Boundary Decisions: New School Counselor

Boundary Decisions
School counselors must recognize that there are certain ethical codes they cannot depart from. Practicing within the boundaries of their professionalism, education, training, and supervision, will enable counselors to be accurate in their practices. ACA’s ethical code C.2.a., Herlihy & Corey (2015), p. 68, explains how counselors need to keep their boundaries of competence. A clear example of this practice is shown as follows.
María is a new school counselor, she is working at the local high school. The school is a medium size of 1,700 students, and has a culturally diverse population. María recognizes that she has very little knowledge of some cultural groups within the students, she decides to attend cultural events

and meetings that show needs and expectations of the groups. María also finds a local multicultural community organization to partner with to help her receive the knowledge she needs to counsel the student population at her school. As María becomes aware of her lack of multicultural competence, she abides by the ethical codes on becoming professional competent, and identifying boundaries in her practice. By acknowledging her lack of awareness of multicultural practice, María is abiding to ethical codes C.2.a, C.2.d, and C.2.e (Herlihy & Corey, 2015, p. 69).
Counselors need to be aware that having specific reasons to act during a session do not allow them to cross boundaries. Decisions to cross boundaries need to be aligned to the approaches of ethics. Thoughtful thinking about boundaries must be taken when it comes to decision-making. By abiding to boundaries, counselors are making every decision possible to ensure the wellbeing of the clients. Ethical awareness is a continuous process in which ethical codes and standards are critical when making ethical decisions (Pope & Keith-Spiegel, 2008).