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WEL202A - Ethics and Professional Practice

   

Added on  2020-03-04

14 Pages3869 Words84 Views
Counseling 1COUNSELING: THE THREATS TO GOOD PRACTICE IN COUNSELINGNameCourseTutorUniversityCity/stateDate

Counseling 2IntroductionThe development of human services has gained great importance in the modern world and isprojected to even increase in the near future at a rapid rate as compared to other professionals. Itis a field that seeks to meet human needs through a system of the interdisciplinary knowledgebase that cuts across the disciplines of counseling, social work, youth work as well aspsychotherapy. The field focused on providing prevention mechanisms to social problems orhuman psychological problems affecting individuals or society at large, remediation of theproblems as well as maintaining a commitment to improving the overall standards and quality oflife amongst a given population as pointed out by Nuttgens and Chang (2013, p. 284). Suchinitiative calls for ethical frameworks for good practice in the field. However, there has been athreat among the professionals engaged in offering human services. This study will, therefore,seek to establish and provide an understanding of the threats or challenges to good practice inhuman services in the field of counseling and how the personal ethical framework can assist acounselor to avoid such bad practices.In order to understand the threats to good practice in counseling, it is equally important tounderstand the ethical framework for good practice in counseling. This refers to the ethical codeof conduct for counselors, trainers as well as the supervisors within the counseling field. Theethical framework also governs or it’s applicable to counseling research, the management ofcounseling services as well as in the regulation of the use of counseling skills by counselingprofessionals (Bond & Mitchels, 2014, p.6). The ethical frameworks are categorized into values,principles as well as to personal moral qualities. It is the understanding of these ethicalframeworks that provide a basis for the understanding of the threats to good practice in thecounseling field.

Counseling 3The values in counseling help in ensuring that the clients are comfortable and in a safe socialenvironment to express themselves. They include respecting human dignity as well as theirrights, ensuring that counselors are working constantly with clients to alleviate suffering anddistress as well as maintaining a professional counselor client relationship (Lustgarten 2015,pg].154). It is also required that counselors should appreciate diversity in their client's experienceand culture as well as ensuring that their clients are safe. Any action against these values istermed as a threat to good practice in the field of counseling and may be termed as professionalmisconduct.On the other hand, the understanding of ethical principles is also important to the understandingof the common threats to the good practice of counseling human services. The principles areused to emphasize on the counselor's responsibilities and making them accountable for theirdecisions. Such principles include fidelity which helps the counselors to understand and resolveincongruence resulting from their clients. There is also a principle of autonomy which ensuresthat counselors respect as well as develop their client’s abilities to be self-directing in theirdecisions (Knox et al. 2015, p. 2114). Other principles include the principles of self-respect,justice which ensures that the appropriate legal requirements and obligations are taken care inevent of a threat to good practice as well as beneficence which ensures that counselors and otherprofessionals in the line of counseling human services department or profession act in the bestinterest of their clients. Lastly are the morals which dictate the code of conduct for the healthprofessionals and include empathy, sincerity, humility, competence, and resilience.Threats to good practice in counseling services

Counseling 4Counseling services are very important and have a wide applicability in different areas of sociallife and therefore counselors play a vital role in improving the quality of life for the people in agiven society. However, the success of the service provider depends on various values, principlesand moral standards as discussed above from both the clients as well as the counselors (Johnson& Jackson Williams 2015, p. 442). The success of a good practice in counseling is howeverfaced with a number of threats including; results resulting from lack of privacy andconfidentiality, lack of client consent to perform or make certain counseling decisions, lack ofcompetence in handling client problems, substitute decision making or even threats fromprofessional misconducts.Lack of privacy and confidentiality has been one of the major threats to good practice incounseling. For effective counseling services provision and building the right relationship thanthe clients, as well as the counselors, need to trust each other. If the client is not sure of thesecurity or how safe the environment they are operating are then may not be in a position toshare their problems, experiences as well as concerns to the counselors. Privacy andconfidentiality are paramount and helps the clients to grow trust towards their counselors(Johnson & Jackson Williams, 2015, p. 440). Many incidences have been reported where client’sfiles have been found into the hands of unintended persons or unauthorized persons and resultingto cold relationships between the counselors and their clients as well as building an environmentof mistrusts. Counselors are therefore supposed to provide the client with an intake formoutlining the areas of confidentiality and any exceptions to it. The form should be signed beforea counseling relationship starts. All the clients’ files should also be kept in a safe only accessibleto the authorized persons.

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