Most Important Standards After reading a variety of material on standards for career professionals, the two most important are confidentiality/privacy and professional responsibility.
Confidentiality/Privacy
Confidentiality/privacy are critical in counseling. The communication between the client and the counselor must stay confidential, unless client intends to harm self or others or legally information is needed for the court system (Capuzzi & Stauffer, 2012). The National Career Development (NCDA) discusses the limitations to confidentiality in standard B.1.d (NCDA, 2015). A career professional is required to discuss with the client the limitations to confidentiality at the beginning and throughout the counseling process (NCDA, 2015). The ACA Code of Ethics breaks down confidentiality and privacy into two sections. Standard B.1.b discusses respect of privacy, which contains the counselor asking questions only if it is beneficial to the counseling process (ACA, 2014). Standard B1.c. discusses the respect for confidentiality and the disclosure of information only if there is consent or legal justification.
I believe maintaining confidentiality/privacy is one of the most important aspects in counseling. The client will understand the significance of confidentiality and its limitations, while building trust into the counselor. Once the trust between the client and counselor is formed, the client can succeed through the counseling process. Confidentiality/privacy is
How do you conduct yourself as a ‘professional’, not just generally but with specific reference to ‘professionalism’ within the HR function? What improvements could you make?
In the relationship between counsellor and client the need for confidentiality is vital as it is not only the bases that the relationship is built on and it is a legal obligation.
Before a counselling session starts it is important that the client understands confidentiality. To be able to understand this the counsellor must explain to the client that anything they say within the
Professional counselors and their staff are exposed to sensitive client information and records. The helpful receptionist and whose privilege videos, show how to apply both the American Counseling Association Code of Ethics (ACA Code of Ethics) and state board counseling laws to common ethical scenarios. The content explores aspects designed to call attention to favorable and unfavorable skills and techniques in handling such matters. These two videos demonstrate the limitations of confidentiality and privileged information. As a professional counselor one is expected to uphold the principles of confidentiality and privilege according to the ACA Code of Ethics and state laws. One may conclude that the helpful receptionist video shows clear violations of confidentiality. While the whose privilege video indicates the significance of insuring that counselors comprehend state laws and ethics codes pertaining to confidentiality and privilege. Furthermore, counseling professionals are held accountable for violating ethics codes and state laws as well as training staff on informed consent.
The first ethical issue that counselors have to worry about in counseling children is to be a competent counselor. It includes that the counselor must be familiar with child and adolescent development. Also, in order to be competent in counseling children, a counselor must frequently participate in trainings, specialized education, and supervised practice (Henderson & Thompson, 2011). Another ethical issue in counseling minors is privacy and confidentiality. According to the American Counseling Association (ACA) (2014) Code of Ethics, when counseling minors a counselors protect the confidentiality of information received (ACA, 2014, B.5.a). Counselors also have responsibilities with the child’s parents such as inform parents about the role of counselors and the confidential nature of the counseling relationship (ACA, 2014, B.5.b). When a counselors needs to release confidential information, he needs to seek permission from the child’s parents, legal guardians, or the appropriate third party in order to disclose the information (ACA, 2014, B.5.c). According to Henderson and Thompson (2011), children have to have their parents’ consent to see a
Professionalism is an adherence to a set of values comprising both a formally agreed-upon code of conduct and the informal expectations of colleagues, clients and society. The key values include acting in a patient's interest, responsiveness to the health needs of society, maintaining the highest standards of excellence in the practice of medicine and in the generation and dissemination of knowledge. In addition to medical knowledge and skills, medical professionals should present psychosocial and humanistic qualities such as caring, empathy, humility and compassion, as well as social responsibility and sensitivity to people's culture and beliefs. All these qualities are expected of members of highly trained professions.
A professional is characterized by or conforming to the technical or ethical standards of a profession (2) : exhibiting a courteous, conscientious, and generally businesslike manner in the workplace. Being professional should be a subconscious effort in the fact that it should always be applied. When employees are professional it helps the system run more efficiently and safely. A person must me a certain criteria when being evaluated on professionalism, a person is judged based on the clients; Attitude, Values, Communication techniques, and approachability. Clients who display a committed, dependable attitude will benefit more from work exerted, and overall be rewarded with incentives. Although professionalism may be in the eye of the
This paper is a response to a video discussing the issues of confidentiality, privilege, reporting, and duty to warn. This paper looks at these issues and their explanations in the American Counseling Association Code of Ethics as well as the Georgia State Board of Professional Counselor’s ethical guidelines and provides a commentary on the laws. It was found that these issues are not always black and white, but there is some debate on these issues. Confidentiality is both an ethical and a legal responsibility yet there are often times when the ethical demands clash with the legal demands. This paper explores some of those crashes and explains what I have learned from the video and the professional and stage guidelines concerning confidentiality and its implications and how I will apply what I have learned into future practice.
Remley and Herlihy (2016) defines confidentiality as an ethical concept which refers to the counselor 's obligation to respect the client 's privacy and in session discussion will be protected from disclosure without their consent (p.108). The receptionist never disclosed what was being discussed in wife A session; however, her inadvertent breach of confidentiality occurred the moment she divulged the fact that wife A is a patient at a mental health facility. An important premise to understanding the ethical principle of confidentiality is base that a counselor respects the client 's right to privacy (Remley & Herlihy, 2016; Quigley, 2007). Premise one states the "counselor honor the rights of clients to decide who knows what information about them and in what circumstances" (p.110).
I feel that counselors do struggle with maintaining confidentiality, which is the most common ethical dilemmas that they will face
The codes addresses situations in counseling where confidentiality breaks in situations where a client dies, the counselor continues to protect the client’s confidentiality, unless specific legal requirements call for it (p. 7). Or if the client gives consent, third-party payers may receive information (p. 7). Additionally, the ACA provides information when working with families and couples. It points out the importance in defining who the client actually is, such as the marriage or the family being the client, not all of the individuals involved serve as a client (p. 7). Also, the code stresses the importance of when breaking confidentiality to protect any and all identifying information of the client, if a counselor seeks out consultation on a certain case (p. 8).
When mental health counselors work with various clients during their career, they need to practice confidentiality and privacy when conducting one-on-one, group, or any type of counseling services. Like any medical patient, mental health clinicians need to treat their clients with dignity and respect. It is extremely important for the mental health counselor working with his or her assigned caseload
Both the ACA (2005) and AACC (2004) code of ethics require the counselor to maintain client confidentiality to the fullest extent. Working in the counseling field, trust is a rock in the foundational of a helping relationship and confidentially plays a large role in the client counselor relationship. Both codes share similarities regarding their stance on confidentiality. When counseling others, a counselor is to inform their clients about their commitment to confidentiality as well as their limits before
This is also stated in subsection 1-421 of the AACC code of ethics (AACC Law and Ethics Committee, 2004, p 12). However, the ACA guidelines with regards to this area are more comprehensive and clearly stated than the AACC guidelines. Section B of the ACA code of ethics provides guidelines on how a counselor can maintain client confidentiality in various circumstances such as incapacity of client, when treatment calls for services with others and even in consulting other counselors (American Counseling Association, 2005, p 7-9). On the other hand, the guidelines of the AACC are more limited in scope as can be seen in Section ES1-400 (AACC Law and Ethics Committee, 2004, p 11-13).
Such information includes, but is not limited to, any and all information, data, documents, writings, reports, and/or files of any sort. Failure to keep information confidential is a violation of the ethical code and the counselor is subject to a malpractice suit.