In this episode, I’m so excited to welcome Lawrence Murphy back to the podcast. Lawrence is a pioneer in cyber counselling in Canada. Given the move to sudden remote work for everyone, including human and social services workers, therapists, etc., I wanted to get his insights on where we’re at and what things may look like in the future. In particular, what he is seeing now that excites him, what concerns him, what is happening in his own practice, research, and the professional development he does. As you’ll hear, Lawrence has been busy! He started doing webinar trainings on March 23 and delivered 42 sessions, training over 7000 mental health professionals across the country over two months! As he did previously, Lawrence recommends a focus on ethics, standards, policies and procedures when getting up and running. Make sure that in your planning there’s an emphasis on privacy, security and confidentiality, both in terms of the technology tools, but also their use. As well, recognize that you may need some new skill development in the space, not just with the tools, but also with the approach to counselling online. Some themes from our conversation: * You need to skill up, not just on the tech, but on technique.* You need self-care, and ways to process your client interactions in a different way than you might usually in the office. Create a work routine in your home that separates your work from your personal life. It takes discipline to separate them when you’re working from home. Don’t work all the time. Especially when you’re dealing with difficult topics or situations, it used to be something you could leave at the office. But now “all the pain is in our homes” and we need to recognize that.* Setting boundaries and not using personal devices is an important part of that.* Ethics – how do you handle situations you see or hear in the background during a client interaction?* Policies – what policies do you have in place? Lawrence mentioned some useful documents, they’re below.* Tech – do you fully understand the privacy, security, and confidentiality settings or deficiencies of the technology you’re using?* You don’t know what you don’t know. And it’s your responsibility to figure it out to build the best foundation you can, seek out useful resources from any organization or association and to review them and how they can fit into and inform your practice.* What does the future look like? This virtual work will carry on. It’s that simple. You need to skill up and continue learning. Lawrence’s insights will give you some of the key themes you need to continuously be thinking about and building your competencies around.* Work on your policies. You’re behind and this is an important time to get caught up.* It’s technology. Whatever can go wrong, will. Be prepared for things to go wrong technically. Discuss that with your clients. Always have a Plan B.* Be future focused. Online counselling is not going away.* Technology is just another tool in the tool box. You need to stay current.  Work on your skills, and commit to professional practice. What this looks like comes up consistently in policy documents from regulatory bodies (see examples below): * You have demonstrated and documented competence in the technologies you use through appropriate and adequate education, training, and supervised experience.* You have necessary digital security measures in place to protect client privacy and confidentiality.* The technology applications you use are tailored or matched to unique client concerns and cont...