ACA Graduate Student Ethics Awards for Doctoral Students

• A counseling or counselor education program may have one team of doctoral degree students and one team of master's degree students in the competition.
• Doctoral degree and master's degree teams will be judged separately. Teams must be made up of students in the same level of a degree program. This is not a mixed-level competition.
• Counseling or counselor education programs with separate and distinct campuses may have a doctoral degree team representing each campus. Separate and distinct campuses are considered those that have stand-alone programs.
• A single counseling or counselor education program that has multiple satellite campuses is not eligible for multiple doctoral degree team submissions. (These campuses would have one dedicated representative in an accreditation process, representing the multiple satellite campuses.) 

• Teams are limited to a minimum of three and a maximum of four students. 

• Each team must have a faculty member who will serve as an administrative contact person for the counseling or counselor education program.
• The role of the faculty contact person is to represent the team’s counseling or counselor education program only.
• Faculty members should not act as consultants in the awards competition.
• The faculty member’s email address must be their own, not that of a student. 

1. Identification of the Dilemma: The team clearly identified the ethical dilemma(s) including conflicting factors, dimensions and variables included in the professional quandary. The dilemma was described in relationship to ethical standards, laws and professional ideas or aspirations.
2. Proposed Ethical Action: The proposed action the team would take including having: (a) clearly articulated professional interventions; (b) persuasive justification for proposed action; and (c) a description of the professionally recognized decision-making model or process used to arrive at decisions.
3. Use of the ACA Code of Ethics: The team cited appropriate sections of the ACA Code of Ethics (2014) and, if appropriate, other ethical guidelines considered in rendering their arguments. In addition, the team provided a clear rationale regarding selected sections of the 2014 ACA Code of Ethics and any other ethical guidelines cited.
4. Use of the Proposed Model: The steps of the group's decision-making model were clearly followed and skillfully applied to the case.
5. Overall: A thorough yet concise paper addressing details of the case and (a) the case study including proper citation of sources throughout the paper using the Publication manual of the American Psychological Association 7th edition for the reference list; (b) the paper was well organized and written, and information was presented clearly and concisely; (c) the paper cited the appropriate scholarly literature relevant to solving the ethical dilemma; and (d) the paper is no longer than 10 pages. 

Jordan is a doctoral student who is currently assigned as a teaching assistant for a MA level internship course. Jordan has developed excellent rapport with both the student interns and the supervising faculty member Dr. Smith.

During a class discussion on cases, a student, Chris, shares about their site and work with clients. Chris is at a site focused on Forensic Services; working with children as a court appointed counselor. Chris shares in class that he is working with a 9-year-old who is currently in custody of the county Children Services. The client was removed from the home due to potential neglect and has been with a foster family during the separation. His client is seeing him as they process the potential supervised visits and reunification with his birth mother, after having no contact for the last 6-months. Chris shares in class about his struggles navigating the complexities of bracketing his own feelings about the case as a former foster child, with his obligation to do right by his client who wants to get to see his birth mother again. Chris also shared that he struggles with what all to include in his reports to the court as he tries to balance confidentiality and his obligations as a court appointed counselor.

Jordan and Dr. Smith opened up feedback on the case to the class, however very few are able to respond other than offering validation that this case “sounds like a challenge.” Chris looks to Jordan and Dr. Smith for support following the student validation. Jordan begins by saying that Chris sounds to be “too emotional” about his ability to bracket his own experiences from his client’s experiences. He suggests that Chris start to journal following his sessions with the client in order to “get his feelings out.” He then continued by saying “although I do not work with kids, I think it is ridiculous that this kid can’t see his mom. Why does he need to go through supervised visits when they are already considering reunification? Additionally, I do not understand why you are considering anything other than absolute confidentiality.”

Chris became flustered and visibly distraught. He started to stammer as he attempted to respond to Jordan, but was only able to respond quietly with, “I don’t know.” Jordan dismissed the response and said “well if there is nothing more, let’s move to the next case.” The class, visibly unsure of how to move forward with the conversation, proceeds as instructed. After the dismissal of the class, Dr. Smith pulled Chris to the side. He begins to question Chris’ “unprofessional behavior” following Jordan’s feedback. Chris apologizes to Jordan and walks out of the room.