Ethics in School Psychology

UNIT 1: ETHICS IN SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY

• The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) provides services to help children and youth succeed academically, socially, behaviorally, and emotionally.
• NASP provides direct educational and mental health services for children and youth
• NASP works in conjunction with parents, educators, and other professionals in order to create supportive learning and social environments for children.

Quality Control

• There are four sources of "quality control" that protect the rights and welfare of students and other recipients of school psychological services
• The first is the introduction to law that protects the rights of students and their parents within the school setting.
• The second source of quality control stems from educational law
• Credentialing of school psychologists is the third source - this ensures that psychologists meet specific qualifications before they are granted a legal sanction to practice
• Program Accreditation is the fourth - Accreditation entails the what and why of professional ethics, ethics training and competencies, American Psychological Association (APA).

Ethics

• Ethics refers to a system of principles of conduct that guide an individual's behavior
• It derives from "ethos", meaning character or custom.
• The term "ta ethika" was used by Plato and Aristotle to describe their studies of Greek values and ideals.
• A system of ethics develops within the context of a particular society or culture and is connected to social customs
• Ethics is composed of a range of acceptable (or unacceptable) social and personal behaviors, or basic rules of society.

Professional Ethics

• Moral rules differ from other aspects of ethics in being more important, fundamental, universal, rational, and objective
• The ethical duties are nonmaleficence, fidelity, beneficence, justice, and autonomy.
• Professional ethics consists of a combination of ethical principles and rules to guide the conduct of practitioners in their professional interactions.

Professionalism and Ethics

• Professionalization involves an occupation obtaining the exclusive right to perform a particular kind of work based on a claim of special competence and a concern for the quality of its work and benefits to society
• This includes controlling training criteria and access to the profession and determining/evaluating how the work is performed

Role of Professional Associations

• Professional associations promote the profession by publicizing services, safeguarding professional rights, attaining benefits for members, facilitating knowledge exchange/development, and promoting standards that enhance work quality.
• Professional associations educate the public/service recipients about expected professional conduct
• Professional codes of ethics provide guidelines for adjudicating complaints to ensure quality service
• Adherence to strong ethical codes helps maintain and enhance the public's trust in psychologists and in psychology as a field

Ethical Codes

• Ethical codes ensure that members of a profession deal justly with the public.
• Codes of ethics shows a profession's willingness to accept responsibility for defining appropriate conduct and self-regulation.
• Codes are drafted by committees within organizations and reflect association members' beliefs about appropriate conduct
• Codes protect the public by sensitizing professionals to ethical aspects of service delivery, educating practitioners about conduct parameters, and helping professionals monitor their own behavior.
• Ultimately, Codes of Ethics are designed to protect the public

Protecting the Public

• Conformity to professional codes, standards, and ethics codes are imperfect guides because, codes in psychology are broad/abstract and can be vague or ambiguous.
• Competing ethical principles may also arise in specific situations, and ethical guidelines sometimes conflict with the law
• An example of such conflict is a minor choose to participate, or refuse participation, in psychological services
• The codes are reactive, often failing to address new and emerging ethical issues: professional associations study existing codes relation to emerging issues
• Emphasis is given to practitioner competence in service delivery to diverse experiential, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds.
• Ethical codes provide guidance to professionals in their decision-making.

Ethics Training since the 1970s

• Until the 1970s, applied psychology graduate programs rarely required formal coursework in professional ethics and was taught in context of supervised practica and internships.
• This approach limited student learning based on supervisor awareness/knowledge of ethical-legal issues and encountered situations
• Emerging competencies now include:
• Awareness of ethical components in work, recognizing that actions have real ethical consequences that can harm or help others
• Sound working knowledge of ethics codes, professional standards, and laws pertinent to service delivery
• Proactive rather than reactive stance in ethical thinking and conduct, anticipating/preventing problems
• Skilled analysis of ethical dimensions with a well-developed ability to reason about ethical issues
• Recognizing a system of ethical rules/ideals developing in a culture context and sensitivity to how personal values/standards may differ across groups
• Awareness of personal feelings/beliefs, recognizing how they influence decision-making
• Strive for excellence rather than meeting minimal obligations in ethics/law.
• Appreciation for the complexity/ambiguity of ethical decisions, acknowledging there may be multiple appropriate courses of action
• Personal strength to act on decisions and accept responsibility.

