Innovative Training Issues
© 2008 by the American Counseling Association. All rights reserved. Mental health professionals are expected to practice in ways that are consistent with the ethical codes and standards es-tablished by their professions. When discussing ethical issues and their relevance for mental health practices, it is important to understand the different ways that the term ethics has been defined and the impact that cultural factors have in the forma-tion of codes of ethics for mental health professionals.
Although some persons define ethics from a theoretical and moral stance, others emphasize the practical, professional meaning of the term. Philosophical ethics relates to theoretical and moral consideration of what is thought to be “good,” “right,” or “worthy” (Cottone & Tarvydas, 2003, p. 4) actions in different situations. The term professional ethics refers to agreed-upon rules, principles, and standards that govern appropriate conduct and define acceptable practices in various professional fields, including the mental health professions (Corey, Corey, & Callanan, 2007; Cottone & Tarvydas, 2003; Pack-Brown & Williams, 2003). The ethical codes of the American Counseling Associa-tion (ACA; 2005), the American Psychological Association (APA; 2002), and the National Association of Social Workers (NASW; 1999) detail a broad range of practical standards for ethical professional practices that reflect core values of these professions. These ethical values and pragmatic standards highlight the importance of operating in ways that respect the dignity and worth of the persons served by counselors, psychologists, and social workers.
In this regard, ACA (2005) has emphasized the ethical responsibility professional counselors have in (a) enhancing human growth, (b) recognizing and respecting the diversity of their clients, and (c) embracing culturally appropriate
strategies that honor the dignity and uniqueness of the per-sons they serve. APA’s (2002) ethical standards stress the need for psychologists to (a) be impartial and just when pro-viding psychological services to persons in diverse groups; (b) allow all persons equal access to available services; and (c) ensure that personal biases, boundaries of competence, and limitations of expertise do not result in unfair and im-proper professional practices. NASW (1999) has explicitly emphasized the need for social workers to promote justice and positive environmental changes on behalf of those served as important ethical responsibilities. The codes of ethics in the fields of counseling, psychology, and social work have and will continue to undergo changes over time. Numerous factors have contributed to the evolution that has occurred in these ethical standards. These factors include the emergence of new knowledge about the effective-ness of intervention strategies that are believed to be helpful in fostering healthy human development; the ongoing evolution of human consciousness in general; and the moral–ethical reasoning of counselors, psychologists, and social workers in particular. Regarding the latter point, it is noted that the recent changes in the professional ethics of ACA, APA, and NASW reflect a growing sensitivity and moral–ethical respectability for the diverse cultural constructions of terms such as mental health and appropriate helping interventions and the meaning of ethical practices (Houser, Wilczenski, & Ham, 2006).
To illustrate this point further, therecently revised ACA (2005) standard related to receiving gifts from clients (see Standard A.10.e.) reflects a more culturally sensitive stance that recognizes the cultural implications of accepting small tokens Sherlon P. Pack-Brown, Mental Health and School Counseling, Bowling Green State University; Tequilla L. Thomas and Jennifer M. Seymour, Department of Counselor Education and School Psychology, The University of Toledo. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Sherlon P. Pack-Brown, Mental Health and School Counseling, College of Education and Human Development, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403 (e-mail: [email protected]).
Infusing Professional Ethics Into
Counselor Education Programs:
A Multicultural/Social Justice Perspective
Sherlon P. Pack-Brown, Tequilla L. Thomas, and
Jennifer M. Seymour
Multiculturalism and social justice counseling issues influence counselors’ ethical thinking and behavior. Counselor educators are responsible for facilitating students’ understanding of the relevance of multicultural/social justice counsel-ing issues and ethical standards for professional practices. Added insights in these areas aid students to work within a culturally diverse society. This article focuses on the importance of addressing these complex issues by outlining strate-gies to infuse ethics into counselor education programs from a multicultural/social justice counseling perspective.
