Posts Tagged ‘email’

Kate will be presenting at a conference in Brussels that begins on June 17th and DeeAnna will present at a conference in Pennsylvania that begins June 28th.  Details of both conferences and sessions about online therapy follow:

Employee Assistance European Forum Brussels Conference 2010  See the link for the full agenda.

Best Practices for Providing EA Services via Email Exchange

Ms. Kate Anthony, Founder “The Online Therapy Institute”, President of the International Society for Mental Health Online, U.K.

 2010 EAP-MAP Conference Villanova Conference Center, PA See the link for the full agenda.

Panel Discussion – “Let your Fingers do the Talking: Adding Online Counseling to your Therapeutic Repertoire”
Jane Weiler, LCSW – Program Coordinator, NY Presbyterian Hospital Workplace Services
Mary Ellen Gornick, MA – Senior Vice President – Global Products, Workplace Options
DeeAnna Nagel, MEd, LPC, DCC – Co-Founder, The Online Therapy Institute
Cedric Speyer, MA, MAEd – Clinical Supervisor of E-Counseling, Shepell

We hope to see you there!

The Online Therapy Institute is pleased to launch a series of online courses about online therapy.  We will be adding courses so do check back. Our 5 clock hour courses are reasonably priced at $69.99/£45.00. For an additional $25.00 we offer continuing education credits for most mental health disciplines in the United States. Currently our courses also qualify for Registered Social Worker professional development in Canada. We have also applied for PDH course approval for Certified Employee Assistance Professionals (CEAP) as well.

We will be adding new continuing education/professional development opportunities so if you would like our courses to count toward requirements in your country, please let us know and will will gladly look into it!

Our current list of courses:

.

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

Continuing Education is available for U.S. psychologists, social workers, counselors, addiction specialists, marriage and family therapists, nurses and educators.

Our courses are co-sponsored by R. Cassidy Seminars.  You will take a test and receive a certificate of completion within the course module but if you are a practitioner in the U.S. and you wish to obtain accredited continuing education hours, the cost is an additional $25.00 per workshop.

Online Therapy Institute Accreditation

Co- sponsored by R. Cassidy Seminars

Satisfactory Completion

Participants must have paid course fee, submitted signed verification statement, completed evaluation, and completed post-test with passing grade of 75% in order to receive a certificate. Failure to complete and submit these materials will result in forfeiture of credit for the entire course. No exceptions will be made. Partial credit is not available.

Psychologists

R. Cassidy Seminars is approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) to offer continuing education for psychologists.  R. Cassidy Seminars maintains responsibility for this program.

Also covers LPCs, MFTs, and SWs in the District of Columbia

Social Workers

R. Cassidy Seminars, ACE provider #1082 is approved as a provider for social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) www.aswb.org, through the Approved Continuing Education (ACE) Program. Approval Period: April 15, 2009-April 15, 2012. R. Cassidy Seminars maintains responsibility for the program. Social workers should contact their regulatory board to determine course approval. Social workers will receive __#__ continuing education (clinical, social work ethics) clock hours in participating in this course.

Covers Social Workers in these states: AL, AK, AR, AZ, CT, DE, FL, GA, ID, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, MA, MD, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NC, ND, NE, NJ, NM, OK, OR, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, VA, VT, WA, WI, WY. Also covers Licensed Professional Counselors in PA

DC: See approval for Psychologists

CA: Course meets the qualifications for (#) hours of continuing education credit for MFTs and/or LCSWs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, Provider #PCE418.

OH: Provider approved by the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker and Marriage and Family Therapist Board for ( ) clock hours, #RCST110701

Counselors

R. Cassidy Seminars is recognized by the National Board for Certified Counselors to offer continuing education for certified counselors.  We adhere to NBCC continuing education guidelines.  Provider #6375.  (#) hours.

AK, AL, AR, AZ, CT, DE, GA, IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, LA, MA, MD, ME, MN, MS, MT, NC, ND, NH, NJ, NM, OK, OR, RI, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY.

OH: Provider approved by the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker and Marriage and Family Therapist Board for ( ) clock hours, #RCST110701

Marriage and Family Therapists

AK, AL, AR, AZ, CT, FL, IA, ID, IN, KS, MD, ME, MT, NE, NJ, NM, OK, OR, RI, SD TN, UT, VA, WA, WY. See approval for Counselors.

