Legal and Ethical Issues for Recertification

This 6-hour course will provide an update on legal and ethics issues, especially as they impact on clinical supervision. The course will also provide a macro-ethical perspective for the field, especially as it works in a managed care environment. 

Goals/Objectives

At the completion of this course participants will be able to: 

  • Describe the four key principles of medical ethics: autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice and fairness

  •  Identify at least three errors that occur in clinical and supervisory competence

  • Name at least three professional organizations involved in establishing standards for supervision and specify the standards for at least two of these organizations

  • Define non-maleficence and state two criteria for substandard performance

  • Define what a supervisor and counselor must know about informed consent and state at least three levels of informed consent

  • State the nature of “dangerous liaisons,” dual relationships in treatment and required action

  • Provide at least two studies concerning “breaking the faith,” dual relationships in counseling

  • Define how to set limits in clinical work

  • Define the legal criteria for negligence and malpractice

  • Differentiate between direct vs. vicarious liability, confidentiality vs. privilege

  • State the rules for protecting clients through client assignment and selection as well as the responsibilities of management

  • State what a supervisor must do in supervisee selection, as well as client screening and assignment to counselors

  • Define at least three key elements and content of a management and/or supervisory contract

  • Discuss recent court rulings requiring agencies to have a crisis management agreement

  • Define “adequate supervision”

  • Demonstrate skills in the use of the supervision tracking form and other documentation.


Your Course Instructor:
David Powell
Ph.D., LADC, CCS, LMFT

Dr. David J. Powell, Ph.D., LADC, CCS, LMFT is President of the Clinical Supervision Institute, a division of the International Center for Health Concerns, Inc (ICHC). He is most noted for his work in clinical supervision and management, having trained thousands of counselors, managers, supervisors, and directors since 1976. He is the author of five books, his latest, Clinical Supervision in Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counseling, which is the major text on the subject in the substance abuse field.

In addition to Dr. David Powell’s forty years of clinical experience and his masters and doctoral degrees in counseling and psychology, he also holds master’s degrees in medical ethics from Yale University, a master’s degree in pastoral counseling, and a master’s degree in Islamic studies. Thus, he is able to address ethical, legal and moral issue from the perspective of psychology, medicine, the law, and clinical pastoral care and counseling. 

He has attended courses in medical ethics at Harvard University, studying with faculty from the medical, law, and divinity schools. He has taught classes in ethics and counseling at Princeton and Yale. He has trained throughout the world in the areas of clinical supervision, management and ethics, including all 50 states and over 70 foreign nations. For further information concerning training by David Powell contact him at 860 653-4470, djpowell2@yahoo.com, or www.ichc-us.org.