of appreciation from clients, whereas acceptance of such gifts had been considered unethical in the past. This focus on cultural sensitivity can also be seen in the revisions made to other ethi-cal standards related to issues of confidentiality, disclosure of information, and privacy (see Standard B.1.a.).These and other changes that have been made in the counseling profession’s ethi-cal standards are largely attributed to a couple of key factors. This includes a growing awareness of the impact of the changing demography of the United States and the ongoing advocacy for changes in the profession’s ethical standards that complement the racial/cultural transformation of the nation. As the demography of the United States continues to un-dergo a transformation in the racial/cultural makeup of the people who live in contemporary society, mental health profes-sionals will increasingly be challenged to work in ways that reflect greater understanding and respect for culturally differ-ent ethical helping practices. In doing so, counselors will need to thoughtfully reflect on how they might operate in an ethical manner to assist culturally diverse clients in adjusting to their environment so that these clients can realize more satisfying and productive lives. Furthermore, counselors must also be sensitive to their ethical responsibility to support clients in changing those environmental conditions that perpetuate vari-ous forms of injustice and oppression that adversely affect clients’ mental health and sense of well-being. Given the rapid racial/cultural transformation of the de-mography of the United States and the revisions that have recently been made in their professional codes of ethics, coun-selors and students-in-training need to be continually updated and mindful of the cultural relevance of these ethical standards for their professional practices. This article is designed to illu-minate the importance of counselors’ ethical responsibility to provide professional services that are respectful of the unique cultural worldviews, values, and traditions that persons from diverse backgrounds bring to counseling. Particular attention is directed to the need to develop and implement an infusion approach to fostering an increased understanding of profes-sional ethics from a multicultural/social justice perspective in counselor education programs.
Ethics, Culture, Social Justice, and
Counselor Education Programs
Ethics and culture are ingrained in every facet of the work profes-sional counselors do. Culture affects counselors’ ethical thinking as well as the decisions practitioners make about what they consider to be good and appropriate professional conduct. In short, cultural issues affect all aspects of the counseling process, including ethical considerations that emerge from the time the counselor first meets a client to termination of the helping endeavor. These statements may seem to be common sense to most counselor educators, practitioners, and students-in-training in today’s world. However, a review of the history of the counsel-ing profession indicates that the cultural encapsulation of the counseling field helps to perpetuate various cultural biases that are antithetical to the worldview, values, and psychological well-being of many persons from diverse cultural groups and backgrounds. Over the past 40 years, multicultural/social justice counsel-ing advocates have emphasized that the use of culturally biased counseling theories and practices among persons from diverse groups often result in ineffective and even harmful psycho-logical outcomes (Sue & Sue, 2003). Ineffective and harmful outcomes commonly ensue from these situations because the counseling theories and practices that many traditionally trained counselors use in their work are grounded in values and beliefs that conflict with culturally different clients’ constructions of mental health and psychological well-being. When these cul-tural conflicts occur in multicultural counseling settings, there is an increased probability that the helping process will not result in positive outcomes. It also is quite possible that the outcomes of such conflicts may result in increased confusion or frustration among clients whose cultural values and perspectives of mental health contrast with the perspective of the counselor. The aforementioned situation represents a unique form of injustice, albeit unintended, that counselors have frequently perpetuated by using culturally biased theories and interventions with clients who come from diverse backgrounds and groups. The nature of this injustice is heightened by the power differential that exists between counselors (the recognized expert) and culturally different clients (whose vulnerability is reflected in the fact that they come to the counselor seeking help with some personal problem; Comstock et al., 2008). One of the ethical implications of this unintended injustice is tied to the fundamental responsi-bility counselors have to do no harm when working with clients (ACA, 2005). Multicultural counseling experts (Ivey, D’Andrea, Ivey, & Simek-Morgan, 2007; Pack-Brown & Williams, 2003; Pedersen, 1987, 1999) have unveiled other ways that culturally biased counseling theories and practices can result in ineffective, harmful, and unethical professional practices. As a result of continued advocacy efforts by multicultural/ social justice counseling allies, ACA (2005) has made sub-stantial progress in revising its professional code to address the earlier stated problems. Additionally, the Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development (AMCD) outlined a set of multicultural counseling competencies (Sue, Arredondo, & McDavis, 1992) and strategies for the operationalization of these competencies (Arredondo et al., 1996) that counselors are encouraged to pursue to advance ethical practices with diverse clients. After much lobbying, the multicultural counseling competencies were endorsed by ACA in 2002 (Arredondo & D’Andrea, 2003). To effectively implement the aforementioned multicultural counseling competencies in ways that enhance ethical prac-tices, counselors need to participate in professional training opportunities that increase their knowledge of the intercon-nections that exist between professional ethics; counselors’ level of multicultural competence; and the need to ensure that clients are treated in effective, ethical, respectful, and just ways when they seek counselors’ assistance. Recognizing
their responsibility in promoting such professional develop-ment opportunities, some counselor educators are increasingly covering issues related to professional ethics and cultur-ally competent helping practices in multicultural counseling courses. However, given the complexity of the issues that are related to these vital areas of professional development, it is suggested that single-course offerings designed to cover the interface of professional ethics, multicultural counseling com-petence, and social justice counseling topics are inadequate for the challenges contemporary counselors face (Bemak & Chung, 2007). Recognizing the intricate interrelationship of these important topics and the need for counselors to acquire a broad range of ethical decision-making skills related to multicultural counseling issues, counselor educators need to ensure that these matters are infused throughout the entire counselor education training program. The following section explores this recommendation in greater detail.
