 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. Welcome to Think Tech Hawaii. I'm Cynthia Lee Sinclair and this is Finding Respect in the Chaos. I'm so glad you've joined us today. Today's episode is entitled Teaching Ethics to Counselor. We know that ethical behavior, the definition of ethical behavior in all fields is changing almost daily here. We have this whole new surge of people coming out and telling their stories. Shame has sort of been removed from the whole paradigm so that victims are able to come forward now. And that's really changing the whole picture of things and how we deal with these important issues of abuse, of power. I'm here today with House Didger, Welcome How, thank you so much for coming. How is a licensed marriage and family therapist who is an instructor of ethics at Shyamalan University. And now with the way things are changing so rapidly, I'm so happy that you're here because I know I have a lot of questions on how this is all going to affect how we deal with these ethical situations and issues and what kind of consequences maybe are going to change. And I think maybe the general public has a lot of questions about that too. Not only that but the right to know. Yes, yes we have the right to know. Absolutely. That is exactly right. Why don't you give us a little bit of a small kind of history of what background is. I'm always willing to talk about what I've done. I started my career about 35 years ago working in California in residential treatment with teenagers. The field back in those days was staffed mostly by bachelor's level psych students and then supervised by graduate level students. The time that I was in San Diego was where I was in California. The time I was there I worked at several different programs. I spent seven years at a program called Rancho Park Residential Treatment Center and Hospital. It was a facility that dealt with teenagers, had about 60 teenagers that we took care of and I did that for seven years. At the end of that time I was promoted to administrative program director of that program after a series of promotions but that's where I ended up. Right about that time administration is something I could do but it's not my love treatment and hands-on approaches with clients is my real focus of what I like to do. Simultaneous to being an administrator in that program I started taking my graduate work towards becoming a marriage and family therapist. Three years later after a lot of night classes I graduated and then over a period of two years I interned with four or five different places in San Diego which qualified me then to sit for the license exam, passed the license exam which then qualified me to sit for the oral exam, passed the oral examination and then I became a licensed marriage and family therapist. Good job! Good job! And I'm sure you do a really great job at that too and now you are working at Samanod University as an instructor for ethics, right? Yes. Tell us a little bit about that. That's what I'm really interested in. I'm in a private practice so a lot of us in private practice do several things, right? So one of the things that I do is I'm an instructor at Samanod, I'm an ethics professor and so ethics is one of the first classes that graduate students take when they come in, usually it may be their first class even and so one of the things that I find with a lot of students is they come in wondering what is an ethics class? Is it going to be a philosophy class? Yeah, right. And so the very first night I straightened them out on that or I let them know and informed them that it's their right to know that really what an ethics class is for counseling is a very practical applicable class in how to run a safe effective practice that's going to do the very best that you can for your clients. When you say safe practice you mean for just the clients or I mean I guess what I'm looking for too is how do you teach them how they're supposed to behave and what kind of consequences there are when they misbehave, right? I think what absolutely and there are consequences, very serious consequences, malpractice, censure, loss of license, I'll go into a little detail about that later. But the first thing that we emphasize with our students and I think it's something that we emphasize throughout their entire graduate experience is self-awareness. All come students, counselors, all come to us with various levels of this is what my life experiences, this is what my cultural beliefs are and without a keen sense of self-awareness. In other words examining where you have developed your values and how they might either enhance or perhaps interfere with the counseling relationship. Things like projecting your own values, there's a term called encapsulation, okay, it's usually applied to cultural issues. If a counselor is culturally encapsulated it means that he's treating everyone that he sees, he or she is treating everyone that they see through their own cultural lens rather than the client's cultural lens, right? Oh gosh and that can't be effective. It's not, it's a one size fits all type of thing. And that doesn't ever work because everyone is so different and culture plays such a big part in how people deal with these kind of traumatic issues. Absolutely and especially here in Hawaii where we are so blessed to have so many cultures coming together. Exactly. Yeah and the other thing about culture is that you know I mean so a counselor can't possibly know all things about all cultures and even if they were to study in a book cultures then you have individual differences within the culture, right? So the solution just as a quick sideline here to that for counselors is to work with the client and get them to inform you about what their culture is and what their needs are. And so I actually say to my clients, listen as we're working if you hear me proposing something that you're thinking to yourself, gosh that doesn't fit my family, that doesn't fit who I am, then you have to let me know. Right, it's a good practice to have. So the solution is to enlist your client as your informant about their culture and certain cultures even if you do that they're still reticent to you know to what advise you on something they see you as a you know a lot of ascribed status, they see you as the leader and they're hesitant to suggest things to you so you have to kind of keep bringing it up. Remember in fact when you get a sense of that I am perhaps crossing into some cultural thing that I don't understand I'm seeing a little look on their face or something like that or just because of the situation we're talking about then it prompts me to bring it prompts me and counselors in general to bring up that statement again remember please inform me about it I'm missing. Well you know what you say it's interesting what you say about counselors having that power and clients thinking well they're the ones that have all the power and that leads to abuse of power in some cases I mean we know well not everybody knows but most people know now about the Kamehameha schools problem with Dr. Brown who over 