Professional Ethics: Working with Criminal Justice and Substance Abuse Populations

Transcription

1 Professional Ethics: Working with Criminal Justice and Substance Abuse Populations 3 CE hours Lawrence Anthony, Ed.D, LICDC-CS Copyright 2016 Lawrence Anthony All rights Reserved You can contact this author at anthonlm1@fuse.net For technical assistance with this home study contact: jheisel@heiselandassoc.com

2 Contents Page The Home Study Course..3 The Instructor..5 Brief Introduction.. 6 General Ethics vs. Professional Ethics..9 Laws and Ethics for Criminal Justice Professionals..13 Ethics for Substance Abuse Counselors.20 Ethics for Social Workers and Professional Counselors..24 Ethics and cultural Diversity..26 Relationships 32 Ethical Decision Making 34 Ethic Related to Burnout. 39 Supervisory Ethical Issues 42 Bibliography....44

3 The Home Study Course This home study course is designed to assist those individuals working with the criminal justice population; who, in addition to having criminogenic factors that must be addressed, also have substance related and often co-occurring disorders. While the course will cover many of the standard professional ethics knowledge based parameters, it will specifically present a plethora of information related to ethics associated with criminal justice professionals and the variety of dimensions in which they must work. Principally, criminal justice professionals wield powers that other professionals may not have, by virtue of their relationships with courts, law enforcement, parole boards, contracts with treatment facilities and informational exchange that is beyond the norm. While I will present many resources in the process of writing this home study course, a significant amount of information will come from my over 40 years of experience working in the field of substance abuse; working within city, county and federal court systems; as well as my role as a chemical dependency counselor, drug treatment program director and Board member with the Ohio Chemical Dependency Professionals Board. Goal: The purpose of this course is to educate the student about ethical practices that relate to substance abuse clients who are supervised and monitored by criminal justice professionals and who, usually by contract, must work with counselors in the fields of Social work, mental health and addictions. Students will learn the complicated variables associated with ethics as they relate to multi-professional stakeholders; as well as how to focus on the criminal justice worker s own professional ethics and responsibilities. Often this also includes assessing the issues and difficulties inherent in having a dual professional role; as correctional worker and licensed counselor, social worker or licensed chemical dependency counselor. In addition, students of this course will be educated about what cultural diversity means as it relates to ethical practices and how professional boundaries sometimes become difficult to ascertain when conflicting roles are integrated into treatment plans, case supervision and coordination with outside agencies. Various ethical standards and case studies will be presented and often unrecognized ethical violations will

4 be discussed. Students will be able to identify and respond to the cognitive dissonance, ambivalence, guilt that often accompanies ethical decision making by professionals working in the field. Moreover, the course will discuss professional boundaries related to burnout, counselor baggage, incompetence and scope of practice errors that are often overlooked or unrecognized by wellmeaning professionals and administrators. Objectives: Upon completion of this course, students should be able to: Educate themselves about the ethical responsibilities of criminal justice workers, as well as other professionals working with the substance abuse population Help professionals recognize various ethical violations that often go unrecognized or dismissed by virtue of the complexities of their roles Identify the various cultural dimensions that are integrated into the client s persona and how that affects one s intervention with ethical considerations Develop strategies to work through ethical dilemmas Set up personal parameters and guidelines to avoid certain ethical conflicts Devise supervisory procedures to assist professionals in avoiding breaches of ethical standards.

5 The Instructor Author: Dr. Lawrence Anthony is currently an adjunct professor in the On-line Master s program in Criminal Justice Administration at the University of the Cumberlands. Previously, Dr. Anthony coordinated an Addictions Program at Beckfield College from 2009 and Between 1997 and 2008 Dr. Anthony was the Director of the Addictions Studies Program at the University of Cincinnati, where he coordinated both a graduate and an undergraduate program in Addictions Studies and was responsible for staffing 40 adjunct faculty. He developed and facilitated certificates in Addictions Studies Counseling, Domestic Violence Counseling, Child Abuse Recognition and Addictions Studies Prevention. Before his tenure at the University of Cincinnati, between 1977 and 1997, Dr. Anthony was the Program Coordinator and Drug Treatment Specialist for the Federal Courts in the Southern district of Ohio, where he did counseling, training and contracting for drug/alcohol and mental health services. He was also the clinical and program director of a Therapeutic Community from 1975 to Prior to this he worked as probation officer in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and for the Municipal Court in Cincinnati, specializing in drug cases. Governor Robert Taft appointed him to the Ohio Chemical Dependency Professionals Board in 2003 and he served as chairperson of the education committee until Dr. Anthony received his Doctorate in Education in Vocational and Correctional Counseling from the University of Cincinnati in He also has a Master s Degree from Xavier University in Corrections and Correctional Counseling and completed two years of graduate school at Marquette University in the Area of Philosophy and Psychology. He has done extensive research on the Phenomenological method and its application to both analytical psychology and the treatment of addiction. He received his bachelor s degree in Philosophy from Saint Michael s College, located in Winooski, Vermont.

