Counseling Competence Case of Mark

Counseling Competence Case of Mark

Instructions:

You will read the case and use your EDM to work through the dilemma.  Be sure your response includes answers to the questions in addition to working through your EDM. These can be answered within your working through or in addition to.

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Discussion Board Prompt:

Mark recently opened up a practice in his town, a rural small town about an hour away from a larger metropolitan area. He transitioned from being a full time school counselor in the local high school where he had worked for 20 years. Although he has been licensed as a professional counselor since his state first began licensing counselors in 2008, he had not worked as a professional counselor since his post Masters hours were completed in 2002. Although he did not continue to practice, he did meet continuing education requirements necessary to keep his license active. His move to private practice was due to burnout in the school setting. He was one of three counselors, and the counselor to student ratio very high and autonomy in his position was very low since a new administrator took over three years ago.

Counseling Competence Case of Mark

As a private practitioner, he is still working to get himself approved by different insurance companies, but has begun advertising his services as a fee for service counselor with 20+ years of experience who has specialty in play therapy (he often used drawing and games with kids when he was a middle school counselor), substance abuse (many in the high school were impacted by substance abuse due to the highly rural location with not much for teens to do), and kids who struggle academically. He promotes himself as working with all mental health problems and with individuals from age 8 to 88. One of his first clients is a student he had worked with as a school counselor 7 years ago. RW was one of his assigned students and was seen twice per year for scheduling. RW is requesting services due to depression, anxiety, and recent trauma in a romantic relationship.

Counseling Competence Case of Mark

Working through your ethical decision-making model of choice, what ethical concerns do you see here, are there any legal issues? What specifically related to competence should we be concerned with? If you were another counselor in the community or his former colleague from the school, how or would you address your concerns to Mark? What guidance would you give him and at what point and what factors would you consider before you shared your concerns with the licensure board?

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Mental Health Counselor Sections Only: Mark referred students to your practice regularly while he was a school counselor. Your practice is doing well, and you often have a long wait list. Would you refer to Mark, why or why not, please be sure to address competence in addition to other factors?