1. Read the ACA and NAADAC Codes of Ethics and compare the positions that each takes on issues of dual relationships. Provide examples of dual relationships for which these codes do not give definitive guidance about the appropriateness of the relationship. How should a counselor make a decision to enter or not enter into a dual relationship?

2. How would you handle the following three situations? What would you do in each?

1. Your client expresses emotional or physical attraction toward you and you have similar feelings for your client.

2. You have feelings of attraction toward your client, but you do not know if your client has similar feelings toward you.

3. Your client expresses attraction to you, but you do not have any feelings of attraction toward your client.

3. You are a counselor working at a publicly funded alcohol and drug treatment program. Your client, Doug, attends one of your counseling groups. Although he has a previous conviction and is on probation for possession of an illegal substance, he entered treatment as a voluntary client. Doug’s probation officer recently learned from another probationer that Doug is in treatment, and the officer has sent you a letter requesting that you provide a progress report and an assessment of Doug’s likelihood of relapse. The probation officer will use this information, if favorable, to petition the court for Doug’s early release from probation.

Discuss your options for responding to the probation officer’s request and describe what you would do. Cite relevant legal issues, including federal confidentiality and privacy regulations in your discussion. Identify the specific circumstances under which you would provide the information requested by the probation officer. How would you handle this differently if Doug were involuntarily attending the group?

4. Judith is a licensed professional counselor (LPC) in private practice. She has a contract to facilitate psycho-educational groups for students in a local public high school. Many of the students in her groups are dealing with the divorce of their parents. Judith has decided to create a specific psychoeducational group for adolescents whose parents are divorcing or divorced. What should be covered in her pregroup screening interviews with the students?

5. You are the executive director of a small publicly funded behavioral health agency that serves indigent clients. After 10 years of being able to serve all clients seeking help, your agency has just received a 20% budget cut and must prioritize which services to discontinue and which clients to turn away. The community has many suggestions: stop serving undocumented immigrants and their children; stop serving substance abuse clients, limit all clients to six sessions, discontinue providing expensive services like psychiatry, lay off professional counselors and hire non-licensed paraprofessionals, stop providing counseling and instead simply offer peer self-help groups and parenting classes, serve only the most seriously ill (or the least seriously ill), and serve only children. How would you approach the difficult task of cutting services by 20% in a manner that reflects your ethical obligations as a community counselor? Would your plan differ if you were in a private sector? If yes, how? What criteria would you consider? What theoretical or standard of care practice will you follow to make a final decision about what to cut from your program? Reference the ACA and/or NAADAC Code of Ethics to support your answer.

Assignment: Codes of Ethics

6. A managed care clinician completed a utilization review and has just denied authorization for you to continue treating a client. You believe that the client could benefit from four additional sessions. At the same time, you understand that the managed care clinician must apply criteria of medical necessity to justify continued treatment, and you are aware that many of your agency’s clients have problems much more severe than your client’s. Make a list of all of the ways that you could try to ensure that the managed care system does not prevent you from giving your client the type and duration of treatment services that he or she needs. Categorize each of the items into two groups reflecting those that would be considered professionally appropriate and ethical, and those that would be considered to be a violation of professional ethical standards.

7. You are counseling in an agency setting in which your supervision consists of a weekly group staff meetings. At these meetings, agency policies, procedures, and other administrative issues are discussed. You are uneasy with this situation because you believe that true clinical supervision would help you improve your counseling skills and your current work with clients. You are also aware that you need a minimum number of documented hours of clinical supervision in order to obtain your independent counseling license, and you wonder if your supervisor’s brief notes about “staffing cases” as the activity in these staff meetings are sufficient documentation. Discuss the ethical issues involved in this situation, describe your options for how to proceed, and identify the option(s) you would choose. Explain your reasoning. Cite an ethical code in your response.

