Section 1: Client Rights
Counselors face with difficult situations in their practice that needs them to have a comprehensive ethical decision making ability. The five guiding principles of ethical practice that help counselors to effectively confront the ethical dilemma and ensure protection of clients rights include non-maleficence, beneficence, justice, and autonomy principles (Sheperis, Henning & Kocet, 2015).
The counselor can incorporate the Autonomy principle by respecting the client’s right to have the freedom of choice and action. The counselor is required to encourage clients to make their own decisions and act based on their own values (Sheperis, Henning & Kocet, 2015).
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The counselor can apply Non-maleficence in protecting client’s rights through commitment towards avoiding harm to the client such as emotional, financial, or sexual exploitation, or avoiding malpractice or incompetence. It is the personal responsibility of the counselor to try mitigating any harm caused to a client even in cases that the harm is unintentional or inevitable (Sheperis, Henning & Kocet, 2015).
A practitioner can incorporate beneficence in the ethical practice by committing towards contributing to the client’s wellbeing. The counselor should act in the best interest of the client based on professional practice (Sheperis, Henning & Kocet, 2015).
Incorporating Justice in practice involves protecting the client’s rights by committing to treating all clients with fairness and impartiality and provide adequate services that are accessible and appropriate to meet the needs of all clients (Sheperis, Henning & Kocet, 2015).
Fidelity includes acts of honoring commitments, faithfulness, and loyalty in the part of a counselor. A counselor has the responsibility of ensuring clients trust them and have faith in the therapeutic relation by fulfilling the obligations (Sheperis, Henning & Kocet, 2015).
The Informed Consent Process and How it Protects Client Rights
The informed consent process provides clients with information regarding the policies of the counselor, the rights of clients, and the federal and state laws. The client is required to sign a copy of the informed consent document upon entering a counselling relationship. Additionally, the informed consent document protects the counselor and clients (Lamont-Mills, Christensen & Moses, 2018).
The informed consent documents protects the client’s right to privacy. It protects the client’s privacy and fosters trust between the counselor and clients. The informed consent informs the client that the practitioner should keep their information private to protect their dignity (Lamont-Mills, Christensen & Moses, 2018).
In addition, it protects the clients’ right to billing whereby it requires counselors to inform clients about their right to be having information regarding fees and financial arrangements such as payment options and payment schedules (Lamont-Mills, Christensen & Moses, 2018).
Moreover, the informed consent documents protects the clients HIPAA compliance. Counselors covered under the HIPAA are required to inform clients regarding their rights as well as the use and disclosure of private information during procedures of informed consent (Lamont-Mills, Christensen & Moses, 2018).
Section 2: Responsibility to Warn and Protect
“ Duty to warn” and “duty to protect” has gained a lot of significance in the field of counselling. Having the ability to protect clients from self-harm and victims from potential harm is an ethical obligation in the counselling practice. The factors that a counselor will use to determine their “duty to warn” and “duty to protect” responsibilities in California include individuals who are mentally disturbed and are a danger to cause harm to self and others. In addition, for clients who are HIV-positive and are in a position of putting another party at risk, the counselor is obligated to warn the third party of risk of transmission from the client. Through this, they are able to protect others from violence or harm. Failure to prevent harm can lead to negligence lawsuit (Ward, 2016).
Section 3: Client Record-Keeping
The client record keeping protects a client’s right to professional standard of care by providing counselors with a reliable history of important information regarding the client’s health and treatments. These records therefore allows counselors to provide clients with high standard of care. Additionally, the clients’ record keeping protects the counselor from liability by helping them to provide the best possible defense in case a person makes a claim or complaint against them. Moreover, the records helps the counselor to dismiss any false allegations against them, by using them as evidence in court ( Bond & Mitchels, 2014).
References
Bond, T., & Mitchels, B. (2014). Confidentiality & Record Keeping in Counselling & Psychotherapy . Sage.
Lamont-Mills, A., Christensen, S., & Moses, L. (2018). Confidentiality and informed consent in counselling and psychotherapy: a systematic review.
Sheperis, D. S., Henning, S. L., & Kocet, M. M. (2015). Ethical decision making for the 21st century counselor . SAGE Publications.
Ward, M. (2016). The impact of" duty to warn"(and other legal theories) on countering violent extremism intervention programs (Doctoral dissertation, Monterey, California: Naval Postgraduate School).