Infusing Professional Ethics From a
Multicultural/Social Justice Perspective
Into the Total Counselor Education
Training Program
As used in this article, the term infusion refers not only to the ways in which the topic of ethics is presented in separate counselor education classes but also to the manner in which such issues can be reflected in every course as well as other aspects of professional counseling training programs. Of particular importance for the present discussion is the acknowledged need to increase discourse about issues related to professional ethics from a multicultural/ social justice perspective in all counselor education courses. In making this proposal, it is important for us to note that several other experts in the field have emphasized that ethical counseling practice needs to be rooted in cultural sensitivity and awareness (Corey et al., 2007; Pack-Brown & Williams, 2003). The ACA (2005) standard related to supervision, training, and teaching explicitly states that counselor educators are responsible for actively infusing “multicultural/diversity competency in their training and supervision practices” (Standard F.11.c.). In doing so, counselor educators are able to more effectively help students gain greater awareness, knowledge, and skills as culturally competent professionals than they would if these issues were addressed in single-course offerings. Counselor educators can more effectively move to this form of infusion by including multicultural/social justice counseling case studies and other classroom activities that are intentionally aimed at represent-ing various cultural perspectives in their training programs as outlined by ACA’s Standard F.11.c.
Infusing these and other multicultural/social justice counseling training experiences into all counselor education courses is important because it enables students to develop more complex critical thinking skills that are necessary in making ethical decisions that take alternative cultural perspec-tives into consideration (Houser et al., 2006). To develop these important skills, students need to have opportunities in which they can learn to become more adept at and comfortable with the following: 1. Identifying their own culturally biased assumptions 2. Assessing clients’ strengths and challenges from a
multicultural/social justice perspective
3. Offering meaningful interpretations of clients’ behav-iors in culturally competent ways
4. Using helping interventions that are consonant with the cultural worldview and values of persons from diverse groups and backgrounds (Corey et al., 2007; Pack-Brown & Williams, 2003; Pedersen, 1987, 1999) Learning to become adept in using knowledge of cultural dif-ferences as a tool to make good and appropriate ethical decisions in counseling practice is an unending part of every counselor’s professional development. Working within a multicultural/social justice framework is a skill that necessitates the continual ac-quisition of new knowledge related to the connections that exist between the counselor’s thoughts, feelings, and helping behaviors and the manner in which these factors are implemented in cultur-ally competent and ethical professional practices. One of the central challenges counseling students face in becoming culturally competent and ethical decision makers involves acknowledging that they bring personal cultural biases, prejudices, and stereotypes to their work with clients. For counselor educators, recognizing the importance of helping students become more aware of their biases further underscores the need to infuse issues related to professional ethics and multicultural/diversity competence throughout the students’ training and supervision endeavors. A primary pur-pose in doing so is to enhance students’ ability to recognize the cultural biases that result in the manifestation of unintentional counseling behaviors that are not in the best interest of clients from diverse groups and backgrounds. As noted earlier, AMCD developed (Sue et al., 1992) and ACA endorsed (Arredondo & D’Andrea, 2003) 31 competen-cies that clarify what it means to become a culturally competent counselor. These competencies are organized into three domains: (a) counselor awareness of personal assumptions, biases, and values; (b) counselor awareness of client’s cultural worldviews; and (c) appropriate helping interventions for clients from diverse backgrounds. Each domain consists of three competency areas: attitudes and beliefs, knowledge, and skills. Counselor educa-tors can refer to these domains in their courses to help students understand the ways that their awareness and knowledge of mul-ticulturalism and diversity applies to their professional practices. For example, students may be asked to examine how a counselor’s personal biases about a client’s ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual identity, or socioeconomic background might unintentionally result in harmful counseling outcomes.
