L111

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L11 – Professional Boundaries
Monday, April 4, 2022 8:47 AM
Professional Boundaries
• While parental and extended family member team involvement is encouraged, it is
essential to keep professional boundaries in place
• A professional boundary is the defining line that helps to safeguard both the
service-provider and the service-recipient
• Adhering to professional boundaries helps to ensure that the most ethical and
quality service is being provided to the families we serve, and helps to keep the
best interests of the individual at the forefront
• While parental and extended family member team involvement is encouraged, it is
essential to keep professional boundaries in place
• A professional boundary is the defining line that helps to safeguard both the
service-provider and the service-recipient
• Adhering to professional boundaries helps to ensure that the most ethical and
quality service is being provided to the families we serve, and helps to keep the
best interests of the individual at the forefront
BACB Core Ethical Principles
1. Benefit Others
○ Protecting the welfare and rights of other individuals with whom they interact
in a professional capacity
○ Focusing on the short- and long-term effects of their professional activities
○ Actively identifying and addressing the potential negative impacts of their
own physical and mental health on their professional activities
○ Actively identifying and addressing factors (e.g., personal, financial,
institutional, political, religious, cultural) that might lead to conflicts of
interest, misuse of their position, or negative impacts on their professional
activities
○ Effectively and respectfully collaborating with others in the best interest of
those with whom they work and always placing clients’ interests first
2. Treat others with compassion, dignity and respect
○ Treating others equitably, regardless of factors such as age, disability,
ethnicity, gender expression/identity, immigration status, marital/
relationship status, national origin, race, religion, sexual orientation,
socioeconomic status, or any other basis proscribed by law
○ Respecting and actively promoting clients’ self-determination to the best of
their abilities, particularly when providing services to vulnerable populations o
○ Acknowledging that personal choice in service delivery is important by
providing clients and stakeholders with needed information to make informed
choices about services
3. Behave with Integrity
○ Holding themselves accountable for their work and the work of their
supervisees and trainees, and correcting errors in a timely manner
○ Behaving in an honest and trustworthy manner
○ Not misrepresenting themselves, misrepresenting their work or others’ work,
or engaging in fraud
○ Respectfully educating others about the ethics requirements of behavior
analysts and the mechanisms for addressing professional misconduct
4. Ensure your Competence
○ Remaining knowledgeable and current about interventions (including
pseudoscience) that may exist in their practice areas and pose a risk of harm
to clients
○ Working to continually increase their knowledge and skills related to cultural
responsiveness and service delivery to diverse groups
○ Remaining current and increasing their knowledge of best practices and
advances in ABA and participating in professional development activities
What Guides other professional's conduct?
• SLP, OT, PT, teacher, physician, social worker, child life specialist
Professional DO’s
✔ Define the scope of your responsibilities and review this on occasion with the family.
(1.04)
✔ Engage in professional development activities to acquire knowledge and skills related
to cultural responsiveness and diversity. evaluate their own biases and ability to address
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the needs of individuals with diverse needs/ backgrounds (e.g., age, disability, ethnicity,
gender expression/identity, immigration status, marital/relationship status, national
origin, race, religion, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status). (1.07)
✔ Be aware of how your personal biases or challenges (e.g., mental or physical health
conditions; legal, financial, marital/relationship challenges) may interfere with the
effectiveness of your work (1.10)
✔ provide services that are conceptually consistent with behavioral principles, based on
scientific evidence, and designed to maximize desired outcomes for and protect all
clients, stakeholders, supervisees, trainees, and research participants from harm. (2.01)
✔ the scope of confidentiality includes service delivery (e.g., live, teleservices, recorded
sessions); documentation and data; and verbal, written, or electronic communication
(2.03) ✔ Behavior analysts make appropriate efforts to involve clients and relevant
stakeholders throughout the service relationship, including selecting goals, selecting and
designing assessments and behavior-change interventions, and conducting continual
progress monitoring (2.09).
