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 a minimum of three and a maximum of four students.

• Each team must have a faculty member who serves 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.

Essays will be scored based on five factors:  

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 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.

Sarah is a master’s student in the second year of her Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program and currently completing her internship at a local community mental health agency. One month ago, the agency has recently implemented new policies on using AI generated SOAP notes which states, “All clinicians should be using AI assist when completing SOAP notes for the purposes of time management and streamlining clinical documentation. All non-licensed clinicians, including students, must have their SOAP notes reviewed and approved by their supervisor before signing the note.” During the University group supervision, Sarah has not shared the site’s new AI SOAP note policy with her Faculty/University Supervisor, Dr. Smith. 

Since the new policy was implemented, Sarah has seen several clients and completed multiple AI-generated SOAP notes as required by the site’s policy. Her internship supervisor, Kate, has regularly reviewed Sarah’s notes and provided feedback where needed. There have been no reported concerns presented during their weekly supervision meetings. 

Recently, one of Sarah’s clients filed a complaint with the agency against Sarah stating that there was false information provided in the clinical notes written by Sarah. The agency Director, Dr. Magee, conducted an internal audit of the client’s notes and session transcripts and found that the notes contained an inaccurate diagnosis that did not match the client’s described symptoms or diagnostic criteria for the diagnosis. Additionally, there were notes with information pertaining to experiences, symptoms, and behaviors that were not reported by the client or observed by the counselor in session. Dr. Magee found that the AI-generated note added language suggesting symptoms and behaviors that were not present in the transcript. Dr. Magee further noted that while Sarah’s supervisor reviewed the notes, they were not reviewed for accuracy before approving and signing the notes. This resulted in the inaccurate information presented in the client’s medical record and the subsequent client complaint. 

Dr. Magee reaches out to Kate, Sarah, and Dr. Smith to discuss the false information in the SOAP notes. Dr. Smith interjects into the conversation, expressing confusion on the situation and circumstances. Sarah shares that she did not tell Dr. Smith about the requirement of using AI-assisted SOAP notes, out of fear that her university would pull her from the internship site. She must now determine how to respond to the complaint, address the inaccurate clinical record, and evaluate whether she can ethically continue following the agency’s AI documentation policy.