Counselor educators in the 21st century recognize that counseling practices provided within a pluralistic society can-not occur without attention being directed to the challenges
practitioners face in implementing culturally intentional, competent, and ethical services. It is less clear, however, how counselor educators might promote the development of the kinds of awareness, knowledge, and skills that will enable students to effectively address these professional ethical chal-lenges in the future. A central question that needs to be addressed in this regard may be stated as follows: What specific issues inform the develop-ment of a greater understanding of professional ethics from a multicultural/social justice counseling perspective and need to be addressed in counselor education programs? The following section outlines five factors that we urge counselor educators to consider when addressing this question. These factors encourage counselor educators to think about the important role that the mission state-ment and written program objectives play in fostering students’ awareness of their ethical responsibilities from a multicultural counseling perspective and how issues related to the program’s de-sign, faculty, students, supervisors, and community considerations all play in addressing the aforementioned question.
Practical Strategies to Infuse
Professional Ethical Considerations
Into Counselor Education Training
Programs From a Multicultural/Social
Justice Perspective
The model presented in this section addresses the need for counselor educators to reflect on the five factors listed earlier as they relate to potential ways of increasing students’ under-standing of professional ethics from a multicultural/social justice perspective. Each factor is addressed separately by emphasizing specific issues to be addressed and actions to be taken to increase students’ awareness of their ethical respon-sibilities from a multicultural counseling perspective.
Program Design: Infusing Multicultural/Social Justice Issues Into the Program’s Mission Statement, Program Description, and Curriculum Designing a counselor education program is a huge and ongoing undertaking. The success of a counselor education program’s design depends on agreements that are made regarding decisions related to the development, execution, assessment, and evaluation of the program. Three factors that are critical to infusing profes-sional ethics from a multicultural/social justice perspective into the development of counselor education programs relate to their mission statements, stated program objectives, and curricula.
Program mission and description. Helping future coun-selors to better understand how and why it is their ethical duty to devote special care in serving diverse populations requires clear and visible language in the program’s mission statement and objectives. Those persons responsible for writ-ing or revising mission statements and program objectives are encouraged to include language about the importance of counselors’ ethical behavior and decision-making skills as
well as the inclusion of terms such as culture, multicultural-ism,and social justice into these important programmatic documents. It is also incumbent on the faculty to understand the implications of including such words and concepts in the mission statement and program objectives, especially regard-ing the need to infuse such concepts into multiple levels of the professional training program.
