Section F
Supervision, Training, and Teaching
Introduction
Counselor supervisors and educators aspire to foster meaningful and respectful professional relationships and to maintain appropriate boundaries with supervisees and students in both face-to-face and digital formats. They have theoretical and pedagogical foundations for their work; have knowledge of supervision models; and aim to be fair, accurate, and honest in their assessments of counselors, students, and supervisees. The term supervisor refers to administrative, counseling or clinical, and educational roles.
F.1. Counselor Supervision and Client Welfare
F.1.a. Client Welfare
Counseling supervisors monitor client welfare and supervisee performance and professional development. To fulfill these obligations, supervisors meet regularly with supervisees to review the supervisees’ work and help them become prepared to serve a range of diverse clients. Supervisors and supervisees have a responsibility to understand and follow the ACA Code of Ethics.
F.1.b. Counselor Qualifications
Counseling supervisors ensure that supervisees communicate their qualifications to render services to their clients.
F.1.c. Informed Consent and Client Rights
Supervisors make supervisees aware of client rights, including the protection of client privacy and confidentiality in the counseling relationship. Supervisees provide clients with professional disclosure information and inform them of how the supervision process influences the limits of confidentiality.
F.2. Counselor Supervision Competence
F.2.a. Supervisor Preparation
Prior to offering supervision services, counselors are trained in supervision models/theories, methods, and techniques. Counselors who offer supervision services regularly pursue continuing education activities, including both counseling and supervision topics and skills.
F.2.b. Supervision Models/Theories
Counselor supervisors are competent in their knowledge and practice of established supervision models/theories. Counselor supervisors ground their supervision in these models/theories.
F.2.c. Diversity in Supervision
Counseling supervisors engage in training specific to diversity and supervision, and are aware of and address the role of diversity in the supervisory relationship.
F.2.d. Digital Platforms of Supervision
Counselor supervisors are competent in the use of technology in supervision. Supervisors take necessary precautions to protect the confidentiality of all information transmitted through digital means.
F.3. Supervisory Relationship
F.3.a. Extending Conventional Supervisory Relationships
Counseling supervisors clearly define and maintain ethical professional, personal, and social relationships with their supervisees in in-person and digital platforms. Supervisors take appropriate professional precautions to ensure that risks and benefits of extending supervisory relationships are documented. In extending these boundaries, supervisors take appropriate professional precautions to ensure that judgment is not impaired and that no harm occurs.
F.3.b. Sexual Relationships
Sexual or romantic interactions or relationships with current supervisees are prohibited. This prohibition applies to both in-person and digital interactions or relationships.
F.3.c. Harassment
Counseling supervisors do not condone or subject supervisees to any form of harassment, as defined in the glossary.
F.3.d. Objectivity in Supervision Relationships
Supervisors are prohibited from engaging in supervisory relationships with individuals with whom they have an inability to remain objective.
F.4. Supervisor Responsibilities
F.4.a. Informed Consent for Supervision
Supervisors incorporate the principles of informed consent and participation into their supervision. Supervisors inform supervisees of the policies and procedures to which supervisors are to adhere and the mechanisms for due process appeal of individual supervisor actions. The issues unique to the use of distance supervision are to be included in the documentation.
F.4.b. Emergencies and Absences
Supervisors establish and communicate to supervisees procedures for contacting supervisors or, in their absence, alternative on-call supervisors to immediately assist in handling crises.
F.4.c. Standards for Supervisees
Supervisors make their supervisees aware of professional and ethical standards and legal responsibilities.
F.4.d. Documentation
Supervisors clearly communicate documentation requirements to supervisees. Supervisors and supervisees accurately document supervision-related activities. Supervisors document supervisees’ performance during the supervisory relationship in an ongoing, consistent, and timely manner.
F.4.e. Billing and Supervision
Supervisors and supervisees clearly document the role of supervisees in billing records. Supervisors ensure that billing practices clearly reflect the credentials of those providing counseling services. Supervisors clearly identify in writing the services that are provided by their supervisees and they accurately reflect their role(s) as supervisors in all billing records.
F.4.f. Exploitation
Supervisors shall not exploit supervisees and/or supervisees’ clients for personal gain. They do not enter into financial arrangements with supervisees that are deceptive or fraudulent.
F.4.g. Client Transfer
Upon completion of supervised experiences, supervisors provide clear guidelines to clients about the transfer of counseling services to another provider.
F.4.h. Termination of the Supervisory Relationship
Supervisors or post-master’s supervisees have the right to terminate the supervisory relationship with notice. Supervisors and post-master’s supervisees discuss the reasons for considering termination and both parties work to resolve differences. When the supervisor determines termination is warranted, supervisors make appropriate referrals to possible alternative supervisors.
F.5. Student and Supervisee Responsibilities
F.5.a. Ethical Responsibilities
Students and supervisees have a responsibility to understand and follow the ACA Code of Ethics. Students and supervisees have the same obligation to clients as those required of professional counselors.
