Nuneaton and Bedworth Healthy Living Network

Social Media Policy

1. Purpose and scope

Nuneaton & Bedworth Healthy Living Network (HLN) recognises the benefits of Social Media, and actively encourages the promotion of the HLN through the use of Social Media websites such as Facebook and Twitter. The purpose of this Policy is to encourage the positive use of Social Media and to prevent the use of it in a manner which could harm the reputation of the HLN, the health and wellbeing of any of our employees, volunteers, funders and service users.

This Policy should be read in conjunction with our Information & Data Security Policy, Disciplinary Policy & Procedure & Employee & Volunteer Code of Conduct. These rules contained below are contractual, and any breaches may lead to disciplinary action.

For the purposes of this Policy, the term ‘Social Media’ includes (but is not limited to), the following:

Face Book, MySpace, Bebo, Linked In, Twitter etc; MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger etc; Flickr, YouTube etc; Message boards & Forums; Newspaper & Website comment boxes; Blogs.

The above list is non-exhaustive and merely gives an indication of the type of websites and forms of communication that this Policy covers. This Policy will generally cover most instances of online communication. If you are in any doubt whatsoever then you should contact the Office & Finance Manager for guidance.

2. General Principles

This procedure applies to all trustees, employees and volunteers.

3. Confidentiality

3.1 Anything posted via any Social Media sites should not be considered as private. Such messages, even when you believe that they can only be read by the intended recipient may be intercepted and you should not write anything in them that you would not write in a letter or memorandum.

3.2 Matters of a sensitive or confidential nature should not be transmitted in any way through the use of Social Media.

4. Offensive messages

Compiled by L Pettifor on 1/3/18

4.1 You must not engage in the sending or posting of foul, abusive, discriminatory, demeaning or libelous messages, pictures, videos or comments.

4.2 You must not at anytime, including outside of your normal working hours use Social Media to engage in defamation & slander, make derogatory comments about funders, colleagues, working partners or anyone else connected to the HLN.

4.3 You should, therefore, not place on either any of your own Social Media profiles, your colleagues’ profiles, HLN’s profile or profile of any other person connected with the HLN, any message which you regard as potentially offensive.

4.4 If you receive any form of communication through any of your personal Social Media profiles or through HLN profiles that contains material that is offensive or inappropriate to the office environment then you must inform the Office and Finance Manager immediately. Under no circumstances should such communications be forwarded either internally or externally.

4.5 If you receive any form of communication through any of your personal Social Media profiles from a colleague, volunteer, service user or anyone else connected to HLN that is in any way offensive to you in anyway then you must report the matter to the Office & Finance Manager immediately.

4.6 You must not engage in any activity whether it is during your normal working hours or not that may bring the reputation of the HLN into disrepute.

5. Copyright

The HLN logo, images, graphics or any offer intellectual property owned by the charity must not to be used without the written permission of the Office & Finance Manager.

6. Guidance for Personal Social Media Accounts

When you use any of your own personal profiles on a Social Media website, you should ensure that others cannot access content from that profile that:

You are not happy for them to have access to; Which would bring into question your professionalism; May bring the reputation of HLN into disrepute.

When using Social Media employees and volunteers are advised to do the following:

Ensure your profile is hidden from the public, and so that only ‘friends’ can see your content; Do not accept ‘friend requests’ from service users; Ensure that any public information that is displayed such as blog posts has a clear and visible

disclaimer stating that – “The views expressed by the [AUTHOR] are their own personal views and do not represent the views of Nuneaton & Bedworth Health Living Network”.

Ensure any information you publish complies with our Information and Data Security Policy and does not breach any other workplace rules.

Compiled by L Pettifor on 1/3/18

Ensure that you are always respectful to other employees, volunteers, service users, or anyone else connected with HLN.

7. This policy can be provided in large print, and can be translated on request.

8 .Monitoring and review8.1 This policy will be kept under continuous review, and will be updated at periodic intervals of not less than 2 years.

Approved by the HLN Board on 11th June 2018

Compiled by L Pettifor on 1/3/18