ACA Graduate Student Ethics Awards for Master's Students

• A counseling or counselor education program may have one team of master’s degree students and one team of doctoral degree students in the competition.
• Master’s degree and doctoral 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 master's 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 master’s degree team submissions. (These campuses would have one dedicated representative in an accreditation process, representing the multiple satellite campuses.)

• Teams are limited to having either a minimum of three students or 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.

The team essays will be scored in terms of five rubrics:

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 team proposed action it 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 included proper citation of sources throughout the paper using the Publication manual of the American Psychological Association 7^th 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.

Wayne has been living and working as a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in Tennessee for the past three years. Prior to living in Tennessee, Wayne lived in Michigan where he completed his master’s in counseling. After graduating with his master’s degree, Wayne worked in a private practice, which allowed him to accumulate enough supervised clinical hours to become a LPC in Michigan. To date, Wayne has maintained licenses in both states because he has thought about moving back to Michigan. His current practice in Tennessee is thriving. He has branded himself well and has done a good job marketing his practice on various websites including a reputable nationally known website. He sees clients both in-person and via telehealth.

Last month, Wayne received a call from Casey. On the intake form, Casey identified himself as a 19-year old, African American male who lives in Michigan. Casey found Wayne on a nationally known website where counselors typically advertise. Wayne maintained advertisements as a counselor for both Michigan and Tennessee. Because Casey preferred telehealth counseling, Wayne agreed to take on Casey as a client. In their first two virtual-sessions together, Casey told Wayne that he wanted to work on managing depressive episodes and bouts of anxiety. However, at the end of their most recent telecounseling session, which was the third session, Casey nervously announced to Wayne, “I have been struggling with something for a long time…. and ummm… think that I…. ummm…. may be… I think I …umm…may be trans…and would like you to….ugh…start calling me Cassie and want to try…mmm…to use she/they pronouns.” Because it was the end the session, Wayne said, “Well, we can talk about this at our next session.”

After the session, Wayne struggled with what he was going to do because he holds fairly conservative beliefs about LGBTQ+ issues, but really struggles to understand transgender issues. After about a week of processing and engaging in his own research about what he was going to do, at the next session, he informed Cassie, “I can longer work with you because your presenting issues conflict with my ‘sincerely held principles’ and according to Tennessee Law, I do not have to work with you.” With tears in her eyes, Cassie said, “But your online ad said you worked with LGBTQ+ issues.” Wayne replied, “That box must have gotten checked by mistake, and I am sorry about that.” Wayne kept the session rather short and recommended to Cassie that she go back to the website to find another counselor in her area. 

A few days later, Wayne received a call from a hospital in Michigan informing him that Cassie had attempted suicide and would be hospitalized for the next several days. Given that Wayne was the last clinician on record, the hospital sought his involvement and recommendations for Cassie’s future care.

Wayne feels stuck and unsure how to proceed.

Sample Ethical Standards Involved (Not Exhaustive):

• A.1.a. Primary Responsibility The primary responsibility of counselors is to respect the

  dignity and promote the welfare of clients

• A.2.c. Developmental and cultural sensitivity
• A.4.a. Avoiding Harm
• A.4.b Personal Values
• A.11.c. Appropriate termination
• A.11.d. Appropriate Transfer of Services Values within Termination and Referral
• A.12. Abandonment and Client Neglect
• C.5. Nondiscrimination
• I.1.a. Knowledge Counselors know and understand the ACA Code of Ethics and other applicable ethics codes from professional organizations or certification and licensure bodies of which they are members. Lack of knowledge or misunderstanding of an ethical responsibility is not a defense against a charge of unethical conduct
• I.1.c. Conflicts Between Ethics and Laws
• I.2.c. Consultation
• C.4.a. Accurate Representation (Relevant because counselor ad said they work with LGBTQ+ issues, when in fact counselor does not “Counselors… accurately describe…specialized training”).

Legal Issues:

• Client is a resident of MI, counselor using his MI license to see this client. However, Counselor who lives in Tennessee is using Tennessee law (SB 1556) to not see MI client.