F.5.b. Impairment
Students and supervisees monitor themselves for signs of physical, mental, or emotional impairment and refrain from offering or providing professional services when such impairment is likely to harm a client or others. They notify their faculty and/or supervisors and seek assistance for problems that reach the level of professional impairment, and, if necessary, they limit, suspend, or terminate their professional responsibilities until it is determined that they may safely resume their work.
F.5.c. Professional Disclosure
Supervisees make clients aware of who will have access to records of the counseling relationship and how these records will be stored, transmitted, or otherwise reviewed.
F.6. Counseling Supervision Evaluation, Remediation, and Endorsement
F.6.a. Evaluation
Supervisors document and provide supervisees with ongoing feedback regarding their performance and schedule periodic formal evaluative sessions throughout the supervisory relationship.
F.6.b. Gatekeeping
Through initial and ongoing evaluation, supervisors are aware of supervisee limitations that might impede performance. Supervisors seek consultation and document their decisions to dismiss or refer supervisees for assistance. They ensure that supervisees are aware of options available to them to address such decisions.
F.6.c. Supervisor Role as Evaluator
Supervisors document and discuss the professional roles and responsibilities of supervisors and supervisees in the supervision relationship, including the supervisor’s role as an evaluator.
F.6.d. Remediation
Supervisors assist supervisees in securing remedial assistance as needed. They recommend dismissal from training programs, applied counseling settings, and state or voluntary professional credentialing processes when those supervisees are unable to demonstrate that they can provide competent professional services to a range of clients. They document and discuss their reasons for recommending remediation or dismissal and discuss with their supervisees the reasons, goals, and requirements for remediation.
F.6.e. Counseling for Supervisees
Supervisors address interpersonal competencies only in terms of the impact of these issues on clients, the supervisory relationship, and professional functioning. If supervisees request counseling, the supervisor assists the supervisee in identifying appropriate services. Supervisors do not provide counseling services to supervisees.
F.6.f. Endorsements
Supervisors endorse supervisees for certification, licensure, employment, or completion of an academic or training program only when they believe that supervisees are qualified for the endorsement. Regardless of qualifications, supervisors do not endorse supervisees whom they believe to be impaired in any way that would interfere with the performance of the duties associated with the endorsement.
F.7. Administration
Supervisors may provide both clinical and nonclinical supervision that focuses on program management, program evaluation, and efficient use of resources.
F.7.a. Administrative Supervision
Counseling supervisors who provide clinical and administrative supervision define their roles and boundaries related to each area of supervision. Throughout supervision, they document and review their roles with supervisees to ensure that administrative and clinical supervision roles are clearly differentiated.
F.7.b. Organizational Practices
When faced with a conflict between the ACA Code of Ethics and organizational practices, supervisors define the conflict, make known their commitment to the ACA Code of Ethics, and make reasonable efforts to resolve the conflict while ensuring client welfare and adhering to ethical standards.
F.7.c. Advocacy for Client Welfare
Supervisors facilitate organizational practices that advocate client welfare and that avoid client harm. They understand that supervisors are ultimately responsible for client welfare.
F.7.d. Supervision Hours
Counseling supervisors discuss and document that administrative supervision does not substitute for clinical supervision hours to attain counselor licensure, unless otherwise allowed by licensure requirements.
F.7.e. Advocacy for Counseling Resources
Counselors who provide administrative supervision advocate for adequate resources to meet clinical and administrative supervision needs.
F.7.f. Continuing Education for Supervisees
Supervisors make efforts to provide current and relevant continuing education opportunities for supervisees.
F.7.g. Billing Practices
Supervisors ensure that billing practices clearly reflect the credentials of those providing counseling services. Supervisors clearly identify in writing the clinical services that are provided by their supervisees and they accurately reflect their role(s) as supervisors in all billing records.
F.8. Responsibilities of Counselor Educators
F.8.a. Counselor Educators
Counselor educators are knowledgeable regarding the ethical, legal, and regulatory aspects of the profession; are skilled in applying that knowledge; and make students and supervisees aware of their responsibilities. Counselor educators conduct in-person and digital training programs and experiences in an ethical manner and model professional behavior to students.
F.8.b. Counselor Educator Competence
Counselors who function as counselor educators or supervisors provide instruction within their areas of knowledge and competence and provide instruction based on current information and knowledge available, and best practices in the profession.
F.8.c. Infusing Diversity
Counselor educators integrate multiculturalism and diversity theories and best practices into all courses and workshops for the development of professional counselors.
F.8.d. Teaching Ethics
Throughout the program, counselor educators ensure that students are aware of the ethical responsibilities and standards of the profession and the ethical responsibilities of students to the profession. Counselor educators infuse ethical considerations throughout the curriculum.
F.8.e. Use of Case Examples
The use of client, student, or supervisee information for the purposes of case examples in a lecture or classroom setting is permissible only when (a) the client, student, or supervisee has reviewed the material and agreed to its presentation, or (b) the information has been sufficiently modified to obscure identity.
