Eight ethical practice questions

I am a member of the US National Career Development Association, which has three regular publications: the web-based Career Convergence; a magazine called Career Developments, and a journal called The Career Development Quarterly. Both the volunteer-run Career Convergence and Career Developments have some regular columns with content from member contributors. One column I ensure I read in each issue of Career Developments is the "Ethics in a Nutshell" column, where a member will write a piece exploring some aspect of ethics in the career development profession.

Two relatively recent issues of the magazine had a couple of superbly practical ethical pieces which I felt together posed some great ethical questions. I thought I would accumulate them and share those questions here.

Firstly, some guiding questions which we practitioners can ask ourselves to help to stay ethically sound within our practice (Bucher, 2025):

1. Are my client’s ideas of success at the centre of the mahi we are doing? Or is it MY goals for the client we are focusing on?
2. "Have I created space for the client [to feel safe to] name their limits, constraints, and fears without judgment?" (now isn't that a powerful question to ask??)
3. Have we together explored the "structural barriers [our] client may face, and explored what support systems are (or are not) in place?" (there is nothing like a reality check)
4. Can I be sure that I am not in any way "pressuring the client into a version of transformation that may be costly, unsustainable, or unaligned?" (Bucher, 2025, p. 23)

As Bucher says, these are questions we must keep asking ourselves as we continue our work together, to ensure our client "remain[s] rooted in [our "unconditional positive regard",] care, advocacy, and humility (2025, p. 23; Rogers, 1957, p. 96).

And secondly, I found a check-list of guard rails for our practice. An article by LaFever was divided into sections which could be posed as practitioner questions to double-check whether our mahi is within our expertise; or whether we should host our client into a referral with a more experienced practitioner (2025). Those questions are:

1. Are there practice limits we must consider? Is our scope of practice being pushed too far? It is easy when we are career practitioners to have clients come to us who present as being well, but seeking work alternatives, that once we get further into a session, we begin to encounter what we think may be mental health issues. This is an area where - rather than doing good, or beneficence - we run the risk of inadvertently doing the client harm through our own ignorance (LaFever, 2025). Here we must refer on. 
2. Are there field experience limits we must consider? Is this client a type we have limited experience with or exposure to (LaFever, 2025)? For example, my private practice is centred on adult clients in mid-life; while I might see a school leaver client due to geographic scarcity, I would preface accepting an appointment booking by explaining that this was outside my normal field, and perhaps we could have a joint-discovery session; I would also not usually charge for such a session because we were learning together.
3. Have we had enough training to deliver a practice assessment tool which we think the client needs? For example, we may think Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, or CBT, will aid our client. We might have some CBT familiarity through reading; but do we really know the tool? We should probably refer on to an experienced practitioner. As LaFever says "competent professionals should have the skills to mitigate, manage, and minimize the risk of harm" and our "scope of practice and competence [must be supported] by professional training" (2025, p. 23) if we are to act as a true professional within our practice. However, in saying that, before referring on, we would explore CBT alongside our client, both as beginners, to determine whether the client feels the tool will suit them to lower the client's financial, sustainability and alignment risks with the referral.
4. How current are our skills in this area? When going to use a tool with a client, we should check when we last did some training. We should all be keeping a PD log, so should be able to check when we last did a refresher. It might be time for a brush-up before we use an old favourite. 

These eight questions are very useful to ask: even if we decide the session should go ahead. It is the thinking about these factors that allows us to minimise potential harm. 

Sam

References:

Bucher, J. (2025). Between Empowerment and Realism: Ethics in Supporting Career Mobility. Career Developments, 41(3), 22-23. https://associationdatabase.com/aws/NCDA/asset_manager/get_file/436612?ver=1427&tcs-token=c5d672670ffda7c9af250c94151f65ab7cc8f66578ef1b7f03a4fc33f7a58f82

LaFever, C. R. (2025). Competence Counts: Considering Ethical Scope of Practice. Career Developments, 41(4), 22-23. https://associationdatabase.com/aws/NCDA/asset_manager/get_file/436612?ver=1428&tcs-token=c5d672670ffda7c9af250c94151f65ab7cc8f66578ef1b7f03a4fc33f7a58f82

Rogers, C. R. (1957). The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality change. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 21(2), 95-103. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0045357