Between posting vacation photos on Facebook and “tweeting” real-time information, private life can become quite public. But public versus private is not the only distinction becoming murkier as more of life is lived online. For people who work in the mental health and addiction fields, professional versus personal bound- aries are also blurring.
It’s a trend that prompted Crisis Response Services Kenora Rainy River Dis- trict to develop a new technology and ethics policy after program co-ordinator Kyla Storry got a Facebook friend request from a client. “I explained to him in person that our rela- tionship is a professional relationship only, and that doing things like adding him on Facebook to my personal page is definitely outside of the ethical boundaries of the client-therapist relationship,” she says.
By clarifying that client contact should be job-related and take place during working hours, the policy ensures that staff are clear … (full article in pdf format)
Filed under: Psychology, technology
