Week 7:

LASA: Ethical Decision Making: Case Study Paper

300 pts.

Many counselors are competent in their knowledge and understanding of ethical

standards and relevant laws. However, real world situations often do not lend themselves

to straightforward solutions. Therefore, counselors must rely on ethical decision making

models to clearly explore ethical dilemmas and to identify appropriate courses of action

for different dilemmas. This assignment will help individuals not only apply an ethical

decision making model, but also clearly identify a conceptual model for risk management

which can be used throughout one’s clinical practice.

Directions:

For this assignment, you are to review the following case study and incorporate material

learned throughout the course to answer the set of requirements that follow in a paper

approximately between 8-10 pages.

Case Study:

Zander is a masters-level Clinical Mental Health Counseling student who has become

friends with one of his peers in the program, Tasha. Tasha has shared that she had a

substance abuse problem in the past but did not attend an addiction counseling program;

rather, she chooses to self-monitor and attend AA meetings as needed. Tasha also

confided that she has been involved in a sexual relationship for several weeks with Dr.

Supervisor, a new supervisor at the agency where they are both interning. Dr. Supervisor

has just recently started to provide on-site internship supervision to both Zander and

Tisha as well as two other students at the internship site.

Tasha reveals she began spending time with Dr. Supervisor 3 months ago when he asked

for her assistance in setting up a personal Facebook page so he could better

communicate with clients he sees at the site. Being well-versed in social media, Tasha

helped him set one up and taught him how to use it. Over the next few weeks, they spent

more time together, initially working on Dr. Supervisor’s Facebook profile and trying to

“friend” old clients he used to work with at another agency. Tasha was thrilled they had

convinced at least five clients to leave Dr. Supervisor’s old agency.

Dr. Supervisor and Tasha began to eventually go out to dinner. After two months, their

interactions evolved into a sexual relationship. Tasha tells Zander that she’s not

concerned about any conflict of interest and that she and Dr. Supervisor will likely get

engaged once she graduates from the program at the end of the year. Zander is becoming

increasingly concerned, however, as she has seen Tasha and Dr. Supervisor meeting at an

off-campus bar multiple times in recent weeks, and Tasha has begun to miss classes and

other regularly scheduled meetings with clients. Zander reports a significant increase in

his case load because Tasha is missing meetings with clients.

In approximately 8-10 pages:

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A: Identify Ethical Dilemma/Issues

1.

Indentify the relevant ethical dilemma and issues in the case study.

B: Summarize Your Ethical Model

2.

Outline your proposed action(s) you would take in this case, providing

justification for the proposed action(s) and a description of the decision-making

model used to arrive at that decision.

a.

The decision-making model should be one that has been discussed in the

professional literature and, after explaining the model, you will need to

offer a rationale regarding why you chose to apply that particular model to

the case study.

i.

You should be sure to cite appropriate literature and must give

proper credit to the authors of any decision-making models used to

analyze the case.

ii.

Do not simply list the steps of the model, be sure to document and

defend your courses of action and your final conclusions.

iii.

Cite ALL appropriate professional standards and relevant laws.

Regardless of model chosen, you need to clearly identify, describe,

and evaluate what ethical codes and laws were violated. Be

specific – use mental health statutes and specific ethical codes that

apply.

b.

Discuss in detail what actions you would take as you proceed through the

steps of your chosen ethical decision making model, each of the steps

should take at least a paragraph (or more) to address.

3.

Summarize what risk management strategies you would have taken once you

found out your peer was engaged in a sexual relationship with your shared site

supervisor.

C: Summarize Ethical Research & Evaluate Your Behavior

4.

Evaluate how you would ensure your own professional behavior in the future.

Determine a risk management strategy for managing good ethical practice. This

discussion does not have to be relevant to the case, but more so regarding how

you plan to manage your professional ethics in the future. Please consider:

a.

Evaluation of counselor competence

b.

Strategies for obtaining supervision / consultation

c.

Use of ethical decision making models

d.

Continued education/training on ethics

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Your final product will be in a Word document and be approximately 8-10 pages in

length. Utilize approximately 6-8 scholarly sources in your research. Your deliverables

should be written in a clear, concise, and organized manner; demonstrate ethical

scholarship in accurate representation and attribution of sources; and display accurate

spelling, grammar, and punctuation. APA style must be used