Posts Tagged ‘counsellor’

OTI has been remiss in offering regular blog posts these past couple of months but with good cause and great outcomes!

So what’s in store for 2010? Our authored book, Therapy Online: A Practical Guide was just released and we have another edited book, The Use of Technology in Mental Health: Applications, Ethics and Practice due out this summer. This book has 30 chapters with a total of 47 contributing authors from across the globe.

As promised, we are offering online training about online therapy. We have launched the first 6 workshops with more to come. Each workshop is the equivalent of 5 clock hours of instruction. The workshops are online and self-paced.  The cost per workshop is $119.00/70.00 £.

• Introduction to Cyberspace: A Primer for Helping Professionals
• Relationships in Cyberspace: An Introduction for Helping Professionals
• The Online Therapeutic Relationship: Theoretical Considerations
• Ethical Considerations of Online Therapy
• Working Therapeutically Using Asynchronous Email
• Working Therapeutically Using Synchronous Chat

The workshop details can be accessed at our training portal. We have partnered with DigitalChalk to bring you a user-friendly yet state-of-the-art experience. Continuing Education credits for U.S. psychologists, social workers and counselors will be available very soon.

www.onlinetherapyinstitute.digitalchalk.com.

Just create an account and peruse our catalog! Your account will remain active should you decide to return to take a course.

We are giving our website a facelift so resources are easier to navigate.

We will soon offer an Online Therapy Institute ~verified~ seal that will provide a way for online helping professionals to indicate to the public that their site meets standards of best practice.

We will be facilitating groups and workshops as well as co-sponsoring conferences online and at our Second Life location.

We are collaborating with others to add to our Ethical Framework resources.

We have created:

• Ethical Framework for the Use of Technology in Mental Health
• Ethical Framework for the Use of Technology for Career and School Guidance

Coming Soon:

• Ethical Framework for the Use of Technology in Professional Coaching
• Ethical Framework for the Use of Technology in Crisis, Disaster and Critical Incident Interventions
  

We are offering a directory listing to everyone who joins our social network at www.onlinetherapysocialnetwork.com and your listing will be posted at www.onlinetherapydirectory.net.

For OTI members who practice online, a website listing in the OTI Web Directory (online counseling category) will be added provided the following standards are met:

1. Offer encrypted services for email, chat and web conferencing.
2. List level of education, schools attended and dates graduated.
3. List certifications and licenses if applicable with verification web links.
4. List crisis information or a link on the website’s home page.
5. List therapist’s alternate contact information in addition to email.

Mostly, we will continue to encourage dialogue among our members and friends at Online Therapy Institute so that we can all learn and grow together!

Kate and DeeAnna

Ethical Implications Online: Working and Socializing in Cyberspace
Presented by: DeeAnna Nagel, LPC, DCC
Dallas, Texas EAPA Pre-Conference Training
Co-Founder of the Online Therapy Institute

The Employee Assistance Professionals Association (EAPA) invites you to
Register For This Full-Day Ethics Course
Ethical Implications Online: Working and Socializing in Cyberspace
Tuesday, October 20 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM; 7.5 PDH/CE contact hours

This full-day workshop will discuss best practice with regard to communicating online with potential and existing clients, business associates, friends and other therapists. With the advent of Web 2.0 and Social Media, counselors and psychotherapists now must understand the boundaries of working and socializing in cyberspace. Topics to be covered include communicating confidentially with existing clients, how to handle the email inquiry from a potential client, the basics of ethical online counseling and the slippery slope of marketing your practice on the internet via social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Special OTI Discounted Price: $295
(You Save $60!)

Add This Full-Day Business-Building Course
For Just $100 More!

Essential Sales Skills for the Non-Sales Professional
Wednesday, October 21 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM; 7.5 PDH/CE contact hours

Presented by: Shelley Plemons MS, LCDC
President/CEO, Strategic Sales Solutions

The economy is poor and the behavioral health marketplace is increasingly competitive. As a mental health professional, you may be faced with the challenge of maintaining your current work-load while becoming more involved in sales efforts. You want to increase your client base and land business, but sales is not your first profession, and feels daunting. What do you do?

First, don’t panic! Second, participate in this unique full-day training session! This is the only sales training program for non-sales professionals, written and presented by a fellow clinician, and targeted to building the sales capacity of mental health and employee assistance professionals and their programs. Shelley will introduce you to the principles and skills of consultative selling. It’s a logical, non-manipulative approach that focuses on being responsive to the needs of your prospective client and matching them to your products or services. Enhance your confidence by using your personality and skills in consultation, relationship building, and communication to build business!

Total OTI Discounted Price for Both Courses: $395
(You Save $315!)

Offer Expires September 30, 2009!

Don’t Wait ‘Til It’s Too Late!
Use This Special Form to Register Today!

Learn more about EAPA’s 2009 Annual World EAP conference or download the conference preview book.
PDH/CE credit hours provided by:
Employee Assistance Certification Commission (EACC)
National Association of Social Workers (NASW)
National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC)
California Board of Behavioral Sciences
National Association of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselors (NAADAC)

It is official. I build websites.  If you are a regular reader to this blog you know that I am a psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer and much of my work is about online therapy.  I see clients in my office and online, I offer consultation to therapists who are considering adding online therapy to their suite of services, I train and conduct keynotes, and in my spare time I write! 

But over the past year or so I have also assisted people with website builds.  I started out helping therapists build sites that integrated online therapy services, but lately I have been approached by others who just want a simple site to describe what they do.   And guess what?  I love the builds!  It is a creative outlet for me!  I am not a webmaster so I do not offer flash and other fancy plugins, but I can build a sturdy site for people who do not know how, don’t want to learn or just don’t want to take the time.  Once I complete the build, I can show someone how to maintain the site themselves, or I can make changes as needed.

So, if you are shopping around, check me out.  This site describes my web build services in more detail: www.therapyonlinewebsitedesign.com

Here are a few sites I have built:

DeeAnna

With the proliferation of social networks and most recently, the budding of new niche social networks geared toward specific groups, therapists are finding many places to connect and discuss! The Online Therapy Institute features discussion groups at Linkedin, Links for Shrinks and Facebook. We encourage open discussion of all issues related to technology and mental health from marketing one’s private practice on the web to actually conducting online therapy. But therapists should take caution when discussing client cases on such networks. While some networks may be password protected, links can sometimes be copied and pasted from most standard discussion boards and forums leaving practitioners and their clients vulnerable. The Online Therapy Institute provides a secure and encrypted member forum that is HIPAA compliant (important to therapists in the United States). The forum offers chat and discussion board features that give the therapist a confidential place to talk about cases.

Even when therapists “blind the record” removing all identifying information, client identity can sometimes be discovered if by simply knowing the location of the therapist through a forum or email tagline. If the therapist practices in a rural area, it may not be difficult to connect the dots. While it is enticing to enter into clinical discussions with peer professionals, counsellors and therapists should make sure discussions are completely confidential.

DeeAnna