Counselling online or via telephone comes with many considerations different to those of working in the room with a client. In this section, Rory and Ken discuss some of the steps you can take to ensure you have appropriate safeguarding in place for your client:

• Find out essential details about your client before you begin working with them – where they are, what happens in an emergency, whether they can nominate an emergency contact that knows they’re having therapy.
• To safeguard clients in online or phone therapy, it’s important to:
  • Understand the necessity of risk management.
  • Identify the components of an effective risk management plan.
  • Recognise the challenges associated with online and telephone counselling in assessing risks.
• Think about how you can develop strategies for managing risk when working remotely – look for resources local to your client that might be useful to them.
• Ask a client if they have any risks – revisit and review this regularly to see if it changes.
• Confidentiality – this can differ from working with a client in the room or for an agency. Make sure the terms of your confidentiality are outlined in your contract.
• Plan for the worst, hope for the best – you should be prepared and have a plan for what to do in the case of an emergency.
• Share with the client that there are limitations to online counselling – if a client is presenting stress through body language that is off screen, you will be unable to identify this.
• Another way to safeguard clients during online or phone therapy is to make sure you are always aware of where your client is during a session – are they in the same place every time?