Projecting a Positive Image
The increasing availability of play, creative arts and filial therapies
means that most practitioners have other practitioners working in their
locality, or may be working closely with colleagues within specialised or
multidisciplinary teams. The quality of the interactions between
practitioners can enhance or undermine the claim that play and creative arts
therapies enable clients to increase their insight and expertise in personal
relationships. This is particularly true for practitioners who work in
agencies or teams.
Issues that need to be taken into account are:
Professional relationships should be conducted in a spirit of mutual
respect. Practitioners should endeavour to attain good working relationships
and systems of communication that enhance services to clients at all times.
It is essential to respect members of other professional bodies working in
related fields. It is not ethical to make overt or implied derogatory
remarks about other organisations, methods of training or about the
professionalism of their members unless they are founded on evidence and the
practitioner is willing to justify them.
Practitioners should treat all colleagues fairly and foster equality of
opportunity.
They should not allow their professional relationships with colleagues to
be prejudiced by their own personal views about a colleague's lifestyle,
gender, age, disability, race, sexual orientation, beliefs or culture. It is
unacceptable and unethical to discriminate against colleagues on any of
these grounds.
Practitioners must not undermine a colleague's relationships with
clients, carers, referrers or commissioners by making unjustified or
unsustainable comments.
All communications between colleagues about clients should be on a
professional basis and thus purposeful, respectful and consistent with the
management of confidences as declared to clients.
The practitioner is responsible for learning about and taking account of
the different protocols, conventions and customs that can pertain to
different working contexts and cultures.
All routine referrals to colleagues and other services should be
discussed with the carer and if at all feasible with the client in advance
and the carer’s and/or client's consent obtained both to making the referral
and also to disclosing information to accompany the referral. Reasonable
care should be taken to ensure that:
- the recipient of the referral is able to provide the required service
- any confidential information disclosed during the referral process will be adequately protected;
- the referral will be likely to benefit the client.
Prior to accepting a referral the practitioner should give careful
consideration to:
- the appropriateness of the referral;
- the likelihood that the referral will be beneficial to the client;
- the adequacy of the carer/client's consent for the referral.
If the referrer is professionally required to retain overall
responsibility for the work with the client, it is considered to be
professionally appropriate to provide the referrer with brief progress
reports. Such reports should be made in consultation with clients and carers
and not normally against their explicit wishes.
Back to Introduction to the Ethical Framework
