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Ethical, Legal And Professional Standards
In this Assignment, you will consider the ACA’s Code of Ethics and how these practices impact assessment. This professional code identifies your responsibilities and the practices you must adhere to for the benefit of your clients, your colleagues, and your community.
To Prepare:
- Review ACA’s Code of Ethics website found in the Learning Resources and consider how they apply to your professional development.
- Review and use the Corey, Corey, Corey, and Callanan Ethical Decision-Making Model from the course text on p. 28 to process the cases on p. 37 by including each step.
- Review Exercise 2.2 Making Ethical Decisions (p. 37), choose two to review and process through the Model, answering each question.
Assignment:
- Review the five cases
- Select two of the situations in Exercise 2.2 in the text to discuss. Complete the eight steps provided in the course text from the Ethical Decision-Making Model on p. 28 for both of the situations you chose. You do not need to answer the questions at the end of each submission in Exercise 2.2. Take the point of view of what YOU need to do as an ethical counselor, and consider ALL perspectives in the situation, not just one person’s perspective.
- In one page each, identify the cases you selected and include your responses to the steps of the model on p. 28 for each situation (Note: Two pages not including title or reference page).
- On page 3, add a summary paragraph or two that shares your personal challenges with addressing the ethical issues in the assignment.
- Use proper APA formatting and citations.
In this Assignment, you will consider the ACA’s Code of Ethics and how these practices impact assessment. This professional code identifies your responsibilities and the practices you must adhere to for the benefit of your clients, your colleagues, and your community.
To Prepare:
· Review ACA’s Code of Ethics website found in the Learning Resources and consider how they apply to your professional development.
· Review and use the Corey, Corey, Corey, and Callanan Ethical Decision-Making Model from the course text on p. 28 to process the cases on p. 37 by including each step.
· Review Exercise 2.2 Making Ethical Decisions (p. 37), choose two to review and process through the Model, answering each question.
Assignment:
· Review the five cases (Below)
· Select two of the situations in Exercise 2.2 in the text to discuss. Complete the eight steps provided in the course text from the Ethical Decision-Making Model on p. 28 (Copied Below) for both of the situations you chose. You do not need to answer the questions at the end of each submission in Exercise 2.2. Take the point of view of what YOU need to do as an ethical counselor, and consider ALL perspectives in the situation, not just one person’s perspective.
· In one page each, identify the cases you selected and include your responses to the steps of the model on p. 28 (Copied Below) for each situation (Note: Two pages not including title or reference page).
· On page 3, add a summary paragraph or two that shares your personal challenges with addressing the ethical issues in the assignment.
· Use proper APA formatting and citations.
CASES and Ethical Decision-Making Model
Making Ethical Decisions
Because ethical codes can be limiting in their ability to guide a practitioner who is faced with a thorny ethical dilemma, it is important that other avenues are available to aid in ethical decision-making. For instance, some practitioners might use moral models in guiding their ethical decision-making process. One moral model, described by Kitchener ( 1984 , 1986 ; Urofsky, Engels, & Engebretson, 2008 ), suggests that there are six critical moral principles one should consider when making difficult ethical decisions.
They include autonomy, which has to do with protecting the independence, self-determination, and freedom of choice of clients; nonmaleficense is the concept of “do no harm” when working with clients; beneficence is related to promoting the good of society, which can be at least partially accomplished by promoting the client’s well-being; justice refers to providing equal and fair treatment to all clients; fidelity is related to maintaining trust (e.g., keeping conversations confidential) in the counseling relationship and being committed to the client within that relationship; and veracity has to do with being truthful and genuine with the client, within the context of the counseling relationship.
Consider these principles if you had just assessed a client and had determined that she potentially might cause harm to her children. How might each of these moral principles play into the decisions you make regarding your client. For instance, after considering each of the principles, how and to whom would you communicate your results?
To make things a bit more complicated, Remley and Herlihy (2014) go on to note that the culture of the client might impact your understanding of your results and how you apply the principles. Autonomy, for individuals from some cultures, may have to do with individual behaviors whereas individuals from other cultures might view autonomy within the context of their extended family or community. As you can see, ethical decision-making can be a complex and difficult process.
Moral model
Consider moral principles involved in ethical decision-making
In addition to the moral model just noted, a number of other ethical decision-making models exist ( Neukrug, 2012 ). One hands-on, practical, problem-solving model espoused by Corey, Corey, Corey, and Callanan ( 2015 ) suggests that the practitioner go through the following eight steps when making complex ethical decisions:
· 1. Identify the problem or dilemma
· 2. Identify the potential issues involved
· 3. Review the relevant ethical guidelines
· 4. Know the applicable laws and regulations
· 5. Obtain consultation
· 6. Consider possible and probable courses of action
· 7. Enumerate the consequences of various decisions
· 8. Decide on what appears to be the best course of action
Exercise 2.2 Making Ethical Decisions
Review the situations below, and then using the moral principles identified in the chapter, Corey’s models of ethical decision-making, and your knowledge of legal and professional issues decide on your probable course of action. Share your answers with the rest of the class.
Situation 1: A graduate-level mental health professional with no training in career development is giving interest inventories as she counsels individuals for career issues. Can she do this? is this ethical? Professional? Legal? If this professional happened to be a colleague of yours, what, if anything, would you do?
Situation 2: During the taking of some routine tests for promotion, a company learns that there is a high probability that one of the employees is abusing drugs and is a pathological liar. The firm decides not to promote him and instead fires him. He comes to see you for counseling because he is depressed. Has the company acted ethically? Legally? What responsibility do you have toward this client?
Situation 3: An African-American mother is concerned that her child may have an attention deficit problem. She goes to the teacher, who supports her concerns, and they go to the assistant principal requesting testing for a possible learning disorder. The mother asks if the child could be given an individual intelligence test that can screen for such problems, and the assistant principal states,
“Those tests have been banned for minority students because of concerns about cross-cultural bias.” The mother states that she will give her permission for such testing, but the assistant principal says, “I’m sorry, we’ll have to make do with some other tests and with observation.” is this ethical? Professional? Legal? If you were a school counselor or school psychologist and this mother came to see you, what would you tell her?
Situation 4: A test that has not been researched to show that it is predictive of success for all potential graduate students in social work is used as part of the program’s admission process. When challenged on this by a potential student, the head of the program states that the test has not been shown to be biased and the program uses other, additional criteria for admission. You are a member of the faculty at this program. Is this ethical? Professional? Legal? What is your responsibility in this situation?
Situation 5: An individual who is physically challenged and wheelchair bound applies for a job at a national fast-food chain. When he goes in to take the test for a mid-level job at this company, he is told that he cannot be given this test because it has not been assessed for its predictive ability for individuals with his disability. You are hired by the company to do the testing. What is your responsibility, if any, to this individual and to the company?
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