Using Social Networking Safely. A guide for professionals working with young people

Transcription

1 Using Social Networking Safely A guide for professionals working with young people v. 2 November 2012

2 Dear Head Teacher/ Chair of Governors, To ensure that all staff working with children and young people are made aware of their social networking responsibilities and expectations for online behaviour, we kindly ask for signed confirmation that this guidance document has been disseminated to all staff within your school/educational setting. Completed returns should be sent to the E Safety Team at your earliest convenience. Thank you in advance for your cooperation. Kind regards, Caroline Moore NCC e Safety Officer School name: This is to confirm that all members of staff have been made aware of the document Using Social Networking Safely and copies have been distributed or made accessible to all staff working for or on behalf of the school. Name of Head Teacher (printed) Signature of Head Teacher Date: Please return completed slips either by post or to: esafety@northamptonshire.gov.uk Caroline Moore, Northamptonshire County Council, John Dryden House, 8-10 The Lakes, Northampton NN4 7YD

3 Contents 1. Introduction 2 2. Facebook Privacy Settings (as of April 2012) 3 3. Inappropriate staff use of social media Staff use of mobile phones 14 Page 1

4 Introduction Facebook and other social networking sites are a great way of keeping in touch with family and friends, as well as making new contacts who may share the same interests as you, or be helpful in your professional development. The networking aspect of social networking is one of the great benefits of these sites. However, as a professional who works with young people, you need to take extra care to ensure that you don t inadvertently make your personal information available to the young people that you work with, or their families. This could leave you open to false allegations, misinterpretation, or the possibility of cyberbullying. This guide will help you to check that you have chosen appropriate settings on your Facebook account. Facebook has been chosen as this is the website that we receive the most questions about. However, there are likely to be many more websites you use regularly that you should think about to ensure that you are not revealing any unnecessary personal information. Think who you should add as friends You ll obviously want to add family and friends to your Facebook profile, so that you can keep in touch and share what s happening. However, it s worth thinking carefully about who else you may want to add, and also who may request you as a friend. Remember that by adding someone as a friend to your profile, you are allowing them access to the information you have on your profile. There are ways that you can restrict certain parts of your profile, e.g. messages you leave on your wall, certain photo albums, but you are still giving contacts you add access to a lot of personal information about yourself, that can be copied and pasted or passed onto other people without your knowledge. Adults working with young people are restricted from engaging in personal communications with students outside of their professional role. Therefore, it is never a good idea to add any young people that you come into contact with professionally, or any of their family or friends. In addition, you should refuse any requests to become friends with young people or their family members. This will help to protect you from any misunderstanding of your actions. Keep a professional distance It s inevitable that some of the young people that you work with, or their parents, may look you up from time to time online to find out a little bit more about you. If you use your full name and include a real profile picture of yourself, this can be quite easy to do and may give students or parents the opportunity to view more than you would wish on your profile or request you as a friend. To avoid such difficulties, it s a good idea to use a nickname and/or a different profile picture (e.g. cartoon character, sunset etc) That way, when students or parents are searching for you, they ll struggle to identity your profile from a list of possibilities. As long as friends and family know what name to search under, they ll still be able to find you. 2

5 Suggested Facebook Privacy Settings Disclaimer: Facebook changes and updates its privacy system on an on-going basis. Neither the Local Authority, school nor any of its employees accepts any liability or warranty, express or implied, for the advice given in this document. It is your sole responsibility to ensure that your privacy settings are appropriate and up-to-date. Employers are routinely checking social networking sites, so it is vital that every user actively reviews their Privacy Settings on a regular basis to ensure that their information is only shared with the intended people and that your personal and professional reputation is protected. Log in to Facebook - in the top right hand corner click on Account and choose Privacy Settings from the drop-down menu to get the following screen. Remember if you wouldn t want someone to see it, don t put it on Facebook in the first place. You may want to restrict more than the minimum recommended in this guide. Suggested Facebook Privacy Settings It can be very hard to work out which Privacy Settings are best for you. What is recommended to keep yourself safe? Employers and colleges are routinely checking social networking sites, so it is vital that every user of these sites actively reviews their Privacy Settings on a regular basis to ensure that their information is only shared with the intended people and that personal and professional reputations are protected. Facebook s Terms and Conditions contain some very important clauses: 1. For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it. 2. When you delete IP content, it is deleted in a manner similar to emptying the recycle bin on a computer. However, you understand that removed content may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time (but will not be available to others). 3. When you use an application, your content and information is shared with the application. We require applications to respect your privacy, and your agreement with that application will control how the application can use, store, and transfer that content and information. (To learn more about Platform, read our Privacy Policy and Platform Page.) 4. When you publish content or information using the Public setting, it means that you are allowing everyone, including people off of Facebook, to access and use that information, and to associate it with you (i.e., your name and profile picture). 5. We always appreciate your feedback or other suggestions about Facebook, but you understand that we may use them without any obligation to compensate you for them (just as you have no obligation to offer them). This means that unless you sort your settings out, Facebook can use your pictures and information however they choose. If you don t want someone to see your pictures, personal information or innermost thoughts, don t put them on Facebook in the first place. Part 1: Friends 3

