Professional competence and ethical standards in mental health counseling

Mental health counselors must demonstrate the professional skills, practices, and knowledge necessary in demonstrating their core provider status in clinical mental health counseling field. This study looks at current professional issues that affect clinical mental health counselors.

Competence

All mental health counselors are charged with the responsibility of maintaining a high standard of professional competence as the industry's core provider status. This relates to the best interest of the profession and the public. They acknowledge the limits of their competencies and the boundaries of their expertise. Mental health counselors use techniques and provide services for which they are qualified by experience, education, and techniques. They maintain professional information and knowledge of relevant scientific as it pertains to the best practices in the service industry. Therefore, they have a responsibility, both to the individuals being served and to the organization within which they offer services to ensure the core provider status is maintained (Kraus, Stricker & Speyer, 2010).

Mental health counselors strive to uphold the highest level of professional services provided to the institution or organization in rendering the highest caliber of professional services. When they accept to be employed, mental health counselors have a signed agreement with the accepted best practices of the industry (American Mental Health Counselors Association, 2007). Despite the collaborative efforts, a mental health counselor cannot reach an agreement with the institution in terms of the best practices of behavior supporting the changes in organizational policy for their growth and development: the organization often considers terminating their contract. Ethical behavior among mental health counselors, professional associates, and non-mental health employees is expected as part of the core provider status. When information is obtained, which raises doubts about the ethical conduct of professional colleagues, mental health counselors are obligated to take action to try to rectify such a condition. This action will first sue the organization's channels and use procedures established by the American Psychological Association Licensure Board.

Professional Relationships

Mental health counselors must act with due respect for the feelings and needs of their peers in counseling and other professions. They are required to respect the obligations and prerogatives of the organizations or institutions with which they associate. This means they must understand how other professions complement their work and make maximum use of other technical, professional and administrative resources, which best serves the interests of patients. The lack of formal relationships with other professional employees does relieve mental health counselors from the obligation of ensuring that their clients receive appropriate professional services.

Evidently, this condition presents an obstacle to the professional competence of a mental health counselor, demanding peculiar sensitivity to issues outside their areas of the profession (American Mental Health Counselors Association, 2007). Therefore, they must demonstrate high levels of diligence, tact, and foresight in acquiring the professional assistance needed by patients. When mental health counselors engage in activities that violate ethical standards, they must, if possible try to rectify the situation. If mental health practitioners fail an informal solution, they are required to bring this unethical activity to the attention of the relevant bodies on ethics and professional conduct. The counselor will have to pursue the legal channels after considering all the professional alternatives.

Professional Responsibility

Because mental health counselors are committed to undertaking human behavior, they must value integrity and objectivity. As they provide their services, it is imperative to maintain the highest standards. The profession demands that they accept responsibility for the impacts of their work and invest desired efforts to ensure services are utilized appropriately. Practitioners assume full responsibility for choosing appropriate areas for evaluation and relevant methods to reduce the possibility that their findings will be misleading (Weinstein, 2009). This requires them to give thorough discussions regarding the limitations of their data and alternative hypothesis. This is critical when one works on issues relating to social policy or misconstrued to the detriment of sex, age, social, socioeconomic, or ethnic categories. When publishing findings of their work, they do not discard observations, which could modify the interpretation of findings.

Mental health practitioners are credited only for the work they have achieved. While pursuing research, practitioners confirm that their practices will not change the organization or individuals unless the changes are part of the contents of informed consent. Therefore, they must clarify in advance about the expectations of sharing and using research data. Because dual relationships tend to limit objectivity, this is something they ought to avoid. Dual relationships occur in terms of monetary, political, or theoretical. These factors can affect the validity of the data collected: mental health counselors must ensure milieu and subjects are kept to a minimum (Degges-White & Borzumato-Gainey, 2013).

Public Statements

Mental health counselors must make public statements in their professional roles by giving professional opinions or counseling information about the availability of their services or products. In making these statements, they take full accounts of the uncertainties and limits of present counseling techniques and knowledge. These statements reflect as objectively and accurately as possible, their professional expertise, qualifications, functions and affiliations, as well as those of the organizations or institutions with which the statements could be associated. All announcements of services, public statements, and promotional exercises must serve the purpose of offering adequate information to help the public consumer in making informed decisions and judgments on matters that concern it (Weinstein, 2009). When mental health counselors are announcing professional counseling services, they might explain or describe the services provided but might not evaluate their uniqueness of quality and will not allow testimony by implication. Otherwise, all public statements must maintain consistency the industry's Code of Ethics.

Private Practice

Professionals in mental health are obliged to help, where permitted by the best practices in the industry. These professionals have a duty to fulfill making counseling services available in both private and public settings. In advertising their services as private practitioners, mental health counselors are required to advertise their core provider status in a way that accurately informs the public about their expertise, services, techniques, and profession of counseling in a professional manner. Practitioners who hold an executive leadership position in the institution will not allow their name to be used in formal notices during the period when they are not involved in the private practice of mental health counseling (Madden, 2008). They ought to advertise the following: