Graduate Student Ethics Awards for Master’s Degree 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.

Shannon is a graduate level counseling student enrolled in practicum at a community mental health agency. Shannon is in a state where there is an increasing rate of cases of COVID-19 infections and therefore the governor has instituted a number of policies, such as social distancing, mask mandates, and only essential activities being in person. This means the community mental health agency is required to limit in person activities to essential needs. Shannon is relieved to learn that her site and program are allowing her to work with clients remotely.

The site does not provide training regarding the chosen platform, simply telling their workers and interns that there is a how-to video on the company’s website. She quickly proceeds to engage her clients online in an effort to ensure she reaches the required number of direct hours for the semester. She soon encounters a number of issues. First, she shares a loft apartment with two other students. She does not have her own space and lacks privacy. On several occasions her roommates have entered while she is in session with a client. Additionally, she has “spotty” internet service in her area of town. This has resulted in dropped calls, freezes and other interruptions that have become a source of frustration for both her and her clients. Finally, Shannon has learned that she feels very uncomfortable doing counseling this way. It is very different from what she has practiced in roleplays. Due to not being at her site physically, she does not have any in-person support. While she does meet with her university faculty once a week for group supervision, she is expected to rely on her site supervisor for more clinical issues. However, all supervision is done virtually and she feels like her site supervisor is “distant” and they have missed a couple of their meetings together.