Summary: What Potential Legal Or Ethical Issues

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What potential legal or ethical issues are involved and who will be impacted by them?

Potential ethical concerns with the case of the 12-year-old boy include confidentiality, the student’s welfare, parental rights, and self-harm. Although there are laws prohibiting the use of inhalants in Hawaii, markers are not considered an inhalant unless they contain certain ingredients (State of Hawaii, n.d.). Both the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) and the American Counseling Association (ACA) discuss the importance of the student’s or client’s rights as being primary (ACA, 2014; ASCA, 2010). At the same time, both ethical standards also point out the importance of understanding the support networks that are salient to the student or client
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This would consist of the counselor letting the student know that she would have to inform his parents so that the student could gain extra support. Additionally, because the counselor is not a medical doctor the parents would be able to take the student to the doctor if they felt it necessary. The counselor could continue to work with the student at school, but also provide the family with resources such as a list of psychologists in the community or outreach programs for youth. A consequence of these actions may be that the student no longer trusts the counselor, however, the counselor could work with the student to tell the parents together so as to keep the counseling relationship better intact. Another possible course of action would be to not inform the parents right away and assess the student to see how many times he had done this in the past, and continue to work with him at school. A possible consequence of this option is that the student would not have outside support. Additionally, if the student continued to harm himself and the counselor did not notify the parents the counselor could possibly be liable for the students’