Stage Model

• This is the process by which practitioners progress through five levels:
• Level #1 Novice practitioners are rule-bound, and slow to make decisions
• Level #2 Advanced Beginners - can identify multiple aspects of a complex situation, but still focus on technical mastery
• Level #3 Competent practitioners can identify key elements, see relationships, recognize subtle differences, balance skills/empathy, and consider long-term effects.
• Level #4 Proficient practitioners recognize situational patterns/subtle differences quickly and prioritize elements effortlessly.
• Level #5 Expert practitioners rely on past decisions, base decisions on subtle distinction, and often have intuitive understanding. Experts require early supervised practice with deliberate practice over 10 years.

Important Considerations for Internships

• Supervised field experiences provides students with an important opportunities to apply their knowledge to real-world situations
• Internships are the prime time to develop ethical frameworks that will be useful throughout a professional career
• Field and university-based supervisors have special obligation to model sound ethical-legal decision making and to monitor, assist, and support practitioners in real-world challenges
• Clinical and counseling interns who received formal ethics training are better able to identify ethical issues
• Students who had taken an ethics course and completed more years of graduate study felt more prepared to deal with ethical issues
• Student ratings of preparedness to deal with ethical issues were positively associated with the hours of supervised practicum completed.

Professional Behavior

• Professional codes of ethics apply only to psychologists' activities in their scientific, educational, and professional roles
• Ethics codes obligate school psychologists to not diminish the professional credibility/effectiveness
• School psychology practitioners/trainees should be mindful of boundaries between private/professional lives in cyberspace
• Inappropriate posts on social networking sites can result in trust loss and impaired effectiveness
• Inappropriate posts can threaten job standing or justify dismissal.

FOUR BROAD ETHICAL PRINCIPLES

• Respect for the Dignity of Persons
  • School Psychologists apply professional expertise to improve the quality of life for students, families, and school communities.
  • The general principle of respect for the dignity of all persons encompasses respect for Autonomy, Privacy, and Justice.
  • They must have the opportunity to have self-determination, and "a voice and a choice" in decisions that affect them.
  • School psychologists seek an adult's informed consent (parent or guardian) of choice to choose or decline any services offered.
  • School psychologists should avoid undue invasion of privacy of clients, respecting the right of persons and efforts to avoid storing any private information. Respect encompasses fairness, nondiscrimination, and justice, by using expertise to cultivate school climates.
• Responsible Caring - Responsible caring means that psychologists engage in actions that are likely to benefit clients, and use scientific knowledge to help others make choices and accept responsibility for work - Competent psychologists must integrate knowledge and skills with client understanding, making appropriate the client with the NASP code of ethics.
• Honesty and integrity in professional relationships
  • Honesty and maintaining integrity helps build and maintain trust, by demonstrating integrity and fidelity
  • Practitioners remain faithful to the truth in their professional duties from level, experience, training, and the boundaries of competence Multiple relationships occur when a psychologist is in a professional role with a client + relationship with someone associated with the client.
• Responsibility to Schools, Families, Communities, the Profession and Society Psychologists are ethically obligated to to contributing knowledge of education to improve services for human welfare.

Eight Step problem-solving model

• Ethical problem solving includes implementation of a systematic strategy that allows the practitioner to describe how a decision was made for protection
• Describe the parameters of the situation, define the issues involved, consult guidelines and policies, evaluate the welfare of all
• Provide alternative decisions possible for each issue, evaluate the consequences, consider benefits, and make an informed ethical decision.

UNIT 3 - CONSENT OF MINORS FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL SERVICES

Consent of Minors

• Courts and legislators generally see minors as developmentally incompetent to make sound decisions about psychological services needed.
• Minors granted access to medical care without parental consent in emergencies, and most states allow minors access to treatment independent of parent notice or consent.
• Minors are not legally competent to consent to or refuse psychological services in schools, it is ethically obligated to respect the dignity, autonomy, and self-determination of clients with Assent
• Assent is a minor's affirmative agreement to participate in psychological services.

Minors and Capacity

• Standards used to determine whether client is competent to provide consent to treatment involves four standards of competency
  • Expression of preference relative to treatment
  • Choice is reasonable as a person might make
  • Follow a reasonable decision based process
  • Demonstrate factual understanding of probable consequences
• Child's capacity to participate in treatment decisions depends on multiple factors including, cognitive and social development, prior decision making, and complexity of situations. For example children ages 6-11 do not have adults-level decision making but can still have judgment.
• Between ages 11-14 transition and ability makes variations in voluntary choices with Authority of understanding
• Minors age 14 have reasoning capabilities to adults for treatments effectively
• A child's participation may motivate treatment, an increase of sense for personal resonsibility
• Ethical issues of choice-making for children weigh (ethics vs right), child competence, and choices

Choices for Services

• Recognize children's' limited knowledge about services
• Practitioner to ensure when understood, inform before the "assent"choice. Ethical when direct benefit, to respect refusal to it to services offered.

