Boundary Issues Paper Team A 335
Boundary Issues Team Paper
Drew Cornog, Daphney Robinson,
Erica McDaniels, Jeremy Sensenig
BSHS/335
March 29, 2015
Laura Cobb
Boundary Issues Paper
Professional boundaries are vital between the client and the Human Service professional. Setting limits in the beginning of the therapeutic process will ensure that the professional and client have established defining boundary lines. As professionals, we want our clients to feel a secure environment. Within this paper, our learning team will discuss and provide a variety of situations in which the professional and client have unknowingly or intentionally crossed these professional boundaries and, as a result, created ethical violations.
When providing services, human service professionals may encounter situations in which a client may offer goods or services as a means to enhance the relationship, pay for services, or as a custom of his or her cultural. In this scenario, the professional must consider how bartering may create an exploitive opportunity for both the client and professional, resulting in a potential ethical violation. For example, Sienna is a single mother of two young children of whom she has sole custody, as the father has chosen to pursue a career in his and Sienna's native country and has no communication or interaction with Sienna or the children. Sienna refused to return with the father and has since acquired a minimum-wage job at a hotel to support her and the children.
Sienna has established therapy sessions to learn to cope with her challenging circumstances at the expense of a coworker who agreed to pay for three months of therapy. Following the three months, Sienna expressed to the counselor that she has benefited from the therapy, in which the counselor agreed to continue visits with Sienna for a reduced fee; Sienna agreed to these terms. When Sienna arrived for her next visit, she gave the counselor a gift certificate for a free night at the hotel where she works, stating that the
Drew Cornog, Daphney Robinson,
Erica McDaniels, Jeremy Sensenig
BSHS/335
March 29, 2015
Laura Cobb
Boundary Issues Paper
Professional boundaries are vital between the client and the Human Service professional. Setting limits in the beginning of the therapeutic process will ensure that the professional and client have established defining boundary lines. As professionals, we want our clients to feel a secure environment. Within this paper, our learning team will discuss and provide a variety of situations in which the professional and client have unknowingly or intentionally crossed these professional boundaries and, as a result, created ethical violations.
When providing services, human service professionals may encounter situations in which a client may offer goods or services as a means to enhance the relationship, pay for services, or as a custom of his or her cultural. In this scenario, the professional must consider how bartering may create an exploitive opportunity for both the client and professional, resulting in a potential ethical violation. For example, Sienna is a single mother of two young children of whom she has sole custody, as the father has chosen to pursue a career in his and Sienna's native country and has no communication or interaction with Sienna or the children. Sienna refused to return with the father and has since acquired a minimum-wage job at a hotel to support her and the children.
Sienna has established therapy sessions to learn to cope with her challenging circumstances at the expense of a coworker who agreed to pay for three months of therapy. Following the three months, Sienna expressed to the counselor that she has benefited from the therapy, in which the counselor agreed to continue visits with Sienna for a reduced fee; Sienna agreed to these terms. When Sienna arrived for her next visit, she gave the counselor a gift certificate for a free night at the hotel where she works, stating that the