Guiding Principles

PsyCommunity Guiding Principles

The APS has established this online community for members to share professional successes, challenges, constructive feedback, questions and goals in a respectful and meaningful way.

When thinking about how to communicate on this platform a good rule of thumb is to engage with your fellow members in the same positive and professional way you would with your clients or colleagues.

  • Share: Our members have a wide range of expertise, skillsets and experiences. We encourage you to answer questions, help members, and share what you know.
  • Collaborate: Many hands create light work. We encourage you to use the platform as a tool for collaboration.
  • Celebrate: Celebrate and share the works and/or achievements of APS members; be sure to ask them if they are comfortable with this before doing so.
  • Lively debate: Discussion and debate are not only allowed, but they are also encouraged, and should also be welcoming and respectful of all points of view. When you post something, especially about a challenging or controversial topic, expect that your viewpoints and opinions may be questioned, challenged, and held up to scrutiny. If a healthy discussion breaks down into an exchange of attacks and insults, or becomes too heated, the APS will exercise the right to moderate and where necessary, end and delete the discussion.
  • Respect:  Be mindful of others and always show respect to other users and APS staff. Focus on the content of posts and not on the people making them. Members will have different levels of online experience - extend the benefit of the doubt to all users; there is no such thing as a silly question. Ensure your posting and commenting behaviour is respectful by giving other users time and space to consider your posts before reposting, being open to alternative views, and acknowledging and accepting information presented that might provide evidence to counter your views, and engaging meaningfully with the comments made by others. Do not repeatedly post the same or similar content in different threads or groups. 
  • Privacy: Be mindful of privacy. Always respect the privacy of others, including client or patient data, when sharing stories, photos, experiences and examples.
  • Accuracy: Where possible and appropriate, post links or references to information to back your comments and claims.
  • Self-moderation: We encourage user moderation as it is a great benefit of online communities like PsyCommunity. We want to create an environment where all users can self-moderate and contribute to maintaining a safe and engaging community for everyone. Where possible, the APS makes every effort to not moderate discussions amongst peers but does reserve the right to do so. 

         Please see below a summary of how moderation works in PsyCommunity:

    • Any member can mark a post as inappropriate and provide a confidential reason by selecting “mark as inappropriate” from the drop-down menu in the post if they feel it is not in keeping with PsyCommunity Guidelines.
    • The post is then confidentially placed in a moderation queue and flagged with a member of the APS team who can either accept or remove the post and provide feedback to the post author or moderator as required.
  • Advertising: The primary purpose of the platform is professional collaboration and discussion among APS members. Advertising of products and services is not the intended purpose of the platform. Below are examples of forms of advertising and further guidance: 
    • Jobs, recruitment, rooms for rent – This is not the intention of PsyCommunity but members are able to take advantage of PsyXchange for this purpose.
    • Fees, salaries, profits, etc. – This is detailed in the T’s & C’s under “The Legal Stuff”.
    • Research surveys – This is not the intention of PsyCommunity but members are able to take advantage of this APS member benefit to promote research projects by submitting an online request here.  
    • Petitions - The APS works to advocate on issues most important to members and the various and differing views across the membership. To do this fairly and appropriately, PsyCommunity is not the best platform to share petitions. However, members are welcome to provide feedback and information and seek advice regarding their specific advocacy or policy interests to the APS Policy team  who can be contacted at: policy@psychology.org.au
    • Products & Services – Whilst this is not the intent of PsyCommunity, members are welcome to share and recommend products or services they’ve been involved in or found beneficial, though PsyCommunity is not intended to be an opportunity to sell products and services.
    • Events – PsyCommunity may be used to promote APS or Member Group events or activities. These are events or activities directly organised by the APS and Member Group Committees. Free, relevant events being run by the government or health departments can also be shared for the benefit of members. For any events which don't fit the above criteria (for e.g. commercial, private, non-APS events) there are two options available:  
      1.    For advertising educational content, training or CPD activities, you can apply for assessment via the APS CPD-Approved pathway. More information and the application can be found here.
      2.    For advertising on the CPD and events finder, the application can be submitted here.

If you are ever unsure, please refer to the guidelines, FAQs or contact Member Services on 1800 339 497.