8. Darla is a Master’s of Arts in Professional Counseling student working at her practicum site. Mike is a practicum student assigned to the same practicum site as Darla. Both Darla and Mike report directly to the same site supervisor. About halfway through the practicum, Darla realizes that many of the clients assigned to Mike for counseling are coming to see her. Comments from Mike’s clients have led Darla to believe that Mike is acting unethically. How should Darla handle this situation? What are the ethical and legal implications?

If Darla tells her supervisor, and her supervisor does not act on her concerns, what are the ethical and legal implications?

All questions must be answered by them-self with 150-200 words each. Each must have a cite in the answer and pass TURN IT IN with less than 5%.

ORDER NOW FOR AN ORIGINAL PAPER!!! Assignment: Codes of Ethics

ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE CLASS

Discussion Questions (DQ)

• Initial responses to the DQ should address all components of the questions asked, including a minimum of one scholarly source, and be at least 250 words.
• Successful responses are substantive (i.e., add something new to the discussion, engage others in the discussion, well-developed idea) and include at least one scholarly source.
• One or two-sentence responses, simple statements of agreement, or “good post,” and responses that are off-topic will not count as substantive. Substantive responses should be at least 150 words.
• I encourage you to incorporate the readings from the week (as applicable) into your responses.

Weekly Participation

• Your initial responses to the mandatory DQ do not count toward participation and are graded separately.
• In addition to the DQ responses, you must post at least one reply to peers (or me) on three separate days, for a total of three replies.
• Participation posts do not require a scholarly source/citation (unless you cite someone else’s work).
• Part of your weekly participation includes viewing the weekly announcement and attesting to watching it in the comments. These announcements are made to ensure you understand everything that is due during the week.

APA Format and Writing Quality

• Familiarize yourself with APA format and practice using it correctly. It is used for most writing assignments for your degree. Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for APA paper templates, citation examples, tips, etc. Points will be deducted for poor use of APA format or absence of APA format (if required).
• Cite all sources of information! When in doubt, cite the source. Paraphrasing also requires a citation.
• I highly recommend using the APA Publication Manual, 6th edition.

Use of Direct Quotes

• I discourage overutilization of direct quotes in DQs and assignments at the Masters’s level and deduct points accordingly.
• As Masters’s level students, it is important that you be able to critically analyze and interpret information from journal articles and other resources. Simply restating someone else’s words does not demonstrate an understanding of the content or critical analysis of the content.
• It is best to paraphrase content and cite your source.

 

LopesWrite Policy

• For assignments that need to be submitted to LopesWrite, please be sure you have received your report and Similarity Index (SI) percentage BEFORE you do a “final submit” to me.
• Once you have received your report, please review it. This report will show you grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors that can easily be fixed. Take the extra few minutes to review instead of getting counted off for these mistakes.
• Review your similarities. Did you forget to cite something? Did you not paraphrase well enough? Is your paper made up of someone else’s thoughts more than your own?
• Visit the Writing Center in the Student Success Center, under the Resources tab in LoudCloud for tips on improving your paper and SI score.

Late Policy

• The university’s policy on late assignments is 10% penalty PER DAY LATE. This also applies to late DQ replies.
• Please communicate with me if you anticipate having to submit an assignment late. I am happy to be flexible, with advance notice. We may be able to work out an extension based on extenuating circumstances.
• If you do not communicate with me before submitting an assignment late, the GCU late policy will be in effect.
• I do not accept assignments that are two or more weeks late unless we have worked out an extension.
• As per policy, no assignments are accepted after the last day of class. Any assignment submitted after midnight on the last day of class will not be accepted for grading.

Communication

• Communication is so very important. There are multiple ways to communicate with me: 
  • Questions to Instructor Forum: This is a great place to ask course content or assignment questions. If you have a question, there is a good chance one of your peers does as well. This is a public forum for the class.
  • Individual Forum: This is a private forum to ask me questions or send me messages. This will be checked at least once every 24 hours.