We use social media for our practice and in an effort to be completely transparent with you, we have created a social media policy so you understand how we use social media in our practice and how it could impact our relationship.

If you have any questions about this policy, you are encouraged to bring them up when you meet your therapist. Social media is also constantly changing and there may be times when this policy made be updated. If we do so, we will post the policy online and inform you of the changes in our session.

The basis for this policy is to truly protect our relationship and your confidentiality in session. Let’s talk about confidentiality for a moment. You are the person that can decide what you want to keep confidential. As therapists, we must keep our relationship with you completely confidential except in cases of where you might harm yourself or others (see Services and Policies). Thus, if you post on our page, you are opening up the possibility of people inferring about our relationship or asking you about your connection to any of the therapists at Wholeness and Wellness Counselling Services. You get to decide what you tell people. You have a choice as to what you reveal about yourself online, however we will not reveal our connection to you. This is how we handle different social media options:

FRIENDING To respect your privacy and confidentiality, therapists at Wholeness and Wellness Counselling Services do not accept friend requests on our personal facebook page from current or former clients on any social networking site.

FANNING You may “like” our facebook business page. However, the information on our facebook page is often on our website as well. If you “like” our page, you are choosing to reveal that you are connected to us in some way. Our business page exists to be a forum of information and inspiration. I will not engage in conversations with you on that page. However, if you find it helpful then that is great!

FOLLOWING Therapists sometimes publish blogs on this website. We have no expectation that clients will want to follow our blog. You are welcome to use your own discretion in choosing whether to follow us. Note that we will not follow you back. If there are things from your online life that you wish to share with individual therapists, please bring them into our sessions where we can view and explore them together, during the therapy hour.

INTERACTING Please do not use messaging on Social Networking sites such as Facebook, or LinkedIn to contact us. Also if there were an emergency, we would not be able to respond timely as we do not check these accounts on a daily basis. The best way to interact with us is by email or phone. If you post on our wall 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.

USE OF SEARCH ENGINES You may have a facebook page, instagram account or twitter accounts. We do not “google” our clients or look up information on them for any reason. We think it is important that we know you as you are in my office. If we do come across your information online, we will move on and avoid reading content.

EMAIL We prefer using email only to arrange or modify appointments. Please do not email us content related to your therapy sessions, as email is not completely secure or confidential. If you choose to communicate with us by email, be aware that all emails are retained in the logs of our 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.

LOCATION BASED SERVICES LOCATION-BASED SERVICES

If you used location-based services on your mobile phone, you may wish to be aware of the privacy issues related to using these services. We do not place our office as a check-in location on websites. 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 be aware of this risk if you are intentionally “checking in,” from our office or if you have a passive LBS app enabled on your phone.

CONCLUSION Thank you for taking the time to review our Social Media Policy. 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 your therapist's attention so that we can discuss them.

Adapted from Dr. Keely Kolmes