The Counselor Education Program at the University of Maryland, College Park, provides a good example as to how such language is infused into a counselor training program’s mission statement in ways that are consistent with the instructional efforts faculty members use to foster counseling students’ understanding of their ethical responsibilities in a multicultural/social justice context. The aforementioned program’s mission statement in-forms students that the training program is intentionally designed to prepare counseling professionals to promote human growth and development. From this mission statement, students are fur-ther made aware that the counselor education training program at the University of Maryland emphasizes (a) increasing awareness, knowledge, and skills related to interacting with economically, socially, and culturally diverse populations and (b) promoting the empowerment of persons in these diverse groups. Individuals considering applying to this program are also notified in advance, through the mission statement, that they will be expected to seek positions where they will become leaders in the counseling profession and will promote issues of access, equity, and social justice in the future. A review of the descriptions of courses offered in this program indicate that ethical and multicultural issues are infused into many courses to achieve the goals outlined in the mission statement. The University of Maryland’s program objectives also include language that reflects the faculty’s commitment to address profes-sional ethics from a multicultural/social justice perspective. These objectives include statements that explicitly inform students that they will be taught techniques that are intentionally designed to empower multicultural and diverse populations. These objectives underscore the program’s commitment to increase counseling students’ knowledge of and ability to address issues concerning equity and social justice as they relate to the ethical responsibili-ties professional counselors are expected to fulfill in their work. An example of such language is clearly noted in the following program objective statement: Students will “demonstrate in-creased sensitivity and clinical skills that represent awareness of the diversity of race, gender, age, religion, ethnicity, ability status, nationality, and sexual orientation as relevant to counsel-ing professionals working in contemporary urban environments” (Department of Counseling and Personnel Services, 2004).
Curriculum design and development. There is no “cookbook” for curriculum design and development. Consequently, the reader is cautioned against looking for a single prescription in designing a curriculum that infuses professional ethics into counselor edu-cation programs. However, there are a number of basic elements that counselor educators are encouraged to keep in mind when striving to develop an infusion model that addresses profes-sional ethics from a multicultural/social justice perspective. One
such element involves curriculum activities aimed at increasing counseling students’ understanding of the need to develop and implement proactive and reactive helping strategies in their work with persons from marginalized and devalued cultural groups. Another element is recognizing the strengths inherent in human diversity and the importance of embracing different helping approaches that support the dignity and development of people within diverse social/cultural contexts.
In terms of issues related to increase counseling students’ understanding of their ethical responsibility in providing both proactive and reactive helping services in their professional practices, it is useful to refer to a perspective presented by Ratts (2007). This perspective highlights the five theoretical forces that are commonly covered in many counseling curricula: the psychodynamic (first force), cognitive-behavioral (second force), humanistic-existential (third force), multicultural (fourth force), and social justice (fifth force) theoretical counseling forces. The critical components included in Ratts’s (2007) framework involve directing attention to clients’ cultural and social beliefs, values, and experiences as they relate to clients’ contextual cir-cumstances. These components (a) help counselors consider how the clients’ cultural worldview and environmental context shape the problems clients’ face and (b) assist counselors in considering how they might draw ideas from the five aforementioned theoretical forces to best serve their clients. Infusing these considerations into the courses that compose counselor education curricula are helpful in expanding students’ understanding of the unique strengths and challenges culturally different clients experience in their lives. Ratts (2007) also pointed out that the first (psychodynamic), second (cognitive-behavioral), and third (humanistic-existential) theoretical forces used in much of the instruction that goes on in all counselor education programs are essentially reactive in that they all address clients’ concerns after problems are manifested in clients’ lives. To increase counseling students’ understand-ing of the important proactive roles they will increasingly be encouraged to implement in diverse work environments (i.e., as culturally competent consultants, advocates, and organization development agents), Ratts further asserted that theoretical premises associated with the fourth (multicultural) and fifth (social justice) theoretical counseling forces need to be infused into all courses as well. This suggestion is made in recognition that multicultural and social justice counseling theories empha-size the importance of preventive interventions. By having numerous opportunities to learn about the impor-tant roles they can play in implementing reactive and proactive helping services to help meet their clients’ needs, counseling students are better able to understand that their ethical responsi- bilities include implementing preventive, advocacy, and organiza-tional development services that foster environmental/institutional changes to promote the healthy development of larger numbers of persons from marginalized and devalued cultural groups. This ethical commitment to prevention adds to and complements the reactive helping strategies culturally competent counselors are also trained to use when addressing the intrapsychic problems many clients bring to counseling. To successfully implement this recommendation, counselor educators and supervisors are challenged to think about the ways that they might incorporate Ratts’s (2007) suggestions in classroom and supervision settings. One advocacy strategy that counselor educators might consider implementing to supplement classroom-based infusion strategies involves ac-tively urging textbook publishers to ensure that issues related to professional ethics, multiculturalism, and social justice are integrated in the content of all future counseling textbook pub- lications. Another way to address this challenge is to encour-age current authors to more thoroughly infuse multicultural, social justice, and ethical issues in their writings.
