Ethical Pitfalls: Where Clinicians are the Most Vulnerable

Judy C. Roberts, MA, LMHC

About the workshop

This workshop addresses seven aspects of mental health practice in which clinicians tend to be particularly vulnerable in terms of regulatory complaints or malpractice lawsuits. This workshop will clarify under what conditions that vulnerability might occur and include suggestions designed for minimizing one’s risk.

   • Failure to Identify Your Client and Your Role

   • Practicing ONLY in Areas Where You Have Expertise

   • Providing an Adequate Informed Consent

   • Failure to Obtain an Adequate Client History

   • Significance of a Treatment Plan

   • Identifying and Dealing with a Conflict of Interest

   • Termination v. Abandonment

Learning Objectives:

List at least five informative details that must be provided a potential new client to support that client in making an informed decision about beginning treatment with a specific clinician.

Describe how you might convey to members of a couple that you cannot decide whether they should stay together.

Name at least five elements of client history that should be discussed with a new client prior to assigning a mental health diagnosis.

Meets the 6 CEU Ethics and Legal requirement for Washington state.

About the presenter

Judy C. Roberts, MA, LMHC, received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Seattle Pacific College in 1968, and a Masters of Arts in Education (counseling) from Seattle University in 1989. She began her private practice in 1989 and currently works full time in her Seattle practice seeing individual adults, couples, older adolescents, and occasionally she does adjunctive family work.

Ms Roberts is a member of the American Mental Health Counselors Association and the Washington Mental Health Counselors Association. She has served as the ethics chair for both Seattle Counselors Association and the Washington Mental Health Counselors Association, was a member of the Dept of Health Licensed Counselor Advisory Committee for several years, and was a founding board member of the Washington State Coalition of Mental Health Professionals and Consumers, the Pro-bono Therapy Network for Sexual Abuse Survivors, and the Puget Sound Group Psychotherapy Network. Ms Roberts taught professional ethics & legal issues as an adjunct faculty member at Antioch University’s graduate psychology program in Seattle for many years, and has been teaching continuing education workshops focusing on professional ethics and legal issues for over ten years.

About the particulars

Location:

Shoreline Center

When: April 30th, 2010-Shoreline & May 14th, 2010-Yakima area (location to be announced soon)

Hours: 9:00am-4:30pm
Fee: $135.00 US
CEU info: 6 CEU's Cascadia Training is approved by the NASW, Washington State Chapter, to provide continuing education units to Licensed Social Workers, Mental Health Counselors and Marriage and Family Therapists. Certificates of Completion are awarded to attendees at the end of each workshop. Provider number #1975-118, and is an OSPI approved provider of in-service education. This is a "Washington State Approved Clock Hour Offering Workshop."