DC & MS: See approval for Psychologists

CA: Course meets the qualifications for (#) hours of continuing education credit for MFTs and/or LCSWs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, Provider #PCE418

IL: Illinois Dept of Professional Regulation, Approved Continuing Education Sponsor, #168-000141.  (#) hours.

OH: Provider approved by the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker and Marriage and Family Therapist Board for ( ) clock hours, #RCST110701

TX: Approved CE Sponsor through the Texas State Board of Examiners of Marriage & Family Therapists. Provider #151

Chemical Dependency Counselors

Provider approved by NAADAC Approved Education Provider Program for (#) contact hours.  Approval #000654.

CA: Provider approved by CAADAC, Provider #4N-00-434-0210 for (#) CEHs. CAADAC is an ICRC member which has reciprocity with most ICRC member states

TX: Provider approved by the TCBAP Standards Committee, Provider No. 1749-06, (#) hours general and/or (#) hours (specific specialization), Expires 3/2009.  Complaints about provider or workshop content may be directed to the TCBAP Standards Committee, 1005 Congress Avenue, Ste. 460, Austin, Texas 78701, Fax Number (512) 476-7297.

Nurses

CA: Provider approved by the CA Board of Registered Nursing, Provider #CeP12224, for (#) contact hours.

Teachers/Educators

IL: Provider approved by the Illinois State Board of Certification #080304164719171

TX: R. Cassidy Seminars is an approved provider with the Texas Education Agency CPE# 501456. This course is (#) CE Hours.

Please Note: Licensing Boards change regulations often and while we attempt to stay abreast of their most recent changes, if you have questions or concerns about this course meeting your specific board’s approval, we recommend you contact your board directly to obtain a ruling.

I recently read an article entitled Google’s Email Security Change does not make Online Counseling Secure. I was interested in the article because I was aware of Google’s recent change to an HTTPS default setting for Gmail. And I agree with the writer of the article that this is not a HIPAA compliant service since the HTTPS simply means that when you login to your Gmail account, you are more secure, particularly if you are logging in from a wifi hot spot. It does not mean however, that emails sent from a Gmail account are encrypted as explained in this WIRED article entitled  Google Turns on Gmail Encryption to Protect Wi-Fi Users.

So I thought I would go to the source- at least the most accurate source I know of- to give us all  the answers.

For years I have used Hushmail email services with clients to ensure my email exchanges are encrypted. The service is easy and affordable. In fact Hushmail offers a free account too. That can be handy if a client only needs an account temporarily while working with a therapist online.  The service is HIPAA compliant and Hushmail is willing to sign a HIPAA Business Associate Agreement (required in the United States). The agreement means that any 3rd parties that may be privy to confidential client information understand their responsibility to keep the information confidential.

I emailed Hushmail support and asked if they could explain more about their service and how encryption works. I asked specifically how Hushmail differs from Gmail. I received this response and I am posting the response here with permission:

Hello DeeAnna,

Thank you for your email and we are delighted to help with this.

Hushmail has been providing web-based secure email services for over a
decade now and uses the well known and well used OpenPGP standard for
encrypting email. We are a hosted service where users create accounts
on our servers and their email/data is stored securely on our servers.

All interactions a Hushmail user has with our servers are, and always
have been done over SSL (HTTPS), which provides a secure tunnel
between the users computer and our servers. If a Hushmail user sends a
message from one Hushmail user to another the email it will be sent
securely over its entire journey over SSL. Gmail is now doing the same
as we are, and we think this is a really good thing. Hushmail however
provides additional security in that users have the ability to easily
individually PGP encrypt their messages before sending them, encrypted
messages are also stored on our servers in an encrypted state. This
means that email has greater protection not only in transit, but also
when it is being stored.

One other area where Hushmail provides additional security is in that
with Hushmail you can send an encrypted message to a non-Hushmail
user, you do this by setting a shared secret as the key to encrypting/
decrypting the message. This is different to gmail in that the message
is individually encrypted (gmail messages are not) but also, once a
message is sent to a recipient outside of your network you may not
have control over whether the email is sent securely over SSL.
Individually encrypting your message resolves this issue.