Counselor educators can also take the responsibility of dealing with these issues on their own by infusing material related to the fourth (multicultural) and fifth (social justice) theoretical counseling forces into all of their courses. This can be done by selecting textbooks and published articles currently available that effectively address these theoretical forces as a basis to extend students’ thinking about professional ethics from a multicultural/social justice perspective. The following sug-gestions are presented to highlight some of the specific ways that counselor educators can help to increase students’ understanding of their ethical responsibilities from a multicultural/social justice perspective in the courses they teach:
1. Adopt the textbook Theories of Counseling and Psycho-therapy: A Multicultural Perspective (Ivey et al., 2007) in counseling theories and other related courses. 2. Help students enrolled in introductory counseling
courses as well as practicum/internship classes to gain a broad breadth of information, regarding their ethical responsibilities from a multicultural/social justice perspective, by using such textbooks as Cultur-ally Relevant Ethical Decision-Making in Counseling (Houser et al., 2006) or Ethics in a Multicultural Context (Pack-Brown & Williams, 2003).
3. Foster a greater understanding of culturally sensitive research and evaluation strategies by using Martens’s (2005) textbook Research and Evaluation in Edu-cation and Psychology: Integrating Diversity With Quantitative, Qualitative, and Mixed Messages in counseling research courses.
Faculty Diversification
Counselor education faculty members are vital to fostering students’ critical thinking and ethical decision-making skills. To better increase students’ understanding of professional ethics from a multicultural/social justice perspective, it is imperative to include new recruitment strategies in counselor education programs so that a clear commitment for multicultural/social justice issues is reflected in the professional perspectives of faculty members who come from diverse racial/cultural groups and backgrounds. A culturally diverse faculty will predictably result in expressed differences that include, but are not limited to, faculty members’ views about the relevance of issues related
to ethnicity, gender, race, physical ability, religious orientation, and sexual identity for ethical counseling practices. Recruiting and maintaining qualified diverse faculty mem-bers also brings different cultural and individual worldviews, values, and life experiences to the academic environment in other ways. This initiative includes the diverse cultural perspec-tives that are likely to be expressed in faculty/staff meetings, departmental and university committee meetings, and other university-/faculty-related activities and functions. Student Diversity Bemak and Chung (2007) found that the promotion and reten-tion of a qualified diverse faculty correlated with an increase in the diversification of the student body in counseling training programs. Both of these factors (i.e., having a diverse faculty and student body) are important in creating an organizational culture that is more conducive to assisting students to acquire a greater understanding in counselors’ ethical responsibilities from a multicultural/social justice perspective. Writing further on the issues of student diversity, Bemak and Chung (2007) pointed out that an outcome that commonly occurs when such diversity is reflected in the makeup of counselor educa-tion programs is that the student body is generally better able to become more knowledgeable of cultural and social justice issues as experienced by counseling students from different cultural and ethnic groups. Such knowledge complements and extends students’ thinking about ethics from a multicultural/social justice perspective in ways that are not achieved through the construction and imple-mentation of the formal counselor education curricula.
The Role of Supervisors
Practicum and internship supervisors can play important roles in stimulating counseling students’ ethical decision-making skills from a multicultural/social justice perspective. The infusion model presented in this article strongly encourages supervisors to make every effort possible to advance students’ understanding of such ethical responsibilities while students are engaged in real-life counseling challenges during their practicum and internship training experiences.
