Instructions
The Pastoral Counselor’s Identity and Ethics learning activity is experimental rather than authoritative in nature. In other words, you should develop this paper with the assumption that any future application will be the result of a collaborative effort (e.g., organization’s leadership). Professional or vocational identity and ethical boundaries are developed and maintained through meaningful connection with others. You will use course resources and search engines to complete the following:
- Concisely describe a research-based paradigm for ministerial (e.g., pastoral counselor) identity and ethical boundaries. The Identity and Ethics handout will be helpful in establishing professional boundaries for a biblically responsible vocational paradigm. If using cited material from the Identity and Ethics Handout (e.g., Trull & Carter), then use APA Manual/resources to create a citation from a secondary source. Do realize best research practice is to review originating source as it validates one’s veracity in research. Cite accordingly.
- Identify potential professional partnerships that would support your professional growth and development. Consideration should be given to a support group(s), local association of peers, referral network, and credible certification, licensure, agencies, and organizations. Concise partnership details should be given (i.e., What is the partnership? Where is the partnership located? What is required to be a member in good standing of the professional partnership?). The Identity and Ethics handout provides possible considerations for this expectation. Cite accordingly.
- Build a concise synthesis of issues to be addressed by an organization’s ethical guidelines. Kollar (2011, ch. 20), Johnson & Johnson (2014, ch. 8), and the Identity and Ethics handout provides resources to meet this expectation. Cite accordingly.
- Propose a pre-counseling package to collect pertinent care-seeker information and convey professional identity and ethical boundaries to care-seeker; place it in the appendix of the paper. The pre-session material will be branded according to a student’s actual or anticipated soul-care context and include the following non-clinical/church counseling forms: intake; informed consent including brief description of length/number of sessions, note-taking strategy, referral process, and confidentiality covenant; and ethical guidelines. See student sample in “Pastoral Counselor’s Identity and Ethics Handout.” Do not copy material from student sample, especially the pre-session package. Conduct original research to create your pastoral counselor’s identity and ethics material and the corresponding pre-session forms suitable for a church/ministry non-licensure context. Forms should identify your ministry site and be suitably prepared for immediate careseeker use. Cite accordingly.
- As an example of an ethical procedure, a background check will be conducted on the student before being approved to register for the new MA PACO program’s internship (PACO 699). A MAPC student should plan to engage the background check process at least one semester before PACO 699 is needed. Thus, as part of this paper, each student is required to acknowledge notification of this policy in the conclusion, even if he/she is not enrolled in the MA PACO degree.
With the exception of the pre-counseling package, an annotated outline may be used for items 1, 2, and 3. In addition to the 4–6-page annotated outline and appendix, a cover sheet, abstract, table of contents, introduction, conclusion, references, and required grading rubric are to be included. The paper should be submitted with the correct word file name (i.e., PACO500_CIEP_[StudentInitials]).
The Identity and Ethics Paper is due by 11:59 p.m. (ET) on Sunday of Module/Week
