Speak Out August 2019 Digital Edition

Ethics

The ethics mailbag features responses to questions or discussion on hot topics to help you navigate ethical practice of being a speech pathologist. We want to have a conversation about the issues you are experiencing in your daily practice and help you navigate through everyday ethical challenges. Please identify topics that are interesting and relevant to you and then have a chat with us - email us your questions, ideas and responses to our ethical scenario below! Submit your questions or hot button topics to ethics@speechpathologyaustralia. org.au October edition Mailbag deadline: 1 September 2019 The ETHICS MAILBAG! The platform for members to write in with questions and thoughts on anything ethics related!

Ethics

MAINTAINING AN ETHICAL PRESENCE ONLINE

• The caption for these images need to be thought carefully about to make sure you are not publishing confidential information about your client or making a testimonial. Testimonials sometimes are in the form of ratings and reviews

This time our topic for the ethics mailbag will be about maintaining an ethical presence online, our question was: I am in the process of starting up my own business, we have a website, and Facebook page and I’m thinking about an Instagram page too. I’d like to celebrate the individuals I work with and their achievements. What are my ethical responsibilities here? Setting up a business is exciting, but also a little scary! You want to make sure that you have enough clients to make ends meet, but how do you get the word out to build up a caseload and cashflow while making sure that ethics is at the front of your mind? The first thing to be careful about are the words you are choosing, watch out for saying things such as “we can help”, “we can cure…” or “proof that we get results” as these could be interpreted as a promise by some consumers, and you may not be able to keep this promise. In a similar line when talking about your experience be careful to avoid saying “I am our specialist on …”. As a profession we do not have recognised specialisations and so without this guideline there would be nothing to stop a new graduate from saying that they are specialists, and this would be misleading to consumers. When setting up social media many business owners want to post photos and videos of their clients achieving their goals. While client images are not against the SPA Advertising policy there are a number of elements to think about here; • How long do these images remain on the page? Will you remove them after six months? A year? A child might be okay with you posting their image now, but what about when they are a little older? • There are no limits to who can see or share these images- it could be copied or shared beyond your webpage. When you are seeking consent to post these images it should be made clear that this is the case, as this might change the mind of some individuals.

on Facebook, sometimes in a different form. If this statement is publicly viewable in a place where you have control over what is seen and refers to clinical matters, this is a testimonial. An example of a testimonial could be; “Sam has been

working on the ‘r’ sound and can now say it in words- amazing work!” if posted on social media, because it is publicly viewable, can be removed and outcomes are mentioned. However, “Alex always works hard in speech sessions- great job” is not a testimonial as there is no reference to clinical matters If you want more information about any of these topics, there are a number of great resources available on the “Advertising” page of the SPA website to help set up and maintain ethical advertising on your webpages. Next time; Separated parents, read the article this month and write to ethics@speechpathologyaustralia.org.au with any dilemmas you have found yourselves in regarding parenting orders.

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August 2019 www.speechpathologyaustralia.org.au

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