Cutting-edge Ethical Challenges in Mental Health Counseling - Risk Management Strategies & Annual Meeting
By: Frederic G. Reamer, Ph.D.
Thursday, June 12, 2025
9:00 AM - 4:00 PM EST
(including our annual meeting from: 12PM - 1PM)
Location:
Derryfield Country Club
625 Mammoth Road
Manchester, NH
6 CEU Credits
Description: Throughout their careers, mental health counselors inevitably face challenging ethical dilemmas. Dr. Frederic Reamer will explore difficult ethical issues and practical strategies designed to protect clients and practitioners. The training will include challenging ethics cases and discuss practical steps that professionals can take to manage ethical issues skillfully. Key topics will include boundary issues, dual relationships, conflicts of interest, confidentiality, privileged communication, informed consent, clients’ rights, termination of services, documentation challenges, and impaired professionals. Dr. Reamer will highlight unique ethics and risk management challenges that have emerged due to the dramatic increase in practitioners’ use of technology, including artificial intelligence, to serve and communicate with clients. The training will include discussion of relevant ethics standards, statutes, regulations, and case law. Drawing on his experience as an expert witness and ethics consultant throughout the U.S., Dr. Reamer will share practical strategies designed to protect clients and prevent litigation and licensing board complaints.
Objectives: At the conclusion of this training, participants will be able to:
- Identify challenging ethical issues and dilemmas in behavioral health.
- Apply practical ethical decision-making frameworks and protocols.
- Identify ethical issues that pose malpractice and liability risks.
- Design strategies to protect clients and practitioners.
About the Presenter:
Frederic Reamer has been on the faculty of the School of Social Work, Rhode Island College since 1983. His teaching and research focus on professional ethics, criminal justice, mental health, health care, and public policy. Dr. Reamer received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and has served as a social worker in correctional and mental health settings. He chaired the national task force that wrote the Code of Ethics adopted by the National Association of Social Workers and served on the code revision task force. Dr. Reamer also chaired the national task force sponsored by NASW, the Association of Social Work Boards, Council on Social Work Education, and Clinical Social Work Association that developed standards governing social workers’ use of technology in professional practice. He has lectured nationally and internationally on social work and professional ethics, including in India, China, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and in various European nations. His books include Risk Management in the Behavioral Health Professions: A Practical Guide to Preventing Malpractice and Licensing-Board Complaints; The Philosophical Foundations of Social Work; Social Work Values and Ethics; Risk Management in Social Work; The Social Work Ethics Casebook; Ethical Standards in Social Work; Boundary Issues and Dual Relationships in the Human Services; Ethics and Risk Management in Online and Distance Social Work; Moral Distress and Injury in Human Services; Heinous Crime: Cases, Causes, and Consequences; On the Parole Board: Reflections on Crime, Punishment, Redemption, and Justice: and The Social Work Ethics Audit, among others. Dr. Reamer has served as an expert witness in many court and licensing board cases throughout the United States. In 2016 Dr. Reamer was named a Social Work Pioneer by the National Association of Social Workers for his "commitment and dedication to the social work profession and to the improvement of social and human conditions at the local, state, national, and international levels."
NBCC: LICSW/L-MFT/LCMHC (Category 1) & Psychologist Category A (NH Alcohol & Drug Abuse Counselors Association has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider. ACEP No 6754. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. NHADACA is solely responsible for all aspects of the program).