Students’ practicum and internship supervisors are par-ticularly well positioned to do this in the regular supervisory meetings they have with students. By intentionally engaging in supervision discussions that invite students to reflect on their ethical responsibilities when working with persons from culturally diverse groups, supervisors are able to encourage students to explore their own thoughts, feelings, and biases about these topics. In doing so, students also have an oppor-tunity to learn from the modeling of their supervisors, who demonstrate how supervisors can fulfill their own ethical responsibility by addressing issues of multicultural/diversity in supervision (see ACA, 2005, Standard F.2.b.). Community Considerations The infusion model presented in this article also emphasizes the need to address a broad range of community considerations when providing professional development opportunities that are intentionally aimed at stimulating students’ understanding of their professional ethical responsibilities from a multicultural/ social justice perspective. Educating students about their professional ethical responsibilities in this regard requires expanding their thinking about a broad range of helping strate-gies that counselors are urged to implement when working to promote the mental health and psychological development of persons from diverse groups and backgrounds in society. Lewis, Lewis, Daniels, and D’Andrea (2003) discussed these issues at length in their theory of community counseling. Briefly stated, this theoretical model represents “a comprehen-sive helping framework of intervention strategies and services that promotes the personal development and well being of all individuals and communities” (Lewis et al., 2003, p. 6). Counselor educators can use the community counseling model to foster students’ ethical development from a multicultural/social justice perspective by helping future counselors recognize how their values and the values of the persons in culturally diverse communities align. This can be accomplished in classroom set-tings where students are presented with a series of questions that are designed to help them understand how their ethical responsi- bilities as counselors are affected by the various values, interven-tion strategies, and helping services they might use to advance clients’ mental health and psychological development within multicultural community contexts. Some of the questions that might be helpful to use in this regard include the following: 1. What are my (the student’s) cultural values? 2. What are the cultural values of the school or
com-munity where I am working or plan to work? 3. What are the different values that persons from diverse groups are likely to manifest in the school and com-munities where I plan to work in the future? 4. What differences exist between my (the student’s) cultural values and those that characterize the school and com-munities where I plan to work as well as the different individuals that I am likely to be called upon to serve? 5. How do such differences affect the intervention strategies and services that I am likely to use to promote human dignity and development in diverse communities? 6. What are the ethical implications of dealing with such dif-ferences when implementing various helping strategies in culturally diverse school and community settings? Having students reflect on and respond to such questions throughout the counseling training program may stimulate more complex ways of thinking about the ethical challenges they will face when working in diverse communities in the future. Critical to this inquiry process is helping students pay close attention to the role that their own cognitions and emotional reactions might play in the ethical decisions they will make as professional counselors.
To illustrate this point further, we refer to our brief discussion about ACA (2005) Standard A.10.e., which focuses on the issue of gift giving
by clients. When focusing on this ethical guideline, counselor educators can ask counseling students to share their personal thoughts and feel-ings about giving and receiving gifts from clients. After students’ have had an opportunity to discuss their personal reactions to this question, they can be encouraged to talk about how they think other members of the communities where they work or plan to work are likely to react to the issue of gift giving as well as the ways in which individuals in the professional counseling community (including students’ supervisors) are likely to react to this ethical issue. By encouraging students to explore the personal and professional values that underlie their ethical thinking about this issue, counselor educators can help foster the development of more complex thinking from a multicultural/social justice perspective. Through questioning and dialoguing about such issues, students are likely to become more adept at listening to and learning from other individuals’ views about their professional ethical responsibilities from a multicultural/social justice perspective. These discussions provide a further means by which students can develop more complex and empathic ethical decision-making skills, which can be used when working with persons from culturally diverse communities.
Conclusion
Professional counselors, counselor educators, supervisors, and students-in-training are informed in the Preamble to the 2005 ACA Code of Ethics that
ACA members are dedicated to the enhancement of human development throughout the life span. Association members recognize diversity and embrace a cross-cultural approach in support of the worth, dignity, potential, and uniqueness of people within their social and cultural contexts. (p. 3)
These practitioners, educators, and supervisors are thus responsible for expanding their students’ and their own mul-ticultural counseling awareness, knowledge, and skills so that they can act in culturally competent and ethical ways when providing services to persons from diverse backgrounds. Rather than offering a training program where ethics, multi-culturalism, and social justice counseling issues are addressed in separate classes, counselor educators are encouraged to develop and implement more comprehensive strategies that are aimed at effectively stimulating more complex ethical decision-making skills among students enrolled in such programs. We hope that the concepts and practical strategies presented in this article are helpful in promoting new ways of thinking about the need to and strategies by which members in the profession can infuse issues related to professional ethics from a multicultural/social justice perspective in professional practices and throughout the entire professional counselor training program.
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