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14 With thanks to Linda Garrett and Hilden Oaks School for sharing their social networking guidance 12

15 Inappropriate Staff Use of Social Media There are various scenarios that could occur if you don t take sufficient care over the use of your social 11 networking profile. For example, if you don t set appropriate privacy settings much of the information you post could be open for anyone else on Facebook to see. Even if you are careful with privacy settings, it is still possible for people you are connected with to share your private content with a wider audience (i.e. tagging or commenting on posts and pictures- in both situations the content copies from your profile into theirs and can be viewed by their online friends) You also need to be aware of bringing your workplace or your professional role into disrepute through inadvertently posting inappropriate comments about work on your profile, for instance criticizing policy or fellow colleagues. Unlike a quiet face-to-face chat with friends, comments made on social networking sites could be seen by other colleagues, young people or parents and could lead to misunderstandings or, in some cases, disciplinary action being taken against you. Some recent examples of staff online difficulties are listed below. 1) A young NQT recently posted a status update on Facebook saying, OMG must stop ****ing about and get my maths boosters planned as I go to teach kids it in about 20 mins To his great embarrassment, he discovered that his profile was not as secure as he believed when a parent printed off a copy of what was said and made a complaint to the Head. 2) A Teaching Assistant who claimed she was absent from work due to sickness on the last day of term, foolishly wrote a Facebook status update later that day saying, Just off to the airport now, see you all in 2 weeks The teaching assistant had used privacy settings to restrict her profile and had only accepted one trusted work colleague as a Facebook friend. Her colleague, who knew of her plans, commented on the status to say. Have a great time- you deserve it! I won t tell anyone Unfortunately the colleague had forgotten that she had previously added the Head Teacher as a friend, who now received a copy of the entire conversation, including the absent employees comments, on the newsfeed of her own Facebook account. 3) A member of staff, using a private Facebook profile, engaged in a discussion with a friend about her terrible day at work. The staff member had added a small number of work colleagues as friends over the years and, as she lived locally, had also added some parents as contacts. When asked why her day was so horrible by her Facebook friend, she replied: So sick of working with f***ing (Child s full name)- just because he s got dyslexia and can t string a sentence together doesn t mean he can get away with being a little s***!!!!!! Both a colleague and worried parent, who had viewed the conversation, made anonymous complaints to the Head Teacher and Chair of Governors. 4) An experienced teacher, and regular Facebook user with good privacy settings, was horrified to discover that a student in her class had seen a personal album of photos which she had uploaded of a holiday away with friends. Amongst the album were a number of drunken photos of the staff member, including some provocative gestures and images of her in swimwear. It was discovered that the student was in fact related to one of the staff member s friends and had been able to access the images by clicking on comments that his relative had made on the teacher s personal photos. Thankfully none of the images had been copied and shared with other students or parents. 13

16 Staff Use of Mobile Phones Most schools and educational environments permit staff to bring personal devices into work for use during break times only. It is the responsibility of the staff member to ensure that no illegal or inappropriate content is stored on their personal device when brought onto school property. As with social networking guidance, staff should not exchange personal mobile phone numbers with students or their families and all communications should be through professional channels only (i.e. school telephone number) Mobile Phones and School Visits Using a personal mobile phone to communicate with parents when a trip is running late, or to call a missing student, can be a quick and easy way to deal with a difficult situation while supervising a large group of children. As tempting as it may be, there are a number of issues that staff should consider before using personal devices for such purposes: Students and their families now have access to the staff member s personal contact details. The staff member now has the contact details of children stored on their personal device. This could be particularly problematic should an allegation be made against that individual. Communications using personal devices between staff and children could be easily misconstrued by parents and other colleagues, regardless of how innocent they are. To rectify this issue, national best practice states that schools should have a designated mobile phone which can be used for all off site visits and trips. This prevents staff and student numbers from being accessed and stored on personal devices and therefore minimising risk to all parties involved. Alternatives, should a school mobile be unavailable, include directing all necessary communications whilst off site through the school office. 14