Mental health professionals are charged with the legal and ethical responsibility to maintain professional boundaries, but the obligation isn’t always so easy to discern. This course brings real-world context to ethical concerns often experienced by professionals in practice in maintaining appropriate professional boundaries. This course will provide a framework to contemplate ethical dilemmas and make informed decisions that insulate professionals from legal liability while protecting clients from harm. This class meets the new NEW YORK Appropriate Boundaries Training and Ethics requirements. 3 CE Credits!
https://nefesh.org/workshops/ProfessionDec622222/viewFREE WEBINAR
Learning Objectives:
- 1. apply the ethical and legal responsibility of mental health professionals to maintain appropriate professional boundaries with their clients.
- 2. define dual relationships.
- 3. apply a framework to avoid dual relationships whenever possible.
- 4. apply a framework to minimize potential harm to clients and the professional whenever dual relationships are not avoidable.
- 5. explain how to demonstrate that a client has not been exploited or coerced, intentionally or unintentionally.
Agenda:
Introductions (5 minutes)
Revisiting Ethics in Professional Practice (30 minutes) Professional education introduces future practitioners to relevant Codes of Ethics. This portion of the program will revisit what professionals should already know about ethics, so that we are all on the same page as we explore further. What do we mean by “ethical”? How is “ethical” related to “legal”?
Understanding Professional Boundaries (45 minutes)
Working closely with clients can challenge the boundaries of professionalism, but setting and maintaining boundaries is important both personally, and professionally. This portion of the program will explore guidance from ethical codes on how to define appropriate boundaries with clients, highlighting the obligations of mental health professionals.
Drawing the Lines (60 minutes)
Using case examples, this portion of the program will explore various types of relationships between professional and client that can make maintaining professional boundaries complicated. - Conflict of interests - Dual Relationships o Family Relationships o Sexual Relationships o Other Relationships - Complicated Financial Interactions o Bartering for services o Other financial interactions
Protecting Yourself from Ethical & Legal Liability (30 minutes) This section will outline the framework that professionals can use to prevent ethical conundrums, and protect themselves from legal liability when maintaining professional boundaries is most complicated.
Conclusions/Questions (10 minutes)
This presentation is open to:
- Social Workers
- Professional Counselors
- Therapists
- Psychologists
- Licensed Mental Health Practitioners
- Medical Doctors and Other Health Professionals
- Other professionals interacting with populations engaged in mental health based services
- New practitioners who wish to gain enhanced insight surrounding the topic
- Experienced practitioners who seek to increase and expand fundamental knowledge surrounding the subject matter
- Advanced practitioners seeking to review concepts and reinforce practice skills and/or access additional consultation
- Managers seeking to broaden micro and/or macro perspectives
Participants will receive their certificate electronically upon completion of the webinar and course evaluation form.
- NEFESH International, Inc. is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Psychology as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed psychologists #PSY-0116.
- NEFESH International is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed marriage and family therapists #MFT-0046
- NEFESH International is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Mental Health Practitioners as an approved provider of continuing education for Mental Health Counselor #MHC-0082
- NEFESH International is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0048.
- CE You! is an approved sponsor of the Maryland Board of Social Work Examiners for continuing education credits for licensed social workers in Maryland.
CE You! maintains responsibility for this program.