Last Modified: June 19, 2024
Mental Health Connector Provider Community serves as a private professional networking and referral community for mental health providers. In order to participate in this community, you must pay your monthly membership fee (included with you directory membership or purchased separately for providers without a paid directory membership) and agree to abide by the following rules, terms of use, and privacy policy.
Mental Health Connector is grounded in the following values: autonomy, contribution, connection, self-development, opportunity, and an abundance mindset.Our goal is to build interdisciplinary connection and cooperation and we welcome the beauty and challenges that arise when diverse individuals interact with one another. We require that members of our community express welcome by extending unconditional positive regard to one another, practicing a pause before responding with values-based intention, and moving from a perspective of kindness and curiosity when conflicts arise.Assertive communication means that we are willing to open ourselves to listening and correction so that everyone’s needs can be heard, and if possible, met. We acknowledge and take very seriously the work required to identify and address our own implicit biases and the harmful ways that we can unwittingly injure one another with our words and actions. We are committed to striving to do better and working toward repair.We will not tolerate language that is in violation of our outlined terms of conduct (see below). As such, the purpose of Mental Health Connector Pro is to serve as a working community for fun, engagement, networking, and problem solving for mental health professionals with a variety of educational and experiential backgrounds. We truly believe we are better together.
Our Goal
Mental Health Connector is dedicated to helping improve access to mental health resources by using technology to make it easier for providers and community organizations to refer clients to the services they need. Our intention is to provide a harassment-free experience for everyone. We do not tolerate harassment of community members in any form.
Applicability and ScopeThis code of conduct applies to all of this community's spaces, including public channels, private channels, threads, direct messages, voice rooms, comment sections, and live events, both online and off. Anyone who violates this code of conduct may be sanctioned or expelled from these spaces at the discretion of the administrators.
Toward a Welcoming and Safe EnvironmentWe hope to create an environment in which diverse individuals can collaborate and interact in a positive and affirming way. Examples of behavior that contributes to creating this sort of environment include:
Using welcoming and inclusive language
Being respectful of differing viewpoints and experiences
Gracefully accepting constructive criticism
Focusing on what is best for the overall community
Showing empathy towards other community members
This community will not tolerate harassment of any kind. Examples of harassment include:
Offensive comments related to gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, mental illness, neuro(a)typicality, physical appearance, pregnancy status, veteran status, political affiliation, marital status, body size, age, race, national origin, ethnic origin, nationality, immigration status, language, religion or lack thereof, or other identity marker. This includes anti-Indigenous/Nativeness and anti-Blackness.
Unwelcome comments regarding a person's lifestyle choices and practices, including those related to food, health, parenting, relationships, drugs, and employment.
Deliberate misgendering, using inappropriate pronouns, or use of "dead" or rejected names.
Gratuitous or off-topic sexual images or behavior in spaces where they're not appropriate.
Physical contact and simulated physical contact (eg, textual descriptions like "hug" or "backrub") without consent or after a request to stop.
Threats of violence.
Incitement of violence towards any individual or group, including encouraging a person to commit suicide or to engage in self-harm.
Deliberate intimidation.
Stalking or following - online or in the physical world.
Harassing photography or recording, including logging online activity for harassment purposes.
Sustained disruption of discussion.
Unwelcome sexual attention.
Patterns of inappropriate social contact, such as requesting/assuming inappropriate levels of intimacy with others.
Continued one-on-one communication after requests to cease.
Deliberate "outing" of any aspect of a person's identity without their consent except as necessary to protect vulnerable people from intentional abuse.
Publication of non-harassing private communication.
Jokes that resemble the above, such as "hipster racism", still count as harassment even if meant satirically or ironically.
If you have questions or concerns about these issues please feel free to message an admin or ask for an opportunity to explore the issue with a moderator and volunteers.
ReportingIf you are being harassed by a member of our community, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact the administrators via admin@mentalhealthconnector.com. If the person who is harassing you is on the admin team, they will not be involved in handling or resolving the incident.
The admin team will respond to any complaint as promptly as we possibly can. If you do not get a timely response (for example, if no admins are currently online), then please put your personal safety and well-being first and consider logging out and/or contacting the admins by email at admin@mentalhealthconnector.com.
This code of conduct applies to our community's spaces, but if you are being harassed by a member of our community outside our spaces, we still want to know about it. We will take all good-faith reports of harassment by our members, especially the administrators, seriously. This includes harassment outside our spaces and harassment that took place at any point in time. The abuse team reserves the right to exclude people from the community based on their past behavior, including behavior outside of our spaces and behavior towards people who are not in this community.
In order to protect volunteers from abuse and burnout, we reserve the right to reject any report we believe to have been made in bad faith. Reports intended to silence legitimate criticism may be deleted without response.
Enforcement ProcessEvery code of conduct violation report will be treated with seriousness and care. If a member's immediate safety and security is threatened, an individual admin may take any action that they deem appropriate, up to and including temporarily banning the offender from the community. In less urgent situations, at least two admins will discuss the offense and mutually arrive at a suitable response, which will be shared with the offender privately. Whatever the resolution that they decide upon, the decision of the admins involved in a violation case will be considered final.
We will respect confidentiality requests for the purpose of protecting victims of abuse. At our discretion, we may publicly name a person about whom we've received harassment complaints, or privately warn third parties about them, if we believe that doing so will increase the safety of our members or the general public. We will not name harassment victims without their affirmative consent.
ConsequencesParticipants who are asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately. If a participant engages in harassing behavior, the administrators may take any action they deem appropriate, up to and including expulsion from the community and identification of the participant as a harasser to other members. At the discretion of the admins, or by request, one or more of the parties involved may request to discuss the violation and how to avoid similar situations in the future.
Making Referrals: What to do.
Make sure you have reviewed our HIPAA documents and understand and are prepared to create requests that are HIPAA compliant- meaning they do not contain any patient specific identifying information. Any referral requests that are not HIPAA compliant will be removed and the member who makes such requests will also be removed from the community. You should provide enough information for the responding provider to know if they might be a good fit without providing information that it would make it possible for ANYONE to know the identity of the person you are referring.
Create your post in the state group that your client will receive care in.
An example of an acceptable post would be: young adult female experiencing panic following recent trauma seeking a female provider who can provide EMDR, BCBS insurance, needs appointment on Mondays after 3pm, prefers in-person in greater Charlotte, NC region.
Do not include patient name, initials, date of birth, location, or specific details of their circumstances.
Providers who meet your client’s needs will respond to your message. Please acknowledge responses that you receive in a professional manner.
In the first 24-48 hours after a referral request is made, only reply if you are able to meet the client’s exact stated need.
If a request goes unanswered for more than 48 hours and you feel like you may be a good but not exact fit, you may reply with your information. For example, if a client is looking for Brainspotting but does not receive any responses and you offer EMDR or IFS, this may be a reasonable alternative.
If you are a Mental Health Connector listing provider please include your profile link in your responses. If you are not a listing provider on Mental Health Connector, please get listed or include your contact information with your reply!