Educators and Other Professionals

Professional counselors, including counselors, psychologists, and social workers, have worked very closely with other educators in a number of settings, including K-12 schooling, community mental health, and higher education.

While collaboration with teaching-and-learning specialists is a vital role of the professional counselor, the manner in which these two professions have used electronic resources on the Internet has been shaped by various forces:

1. Size of profession. The number of practicing counselors is far smaller than the number of teachers.
2. Availability of funding. Federal and state funding sources for counseling services in both public health and education tend to fluctuate.
3. Institutional specialization. Educational institutions that employ counselors may not have the resources to develop tools and trainings for counselors employed there. Other programs such as Reading may naturally have higher fiscal priority.
4. Presence on the web. Thousands of web sites serve the curricular needs of teachers (e.g., as listed on SitesForTeachers.com). Other high-quality sites focus on professional interaction (e.g., EduSpaces) or online content management (e.g., PB Wiki). Survey sites as SurveyMonkey and Zoomerang are friendly to education and general-purpose business needs, while excellent, open-source "enterprise" products such as VT Survey and Moodle can be downloaded and installed on a school disrict or university server. While the existence of free web sites can be applauded, due to their nature these services may be less utilized by counselors.
5. Ethical uniqueness. The Code of Ethics (2005) of the American Counseling Association (ACA) acknowledges the possibility that clients may unintentionally be harmed as a result of the counseling relationship.

   Naturally, no educator wants her students to be harmed. The ACA Ethics shares much in common with the highest ideals of all educators, such as the philosophy embodied in the National Education Association (NEA) Code of Ethics. However, the description of professional practice is quite different for counselors. The ACA Ethics prescribes a number of very specific behaviors, among others regarding:

   • confidentiality and privacy
   • informed consent for treatment
   • accuracy of advertising
   • appropriate use computer technology when serving the public

   Because of the specialization required in developing web site services which acknowledge a specific code of ethics, it would be difficult to offer support for other types of educators using the same web site.

Policy for Other Professionals

At this time there are no restrictions as to which professionals can request an account on CounselingTechnology.net, under the condition that:

• You must provide your full name
• You must state the name of your work setting or educational institution

Some limitations will apply as to usage. All activity on this web site must conform to the ACA Code of Ethics, which requires counselors to take certain precautions when involving the public in research. Some research questions may be inherently unethical, while other types of research also may be subject to the Code of Fair Testing Practices in Education. These are complex issues and consultation with peers is encouraged.

When members of the public receive a link to a survey on CounselingTechnology.net, they reasonably are entitled to expect the survey has been prepared by a professional counselor who is responsible for its content. Therefore, members of professions other than counseling are asked not to distribute surveys using this site, except when working with a counselor who acknowledges the ACA Code of Ethics. Please also consider this within the context of limited funding for this free web site. Other free online surveys may be located as an alternative.

Use of the survey engine for demonstration or trial purposes (i.e., to see how it works) is permitted, provided that surveys are not distributed to the general public.