100 people have come forward that he abused psychiatrist and he's a psychiatrist and so I guess what I really want to know is what kind of punishments what kind of consequences are involved besides just that I have sorry I need to go back a little bit I just learned that Senator Shimabukura and representative Ichiyama are introducing legislation that will make mandated reporters have it be a felony if they don't report if they know that there's some abuse going on and they don't report it then it's a felony right now I think it's a misdemeanor right and they're trying to make it a felony you're in jail thousand dollar fine I think is the maximum is that what it is yeah so that's just for the non-reporters but it's also you can lose your license there's also professional centers beyond the legal thing so something you've worked for half your life and gone in a second if you know it right absolutely wants to process has been followed well you know counselors are on the front line of all this stuff too so it's so important that that even they reexamine what the ethics limitations and what the ethics are for their behavior so that they can lead the way when all these other fields and we know okay it's already entertainment we know it's in the public you know political arena now we've got doctors and I think it's going to really spread actually since the very beginning of the me too movement I've been saying you watch it's going to be the medical field next and then you know and it's going to be rather I think it's going to be exactly throughout society as a whole and so we need to make these kind of changes I know that I've been watching the news and the girls that came forward against Dr. Nasser the gymnast and now it's taking another step forward and they're going after some of the Olympic Committee there's a number of them that have already resigned and they're calling for the resignation of others because these girls are coming out saying we told and these people are mandated reporters and you hear this over and over again yeah we told but nobody did anything we told nobody did anything because society unfortunately has this whole shame the victim role going on because it's easier to shame the victim so the victim doesn't want to say anything because they feel the shame but I think this me too movement is really sort of taking shame out of the picture so we're going to have more and more and more victims coming forward and the minute they come forward they become survivors instead of victims anymore I sure hope that that's what the outcome of this society wide change that we're going through right now I absolutely I've had interns who had positions working for the courts in the domestic violence programs where their job was to provide supportive counseling on a temporary basis to keep people engaged in the court process someone someone decided to press charges but I don't know the exact figures but there's a high level of they press charges at first but then as the process goes on as the trial goes on there's a certain percentage that drops out and everything gets left alone and not dealt with just recently one of my guests Catherine I cow was on and she was talking about that same exact thing with the legal system and what happens with it in my own experience with domestic violence and trying to go through the legal system and this is way back in the 80s when it was not popular at all to try to come forward there weren't really any resources especially in the legal field once you get into the court system it's almost as if they do everything they can to dissuade you from going forward with it I cannot disagree with that even to this day in some respects I think it's gotten a little bit better but I think that there are still plenty of things to stand in the way into just maybe not standing away but where the easier path of less resistance not the most healthy path right is to just drop it and get out of there right exactly which is a scary thought I know that Catherine was talking about the fact that you know they would just keep postponing it and postponing it and postponing it so by the time she had a witness to some of her abuse and by the time it actually came to the point where it was going to go to trial and it wasn't being postponed anymore she the witness was done coming to court I have moved all kinds of things yeah when that kind of time goes by and and that is what led to the tragedy of losing her son in the process had the courts been a little bit more on top of things and instead of sort of preferring that the abuser protecting the abusers rights without really protecting the victims rights and that's what makes it so that things keep going and going and going into tragedy so this is what we're trying to teach our counselors to recognize when this is happening right to intervene very early on you know as far as man as far as increasing the penalties for not reporting right now it's a it's a an ethical issue for counselors as well it's not just a legal issue like I said you were asking I mean you're asking about how people get censured well I mean they have the legal censors they have the professional censors in California they have a magazine when you're licensed you get a monthly magazine that comes in a marriage and family therapy magazine or something like that and right in the middle it's the first thing everybody goes to right in the middle is five or six pages of MFTs around the state of California who have gotten censured who have gotten in trouble there's your name there's what you did there's the decision of the board good they put it out there in the world who's in here who's in here you know talk about shaming and at least you know it's by the time they get to that point it's been due process and it's been proven and they're you know something that comes with the territory I guess right I know when I was dealing with my own abuse and and the stuff that my kids had gone through I went out and interviewed counselors because I recognize that they have so much power and I didn't want anybody when I was in that vulnerable state to be giving me bad advice you know and yeah we're taking advantage and I had this is the thing that surprised me so exactly taking advantage what surprised me was all these the attitude I would get from the counselors what do you mean you're interviewing me like a defensive attitude it's like I'll get back to you on this right and they're like what do you mean like well I'm gonna I've got three more people I'm gonna talk to and they're like what do you mean see that there's a process that we teach in counseling and it's something that's not new wait let's just talk about that when we come back okay I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt you but we need to come back in just a minute we're gonna take a break if you would please stay with us because we've got all the kinds of really important things to finish discussing so come back okay see you in a minute welcome to sister power I'm your host Sharon Thomas Yarbrough where we motivate educate and power and inspire all