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SSSC 23 Things Digital Thing 5 - Social Media #1

Social media is a huge part of every day life and I would say the majority of people I work with and our service users have access to some form of social media account. As a result, the local authority I work for has a social media policy which we must review annually and on induction of new staff. This is quite a clear and easy to follow policy however because our local authority doesn't just cover the work we do in our service, I also need to remind staff of their duty to uphold the SSSC Codes of Practice. To overcome this, I am working on a policy which incorporates our local authorities social media policy and the SSSC Codes of Practice which are relevant to social media into one document. 

In relation to the SSSC Codes of Practice, I feel Code 5.8 is very relevant to our organisation because it tells us that we must behave appropriately and not jeopardise the position of trust we have built with our service users. For some staff, they feel this means they can't use social media at all which is not what our policy states; it states we must ensure we do not post content which could impact the ability of our workers to provide care and support to our service users or impact the relationship of trust instilled in our employees from our service users. 

One of the biggest challenges I find is because our staff work in the town or county in which they live, they have personal relationships with some of our service users which could lead to confusion between professional and personal boundaries being crossed. To try and overcome this, I advise staff to be mindful of what they post on social media if they are friends with service users and to approach me if they have any queries or doubts. 

I feel social media is a really good way to keep in contact personally but can also be used positively in a professional manner, for example, by using Twitter or Facebook to communicate updates on the service to our service users. I feel as long as staff are aware of the policy and it is reviewed regularly then there shouldn't be any crossing of boundaries or mistrust in the service. 


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