We have many customers who use our service for counselling via email
and have been doing so for a long time.

If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact me.

Kind regards

Ben Cutler
Hush Communications
604 685 7288

I hope you find this explanation as helpful as I did. You can follow @hushmail on twitter. Oh, and Ben says if our readers mention Online Therapy Institute, he will give a discount on hushmail services! Thanks Ben for your time, expertise and a great service!!

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

“Mental Health and the Impact of Technological Development” (Anthony & Nagel, 2010) is a primary text for courses that teach distance counselling via technology and/or courses that teach about the enhancement of mental health services through the use of technology.  This book may also be used as an adjunct text for courses that include an introduction to mental health services or offer an introduction to the delivery of counseling services.  With ethical considerations offered throughout the text, adding the text to the list of required reading in any counseling, psychology or mental health ethics class is also extremely plausible. The text, co-authored by Kate Anthony and DeeAnna Merz Nagel, includes original contributions within key areas of mental health and technology.  These areas include: the use of text-based technology for conducting a therapeutic relationship, the use of text-based technology for enhancing client peer support, the use of alternative technology for conducting a therapeutic relationship, the use of alternative technology for enhancing client peer support, the use of text-based technology to enrich counselor training and supervision, and the use of alternative technology to enrich counselor training and supervision.
 
The introduction to the text, written by the co-editors, provides the framework for the readings, illustrating the technological impact to the practicing clinician and the field of mental health as a whole.  This book will make a unique contribution to the field as no other text delineates the use of technology in mental health for both clinicians and consumers, while underscoring ethical considerations for each application.
 
Technologies included are:
 
Email
Chat
Mobile/Cell phone SMS
Social Networking
Forums
Websites
Wikis
Blogs and blogging
Telephone
Videoconferencing
Virtual Reality environments
Virtual Reality Immersion
CCBT
Therapeutic Gaming
The role of film in therapy
Web-based assessment
Behavioural Telehealth
Podcasting
Self-help assessment
Text based Continuing Education
Research methods using Technology
Continuing Education utilising an experiential approach

Working in partnership with some of the biggest names in music, sport and clubbing, CALM encourages young men to ‘open up’ and sort out their problems. CALM has built a strong presence through the internet, club flyers, posters, beer mats, gigs, comedy nights and in the media.

Voices: The Art and Science of Psychotherapy just published an article I wrote entitled Filling the Void in the Virtual Consultation Room. I describe in a rather existential and experiential way, my experience of conducting psychotherapy via chat.  With no visual or auditory cues, the experience of psychotherapy online is different.  Not less valid, but different. I explain how it is different and what about the process I find to be rich and fulfilling.

Two commentaries follow  my article. Neither commentary is particularly supportive or positive about what I offer.  And that is not really the point. After years of training therapists in text-based therapy, and now as my training includes therapy conducted in virtual world settings, I am quite accustomed to opposition. But I have noticed a common theme emerging.

Counselors and psychotherapists tend to discount relationships online.  As more technology infiltrates our lives, online relating becomes more and more off-putting to some.  I personally have never posited that online counseling will replace face-to-face psychotherapy.  I find that both experiences hold depth for the client and psychotherapist.  I see the benefit of delivering psychotherapy in the flesh as well as via technology.

Mental Health practitioners often do not understand how the art of psychotherapy can occur online. As with anything new, it takes a while to make the shift. And some choose not to- which is fine. But with the advent of email, chat, social networking and virtual worlds, our work becomes transformed as psychotherapy meets mixed reality.  While online relating is not enjoyable or fulfilling for some, others view their online relationships as a viable part of life and as real as any relationship that occurs face-to-face.  I find some in this profession are threatened by this notion.  But I think there are enough differences between us with our lives now full of so many choices for relating, both traditionally and through social media, that there is room for growth and expansiveness within the art of pscyhotherapy.

What do you think?

DeeAnna

Read the full story at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/oct/08/google.email

“An altruistic Google employee has come up with a system that will block -or at least make you think twice about – the kind of message you will only regret the next day. Mail Goggles, which can be set to spring into action late at night and at weekends, asks emailers to answer a series of short mathematical posers before sending their message off. The idea, according to Gmail engineer Jon Perlow, is to help people who are a little too tired and emotional to foresee the consequences of their actions.”