Conference Presentation: Developing a Professional & Ethical Online Presence for Social Work Practice
On Thursday, October 3rd, I will be at the Alabama/Mississippi Social Work Education Conference presenting with Allison Curington, Field Director at the University of Alabama, about best practices for social workers in the use of social and digital media when working with clients and communities. During this workshop, we will cover the basics of social and digital technologies as well lessons learned from experience with training students and social work practitioners. Additionally, we will be sharing how to access the Social Media Toolkit for Field Educators, a free resource with educator’s guide and a PowerPoint slide deck.
If you won’t be at the conference, I am including all the important details about the presentation in this blog post.
First, you can access your own free copy of the Social Media Toolkit for Field
Educators here:
https://laureliversonhitchcock.org/2018/11/05/revised-social-media-toolkit/
Second, here is a link to a worksheet from the presentation: Develop your Professional Social Media Policy Worksheet
Third, here are a copy of the slides from the presentation:
Finally, here is our conference proposal including all the references:
While social and digital technologies are a topic of conversation in many practice arenas, such as nursing and medicine, social work professionals are often not engaged in the social media conversation loop and unclear about the influence of social media in the lives of 21st century employees and organizations. There are several reasons why social work professionals are not having these conversations or engaging with social and digital technologies. These include generational differences, lack of technology resources, lack of training with technology (technological competency), lack of best practice guidelines or organizational/institution policy and ethical concerns. Further, the social work literature and professional social work organizations have been slow to provide updated guidance in the form of best practice and standards. Current changes to the NASW Code of Ethics and the NASW Technology Standards for Social Work Practice are now requiring social workers to reflect on the role of social media and other forms of digital technology for professional practice (NASW 2017a, NASW 2017b).
One of the best places to start when considering the incorporation of social and digital technologies into social work practice or education is to reflect on one’s personal and professional values about the use of technology in social work practice. Critical and reflective thinking about technology’s role in social work practice gives practitioners an opportunity to understand their own preferences and comfort-level with technology as well as begin to explore how cultural and socioeconomic differences among clients and constituents may affect the use of technology in practice. The NASW Code of Ethics advises practitioners to consider “cultural, environmental, economic, mental or physical ability, linguistic, and other issues that may affect the delivery or use of these services” (NASW, 2017a, para. 9).
After reflecting on one’s values related to social media, the next step is to self-assess one’s social media accounts for the quantity and quality of content as well as basic metrics such as followers, re-posts of comments, and privacy settings. The goal of self-assessment is to understand how, when, and what one is doing with social media. This also has the added benefit of identifying any potential conflicts within one’s social media accounts such as unintentionally following a client on Twitter or locating personal content that is potentially embarrassing or inappropriate. Finally, developing a professional social media policy to inform clients, constituents, colleagues, and others about when, how, and why you use social media in a professional capacity is important.
This workshop will provide both information and tools that social work practitioners and educators can use to address the ethical and practical issues related to the use of social and digital media in practice. Specifically, the presenters will discuss: 1) lessons learned from experience with training students and social work practitioners; and 2) how to access free resources for the social work classroom and agency-based training programs.
References:
National Association of Social Workers (2017a). Code of Ethics Retrieved from https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English
National Association of Social Workers (2017b). Standards for Technology and Social Work Practice. Retrieved from https://www.socialworkers.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=lcTcdsHUcng%3D&portalid=0
How to cite this post:
Hitchcock, L.I. & Curington, A.M. (2019, October 2). Developing a Professional & Ethical Online Presence for Social Work Practice [Blog Post]. Retrieved from: https://laureliversonhitchcock.org/2019/10/02/conference-presentation-developing-a-professional-ethical-online-presence-for-social-work-practice/
