Informed Consent, Confidentiality, and Duty to Warn With School Counselors

School counselor practices related to informed consent, confidentiality, and duty to warn and protect were examined and compared to the Revised Mississippi Educator Code of Ethics and Standards of Conduct (MECESC). A phenomenological approach was used to examine the experiences of school counselors and a documents review examined documents that addressed informed consent, confidentiality and duty to warn and protect. The results indicated that the documents review did not address both the ASCA Ethical Standards for School Counselors and the MECESC. The findings from the interviews with school counselors indicated that some of the participants addressed informed consent while others addressed parental consent. Practitioners might use these findings to identify ethical issues that school counselors encounter while attempting to comply with a state educator code of ethics.