F.8.f. Student-to-Student Supervision and Instruction
Counselor educators supervise students who are leading experiential activities in in-person and digital delivery formats to ensure that the rights of the students they teach and supervise are not compromised.
F.8.g. Innovative Theories and Techniques
When counselor educators discuss, use, or teach developing or innovative techniques/procedures/modalities, they explain the potential risks, benefits, and ethical considerations of using such techniques/procedures/modalities.
F.8.h. Field Placements
Counselor educators provide clear policies and assistance within their training programs regarding appropriate field placement and other clinical experiences that meet the requirements of the program. Counselor educators provide clearly stated roles and responsibilities for the student or supervisee, the site supervisor, and the program supervisor. They confirm that site supervisors are qualified to provide supervision in the formats in which services are provided and inform site supervisors of their professional and ethical responsibilities in this role.
F.9. Student Welfare
F.9.a. Program Information and Orientation
Counselor education faculty provide prospective and current students with information about the counselor education program’s expectations relative to student/counselor development, professional dispositions, values and ethical principles of the profession, skill and knowledge acquisition expectations, program training goals and content, technology requirements, and gatekeeping and evaluation and dismissal policies.
F.9.b. Student Career Advising
Counselor educators provide career advisement for their students and make them aware of employment prospects and opportunities in the field.
F.9.c. Self-Growth Experiences
Counselor educators and supervisors inform students about self-growth experiences and expectations in the program, and that they have a right to decide what information they will share or withhold. Counselor educators follow ethical principles when they require students to engage in self-growth experiences.
F.9.d. Addressing Personal Concerns
Counselor educators may require students to address personal concerns that have the potential to affect their professional competency. Counselor educators inform students of gatekeeping and remediation/dismissal procedures at the onset of the program and the program’s expectations for addressing personal concerns.
F.10. Student Evaluation and Remediation
F.10.a. Evaluation of Students
Counselor educators clearly state to students, prior to and throughout the training program, gatekeeping procedures for evaluation, remediation, and dismissal from the program. Counselor educators inform students of the expectations for skill and knowledge competency and the methods and schedule of evaluation. Counselor educators provide students with ongoing feedback regarding their performance throughout the training program.
F.10.b. Limitations
Counselor educators have and follow clear gatekeeping, remediation, and dismissal policies for students who do not achieve expectations of counseling competencies. Counselor educators document student performance, gatekeeping processes, and student due process rights regarding remediation and dismissal decisions.
F.10.c. Counseling for Students
Counselor educators assist students in identifying appropriate counseling services if they request counseling, or if counseling services are suggested as part of a remediation process.
F.11. Roles and Relationships Between Counselor Educators and Students
F.11.a. Sexual or Romantic Relationships
Counselor educators are prohibited from sexual or romantic interactions or relationships with students currently enrolled in a counseling or related program. This prohibition applies to both in-person and digital interactions or relationships.
F.11.b. Harassment
Counselor educators do not condone or subject students to any form of harassment, as defined in the glossary.
F.11.c. Relationships with Former Students
Counselor educators are aware of the power differential in the relationship between faculty and students. Faculty members discuss with former students potential risks when they consider engaging in social, sexual, or other intimate relationships.
F.11.d. Nonacademic Relationships
Counselor educators avoid nonacademic relationships with students in which there is a risk of potential harm to the student or which may compromise the training experience or grades assigned. In addition, counselor educators do not accept any form of professional services, fees, commissions, reimbursement, or remuneration from a site for student or supervisor placement.
F.11.e. Counseling Services
Counselor educators do not serve as counselors to students currently enrolled in a counseling or related program.
F.11.f. Extending Educator-Student Boundaries
Counselor educators are aware of the power differential in the relationship between faculty and students. If they believe that a nonprofessional relationship with a student may be potentially beneficial to the student, they take precautions similar to those taken by counselors when working with clients. Counselor educators discuss with students the rationale for such interactions, the potential benefits and drawbacks, and the anticipated consequences for the student. Counselor educators clarify the specific nature and limitations of the additional role(s) they will have with the student prior to engaging in a nonprofessional relationship. Nonprofessional relationships with students should be time limited and/or context-specific and initiated with student consent.
F.12. Diversity Competence in Counselor Education and Training Programs
F.12.a. Faculty Diversity
Counselor educators are committed to recruiting and retaining a diverse faculty.
F.12.b. Student Diversity
Counselor educators demonstrate commitment to diversity competence by recognizing and valuing the diverse cultures and types of abilities that students bring to the training experience. Counselor educators provide appropriate accommodations that enhance and support diverse student well-being and academic performance.
F.12.c. Diversity Competence
Counselor educators actively infuse multicultural/diversity competency in their training and supervision practices. They actively train students to gain awareness, knowledge, and skills in the competencies of multicultural practice.