If you are at a social gathering and a friend of yours says, “I really think you should talk to Joan.

She
is drinking a lot tonight and I have seen her driving after leaving another party when she was drunk.”
Write down two responses that let your friend know you heard her concern and care about her, but
are at the party as a friend, not as a professional.

Ethical Decision Making

As you discovered in the discussion above, some actions are
clearly unethical for practitioners, such as engaging in a sexual
relationship with a client, practicing outside of your scope of
competency, fraudulent billing, violation of reporting laws, and
breach of confidentiality or refusal to provide records, while
many other situations are not so clear-cut. While knowledge of
your profession’s code of ethics is very important, it should be
considered the foundation for ethical decision making. You may
encounter ethical dilemmas or a choice involving “two or more
relevant but contradictory ethical directives: when every
alternative results in an undesirable outcome for one or more
persons” (Dolgoff, Loewenberg, & Harrington, 2005, p. 258).
Learning to appropriately handle ethical dilemmas is a career-
long task. In this section you will learn some principles used in
ethical decision making.

Reamer (1995) describes two principles that can guide

practitioners in resolving ethical dilemmas. The first
is beneficence, meaning that professionals should take actions
that are intended to help or benefit others. The second
principle, nonmaleficence, means that professionals should act
without malice in order to do no harm. You are probably
familiar with these principles from the Hippocratic Oath,
historically taken by doctors as an ethical statement to guide
their medical practice. Practitioners more inclined toward
beneficence are likely to be more proactive than those favoring
nonmaleficence. Using beneficence and nonmaleficence, the
practitioner considers whether the benefits of a certain
intervention outweigh the risks.
 ETHIC Model of Decision
Making
There are several ethical decision-making models available. We
find the Congress model (2000) particularly helpful in resolving
ethical dilemmas.

E Examine all of the relevant client, personal, agency, professional, and

societal values (also consider cultural and agency values),
T Think about ethical standards of your professional code of ethics and
relevant laws.
H Hypothesize about all the possible consequences of different decisions.
I Identify all who might benefit and all who might be harmed (it is often
necessary to research potential consequences of possible decisions on all
those involved).
C Consult with supervisors and colleagues as you begin to formulate choices
(when a supervisor, colleague, or consultant is involved, the final decision
must take their thoughts into consideration) (Congress, 2000, p. 10).
When examining values, make sure professional values, rather
than personal values, are used in the decision making.
Sometimes, personal values and professional values conflict. In
this situation, the professional values should be used in decision
making. Client values are also important, especially with clients
from other cultures. Sometimes, values, ethics, and laws agree
with each other and sometimes they conflict, such as the need to
respect the confidentiality of the client and the laws that say you
must report certain behaviors that clients share (child abuse).
There may be a conflict between professional values and agency
values (i.e., the professional value of client confidentiality and
the use of computers to efficiently record client information
without adequate safeguards to protect confidentiality).

Congress later updated the model, adding A: Advocate to the

original model (2008). Identifying and advocating for adequate
services, particularly for the most vulnerable populations, is an
important aspect of the code of ethics in some helping
professions.

In considering the ethical standards outlined in your

profession’s code of ethics, identify those sections that seem to
 be applicable to the current situation. If the dilemma is over
what type of treatment might be appropriate for a client,
sections about competence and responsibilities to clients might
be helpful. Federal, state, and local laws may also impact the
situation.

In considering all of the potential consequences of the various

decisions, you would be using teleological reasoning. With a
dilemma involving a dual relationship, listing the pros and cons
for entering into the relationship versus not entering into it can
be helpful.

In weighing benefits and harm to clients and others involved, it

may become clear that the dilemma is difficult because it
involves a choice between two negatives or two possible
positives. Consulting with a supervisor or colleague for all of the
above steps may provide additional insight. Ethical dilemmas
can be presented at a case conference or team meeting.
Jeff is a practitioner at a not-for-profit agency that provides home-based services to families involved
with Child Services or juvenile probation courts. Most of his clients are adolescents involved with
juvenile probation and their parents. One day during a home visit, Jeff was meeting with his client’s
mother. She reported that she felt her daughter was engaging in risky sexual behaviors, drinking, and
smoking marijuana. When asked why she felt this way, she said she had found some suspicious
websites opened that her daughter visited on their home computer. Her daughter stopped using the
computer and only used her cell phone now. The client’s mother was unfamiliar with some of the
websites and stated that her daughter is always on different social media apps, but she did not know
the names.
When Jeff attempted to talk with his client about her mother’s concerns, she stated that she is not
engaging in any of those behaviors and was tired of her mother always “getting into my business.”
Jeff felt that his client was being dishonest and when he tried to push further, his client shut down.
One day while at his home, Jeff was on his smartphone and decided to Google his client and see what
he found. His client’s Facebook profile stated that she was 24 years old and she had posted several
pictures of her drinking with friends and videos of her and friends engaging in felonious acts such as
assaulting a fellow classmate. Additionally, he visited her Instagram page and discovered that she
had been posting sexually explicit pictures of herself and soliciting men to meet offline.
The following day, Jeff contacted his client’s probation officer and shared what he found out about
his client. As a result, his client was charged with assault and then placed in juvenile detention.
Based on the scenario, answer the following questions:

How appropriately do you think that Jeff handled this situation? Why or why not?