✔ behavior analysts select and design assessments and interventions that are
conceptually consistent with behavioral principles; that are based on scientific evidence;
and that best meet the diverse needs, context, and resources of the client and
stakeholders (2.13; 2.14) ✔ Behavior analysts actively identify and address
environmental conditions (e.g., the behavior of others, hazards to the client or staff,
disruptions) that may interfere with or prevent service delivery. (2.19)
✔ Consider your dress, which should be kept professional at all times
✔ Watch your language, which should be kept professional at all times
✔ Watch what behaviors you model during any sessions
✔ Keep your work and involvement with the family about the client, and not about you
✔ Ask for advice or help if you have concerns about your professional behavior
✔ Watch for signs of burn out and countertransference (overly emotional involvement
with a client/family)
✔ Practice good self-care and stress management techniques
Ask yourself these questions on occasion:
1. “Is my behavior different with this particular client/family than with others?” – if
so, you may want to seek professional supervision to explore why the service you
offer a family is different than the rest
2. “Would I do or say this with a colleague or supervisor present?” – if you would not,
reflect on why you are behaving differently around a family
3. “Am I keeping professional secrets?” – this is a potential red flag for boundary
issues and/or unethical, unprofessional practice
4. “Has the reason I’m involved with family changed?” – if it has, you may want to
seek professional supervision to explore this
Professional DO NOT’S
• Share personal information about yourself with the members of the family you are
supporting and providing service to
• Share personal information about your peers/co-workers with the members of the
family you are supporting and providing service to
• Offer opinions or advice on matters which you are not qualified to comment on
(for example a family’s financial worries or their marital issues). Remember the
scope of your expertise and to suggest other agency support for such matters
• Offer to provide babysitting/respite services either to the child with ASD, or their
sibling(s). Remember to keep the scope of your responsibilities clear with all team
members
• Accept personal invitations from families – as tempting and as kind as they may
be!
• Make Promises
• Give professional advice when you don’t have a specific clinical relationship with
that individual (i.e. avoid being asked to make an assessment, or give programming
suggestions, for a child who is suspected of having ASD who you do not work
with/support)
• Discuss work-related issues in non-professional settings (i.e. with team members at
your local coffee shop)
• Make commitments or promises that you cannot follow through on
• Engage in dual relationships
Professional, with Compassion (EMPATHY)
(Reiss & Kraft-Todd (2014))
• Eye Contact
• Muscles of Facial Expression
• Posture
• Affect
• Tone of Voice
• Hearing the whole client
• Your response
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Burnout and Professional Boundaries
• The work you do in this field will provide you with multiple professional rewards
and feelings of professional satisfaction, however, there will undoubtedly be
challenges along your path of working with individuals with autism, their families
and the teams that support them
• Paying extra attention to signs of burnout and unprofessional conduct must
become an essential part of your self-reflection and self-care in the field
• Figley (2002) states that there is a cost to caring for others.
• He states: “burnout is a result of frustration, powerlessness, and inability to
achieve work goals. It is characterized by some psychophysiological arousal
symptoms including sleep disturbance, headaches, irritability, and aggression, yet
also physical and mental exhaustion. Other symptoms include callousness,
pessimism, cynicism, problems in work relationships, and falling off of work
performance. Burnout can result from the noxious nature of work stressors
themselves or from hierarchical pressures, constraints, and lack of understanding”
(pg.19)
What can this Really Look Like?
• Being sarcastic in meetings
• Talking poorly about a family
• Continuing to think about your clients in the evenings, before bed, in the middle of
the night
• Checking your work emails or replying to work emails outside of work hours
• Lack of caring
• Consistent venting
• Slipping confidential information
Burnout and Professional Boundaries
• When we find ourselves facing the signs and symptoms of professional burnout, we
are more at risk of heading down the slippery slope of crossing professional
boundaries and engaging in unethical practice.
• Seeking support, professional supervision and practicing good self-care are
essential responses when you are at risk of professional burnout.
Creating a Toolbox for Self-Care
• What you pack in your self-care toolbox will differ from the person next to you
• Having strategies in place for maintaining good physical and psychological health is
a wonderful preventative measure for ensuring you are at your professional best
• When you are concerned about professional burn out, or feel yourself
compromising the professional standards and boundaries by which you typically
work, it may be time to revisit your self-care toolbox and to take the time needed
to reflect on your personal and professional health
What’s in your toolbox?
• Finding a professional you can talk to
• Finding ways to recharge your batteries (exercise, reading, healthy diet, leisure
activities, time spent with friends)
• Getting enough sleep
• Taking some planned time off
• Developing interests outside of your work
• Identifying what is important to you
• Taking Breaks
Moving into the Field
• It’s your turn!
• What will you bring to the next team you work in?
• Make use of Appreciative Inquiry
• Use your ABA lens and scientific inquiry
• Remember that it is all about teamwork:
○ Understand and contribute to the organization’s goals
○ Understand and work within the culture of the group
○ Plan and make decisions with others and support the outcomes
○ Exercise “give and take” to achieve group results
○ Lead when appropriate, mobilizing the group for high performance
Your Resume is NOT your Defining Feature
• Your resume only provides a snapshot of who you are as a person
• You have to prove yourself beyond that!
○ What is your ability to learn?
○ Be flexible?
○ Open to opportunities?
○ Open to discussion?
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