6 Brief Introduction Ethics can be a very boring topic to discuss and study. Most of us, by virtue of our own common sense, really don t believe that we need to continually review the various ethical standards that have been inculcated into our professions. The laws, regulations and rules remain the same; and, our own ethical compass seem to be sufficient to guide our actions so that we do not stray into inappropriate and unethical behavior. Yet, year after year, licensing boards across the country are faced with reviewing a plethora of ethical violations by all helping professionals. Ironically, and sadly, the most violated ethical indiscretion is one that easily recognized as the most egregious. Having sex with clients is among the most violated ethical principle in the helping professions (St. Germaine, 1996.) This is further confirmed by a comprehensive study that was done from 2003 to 2007, which did a comparative analysis of ethical violations among different professions. (Gallagher, 2008.) In this study, the total number of ethical violations from were examined for Certified Addiction Counselors in Texas (the equivalent of Licensed Counselors who must past the International certification and Reciprocity Consortium test) and compared to the total number of ethical violations, from the same time period, of comparison groups, which included Licensed Psychologists, Licensed Social Workers (LSW and LCSW), Licensed Professional Counselors (LPC), and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists (LMFT) The study revealed a number of significant pieces of information: First, substance abuse treatment professionals have the highest rate of ethical violations among all other human service professionals. Certified Addiction Counselors had a 12.4% higher rate of ethical violations compared to Licensed Social Workers, a 17.1% higher rate than Licensed Psychologist, an 18.8% higher rate than Licensed Professional Counselors, and a 26.3% higher rate than Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. Second, 84.6% of all ethical violations for substance abuse treatment professionals were for dual relationships and exploitation of patients, this includes sexual relationships with a current or former patient. 46.2% of the ethical violations for certified Addiction Counselors

7 from were for dual relationships and 38.4% were for exploitation of patients. There were a number of reasons presented for this variance. Among them included a clash of cultures, (Gallagher, 2008.) meaning that many addictions counselors are themselves in recovery and therefore are exposed to a number of behaviors that are considered inappropriate by those professionals not in recovery; which place them at greater risk for engaging in relationships that are beyond professional. These include more hugging at recovery meetings, greater self-disclosure (which can appeal to the emotional needs of those in recovery); along with exchanging phone numbers for support, (which also places people in greater jeopardy of engaging in personal, rather than professional, relationships. Later (Gallagher, 2010.) also makes the case that the field of addictions, historically, has been a profession that has not been uniform in terms of its educational requirements; and that it has only been in recent years that Licensure, along with greater academic and clinical internships and/or training have been mandated. This does not account, however, for the fact that other licensed professionals have their fair share of these types of ethical violations. A study done by the National Institute of Health (2007) examined ethical violations as grounds for membership expulsions made by the major counseling, psychology, and social work organizations in the United States over a 10-yr. period. The most common reason for expulsion was for violations under the category of dual relationships, particularly those of a sexual nature. This is also confirmed by a 2015 report from the Ohio Chemical Dependency Professionals board; while a much smaller sample, it showed that 20% of the ethical violations committed were for improper sexual contact or dual relationships of an inappropriate nature (OCDP ). Ethical violations of the most serious nature are committed by all professionals, even those who are entrusted with the added law enforcement ethical standards. Unethical acts are committed by employees in virtually every type of law enforcement endeavor. This is true even in the field of probation and parole, where employees are presumed to have one of the highest levels of education and job training (Souryal, 2006)

8 Probation and Parole officers have a lot of power over their clients by virtue of their position with the courts and parole authorities. They have a great deal of discretion in doing field work and are often in a position of doing personal things on work time. This can include shopping, taking care of personal business, visiting friends, lovers, etc. But these are the least of the types of violations that they can commit. Their relationships to their clients, social workers, professional counselors, community programs and other correctional workers are often based upon positions of authority and power. Also, probation and parole employees may engage in sexual deviance. One type of sexual deviance, for example, may include sexual harassment that occurs in the workplace. Recently, an Alaskan probation officer filed a lawsuit against his female superior alleging that she permitted a sexually charged, hostile work environment (Carroll, 2005). Probation and parole employees may also behave unethically by having sexual relationships with either their clients or their clients family members (Souryal, 2006) There are also cases of officers accused of having sex with people under supervision (Hammond, 2014.); and Officers who have used threats to force offenders to comply with subjective wishes.(pollock, 2016). The point that we are making in this introduction is that regardless of your education, level of training, position as a therapist or power and legal presentation, ethical violations occur on a regular basis. What we will want to explore is why! Are ethical violations due to lack of training and education, cultural insensitivity, a sense of entitlement and opportunity; or are they more associated with personal baggage and a lack of intrapersonal and other coping skills. In order to make this course reasonable in terms of content, we cannot explore, in any depth, the wide range of ethical principles that are cited in NASW Code of Ethics, (Reamer, 2006) or (Berton, 2014). In these works, Professional ethics in social work and counseling basically cover ten ethical principles: Client Welfare, Cultural Diversity, The Counseling Relationship, Proper Use of Written Clinical Material, Proper Use of Spoken Clinical Material, Responsibility, Competency, Workplace Standards, Professional Report and Societal Obligations. What we can do is explore some of the more complex ethical issues because of certain ambiguities and/or ambivalence on the part of the counselor.