The matter of dual relationships is addressed in the social workers' code of ethics, http://www.socialworkers.org/pubs/code/code.asp, section 1.06c
Social workers should not engage in dual or multiple relationships with clients or former clients in which there is a risk of exploitation or potential harm to the client. In instances when dual or multiple relationships are unavoidable, social workers should take steps to protect clients and are responsible for setting clear, appropriate, and culturally sensitive boundaries. (Dual or multiple relationships occur when social workers relate to clients in more than one relationship, whether professional, social, or business. Dual or multiple relationships can occur simultaneously or consecutively.) ---- Yes, sounds like a bad idea to me too. Miguel -----Original Message----- From: Pollak, Edward [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 8:27 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: [tips] Staffing Student Counseling Centers This sounds like a really bad idea to me. I can only begin to imagine the difficulties that a classroom instructor, academic adviser. field experience supervisor, etc. (i.e., a social work or psychology professor) would have with so-called "dual relationships." See Bleiberg, J.R. & Baron, J. (2004). Entanglement in dual relationships in university counseling center, Journal of College Student Psychotherapy, 19 (1), 21-34. Ed Edward I. Pollak, Ph.D. Department of Psychology West Chester University of Pennsylvania http://mywebpages.comcast.net/epollak/home.htm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Husband, father, grandfather, biopsychologist, bluegrass fiddler and herpetoculturist...... in approximate order of importance. Subject: Staffing Student Counseling Centers From: "O'Dell, Cynthia D" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2007 10:42:54 -0400 X-Message-Number: 5 Our university is struggling with ways to increase the staffing at our Student Counseling Center. One suggestion has been to have members of the Social Work faculty rotate through the Center as Counselors for a course load reduction each semester. I suggested that there might be ethical issues if students are seeking counseling from faculty. I thought the traditional model had permanent staff who were not full-time faculty providing services. If faculty and graduate students are providing services I assume you would have a Counseling Center open to the public rather than a Student Counseling Center. However, I am not a clinical psychologist and so have not followed the literature or policies on this topic very well. So, any help would be appreciated. Suggestions of guidelines or literature as well as personal experiences would be appreciated. Thanks --- ---