Informed Consent and Notice

• Notice in regards to children's rights, means the school has supply information action not meeting requirements
• Consent- requires affirmative permission before actions, like describe the costs, scope, goals of the session Information is shared Consultation between instructors with clearity and purpose with consultation Psychologists also must ensure understanding with administrators in consultation, regarding confidentiality agreement.

Nondisclosure and Privileged Communication

• A legal right for a client prevents data disclose of third party in a confidences relation
• School psychologicals can divulge sensitive information that harm others
• Nondisclosure laws regulate delivery of health and health codes
• May be held responsible when :
  • Poses risk of danger of themselves or others
  • Mandatory reporting laws if law asked
  • A legal action or complaint against the mental health provider.

Record Keeping

• Maintained to a student, if abused can be identified in records with no permission of sharing
• Records can ascertain accuracy for procedures.

Parental Test Protocols

• Student's psychological is apart of students education protocols. With the legal access to inspect and review the students legal protection.

Digital Cloud Storage

• Schools collaborates with administrators and staff to work on policies to safeguard documents
• Data analyzes is designed to report performance pinpointing areas, students assistance
• Practitioners use personal cloud or portable devices for records for the digital.

UNIT 4: ETHICAL AND LEGAL ISSUES IN PSYCHOEDUCATIONAL ASSESSMENT

Legal and Ethical Considerations

• Minimum competency testing programs, formal testing programs, are used in decisions regarding aspects of student’s education
• Test development and technical soundness requires knowledge, procedure, and ways of accuracy score.
• Rights of test takers is the need for informed consent and how it will be used, what general instruments, findings and recommendations. Must be reasonable safeguards.

Testing vs Assessment

• Testing are tools
• Assessment is a broader more trained process with understanding lights of the student
• Codes apply with the ethical obligation for participation and children's decisions

Plan and Concerns

• Practitioners are ethically obligated to seek consent from the client, and plan with those decisions
  • Multifaceted has different learning and is based on information gathered. Consistent with ethical evaluation procedures and provides information from parental information. Should not be made without the right single test
  • Comprehensive assesses the child in all areas, impacts the child and if assessments are there for specific disability classification.
  • Fair schools strive to conduct fair assessment of cultural linguistis for those with disabilities.
  • Valid practice research based for the profession for those with responsible assessment.
  • Useful is to provide a the child's strengths, and inform for decisons for the future

Tests Practices

• Selects for profession practice and provide a basis for of the intended by selecting the the right tests for them
• In selecting for users, determine whether they measure, interpretation, reliability.

Reliability+Validity

• The consistency on the testing and through coefficient. It will refer to evidence for the score
• Translate for another for the adaptation and use.

Adequacy of Terms

• Are test performances for group of kids with disabilities
• Responsible for schools to evaluate
• A sample representative for the pop.

Gathering+Privacy+Conditions

• Ensure assessment procedure are run by qualified personal only with respect to student privacy. By only obtaining to the student being evaluated
• The testing is in best interest, but cannot be accurate from computers or equipment.

Security+Interpreation

• High research when inappropriately released
• The tests are maintained with ethical codes for the instruments by the psychologists.
• By school psychologists in the assessment to make them understood. To make useful of them to allow them to plan for interventions
• Reports also include writing recommendations for the process to assist children for instructional needs
• Discussions must focus on cultural, family values, so the student are able plan too. To take these things for students.

Nondiscriminatory Assessment

• Psychologists must help ensure the science of human welfare. By ethical assessment in culturally understanding and how that influence learning Information is gathered in family interviews and intervention.

Test Bias

• Based on questions for assessing an assessment with fairness, and evidence that a test cannot be used validly.

Clinical Applications

• Refers to fairness administrative and interoperation made with fair test and bias on performances for a minorities with the appropriate knowledge.

Conduct Applications

• Appraised by ethical that biased tests result in ethnic minorities.

Personality Assessment

1 There is a long debate that they cause unwarranted information 2 Are the professional tests a form of demonstrated validity. And that testing is safe and that users qualifications with disabilities or difficulties.

Professional Competence

• Must offer only boundaries and maintain the same methods. For proper understanding. Transform the tests for students, choices must made.

Computerized test

• What level will they use, the aid and what kind of general to work too.