we can discuss them with you.

SistahPeacefully™ Yours,

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*Our social media policy text is a modified version of text which was originally developed by Kelly Kolmes, Psy.D.; all original rights reserved ~ much thanks ~

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.   To view a copy of this license, visit  http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

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