women we are live here every other Thursday at 4 p.m. and we welcome you to join us here at sister power aloha and thank you aloha my name is Mark Shklav I am the host of think tech Hawaii's law across the sea law across the sea comes on every other Monday at 11 a.m. please join us I like to bring in guests that talk about all types of things that come across the sea to Hawaii not just law love people ideas history please join us for law across the sea aloha welcome back to think tech Hawaii this is finding respect in the chaos and I am Cynthia the Sinclair and I am here with house digger who is a licensed marriage and family therapist we're talking about ethics in the counseling field and how important it is especially right now with all of the changing things that are happening in all the fields especially counseling being on the front lines of all of that but I know you've done a bunch of other stuff you were saying something right before the break and I stopped you but you were talking about how you were out interviewing counselors running into some defensive like they were okay so and this is not new this has been something that's been in the field for years but one of the most important concepts that we teach our ethics students our counseling students is the idea of informed consent which is that's informed consent and it's a client right okay so not only is it not the right response to say what are you asking me these questions for actually it is a counselor's responsibility and our counselors psychologists all the way up to the whole field to give access to their client to ask questions to know all about the counseling process to know what their rights are as far as confidentiality to know when when the relationship needs to be when confidentiality needs to be suspended because of a reporting issue or something like that before they open their mouths to say anything beyond hello it's a counselor's responsibility to make sure they understand those rights because if they don't then if they haven't done that then a client can say something that you might have to respond to by making a report and not be aware that that was going to be a result of what they said right so a client has the right to be absolutely informed about all of the parts of the counseling well and here I was you know asking them about their experience and asking about you know what they were supposed to do and all these things and I got this attitude from them that just really surprised me a good counselor is very proud to talk about those things and you would think so the good ones and I did find a good one so I was lucky if we had an hour we could just talk all about it because I want to get to I want to get to somebody you're doing with kids because I am a firm believer that instead of trying to retrain adults let's teach them when they're young so that we can really make some sustainable in regards to how people think about healthy relationships you know and not just when I say finding respect in the chaos sometimes we have chaos in our own lives and we have to find the respect for ourselves and then we said for other people and then respect for the world so if we can just find that respect first then then maybe we can start to establish it and all and I'm wonderfully said thanks I'm a firm believer in especially with kids so tell us about the Voyager school okay which you are a counselor at the Voyager I've been there for about 12 years and I'm a non it's a Voyager public charter school is a charter school one of the differences between charter school and regular I mean we're still a Department of Education school but a charter school is allowed to plan their own curriculum hire and kind of approach things the way that they want to as long as they achieve the same or better results as regular at schools right so so this school has hired me based on my experience my resume working with kids my whole career and teenagers to be a school counselor within their facility but not a Department of Education school counselor so my job focuses mostly on early identification of you know all kinds of different social issues and some mental health diagnosis a lot of attention deficit type of stuff and those kind of ADD stuff is so to me in my mind anyway a little bit over I don't know over bone and it's like the this stamp up we'll just call them ADDs and it seems like to happen so often with kids now and and I get worried and I know that there's been I raised three boys so that are all in their 30s now so I know what kind of stuff they go through and I also know that there's a lot of abuse of the ADD and ADHD drugs that's happening with kids right now you found I think that is something that is less prevalent now than it was let's say five or ten years ago oh okay people because there isn't a parent that's not aware of that issue right these days it's been so publicly talked about and stuff so they're very much I want to say on guard yeah on guard about why are you recommending you and I actually don't recommend medication until it's a very last resort I think and I really think that that's the stance for most counselors now as you get into psychiatry and stuff like that if you're you know if you go to psychiatrists there's a better chance that you'll end up with some sort of medication or something like that because that's what they do you want to talk you want me to talk about a little bit what I do so any counselor that works in a school is going to be doing a lot of psycho education in the classes right so we start off right from kindergarten and then first grade and second grade I do all three of those years I do a puppet show and singing body boundaries presentation it's called it's up to me and the song the song lyrics that I wrote for it to go up it's up to me it's up to me me and my body it's up to me sing it first come on every day when you're walking along there's a new tune a new tune to whistle that you'll hear in this song it's a song about loving the body that you own so here is the message to learn from this song it goes boom boom boom boom it's up to me don't don't done they all sing along it's up to me what we're doing is we're trying to get very early on and we repeat it to them three years in a row the same exact name with the same experiences and it's about an hour-long presentation usually but just teaching you talked about respect right teaching respect for themselves teaching respect for the boundaries that others need and learning teaching them to begin the process of learning how to really be successful with that and to be caring of each other in that way so I do that now wait you also worked for Merrimed is that what it's called Merrimed Foundation that's what I want to hear about that okay what I first what let me really quickly let me just finish up about so the other thing that we do with the model is each class has a group of kids that have been identified for one reason or another needing either it's just a social support group or they get together and just kind of take care of each other or there's some issue that's been worked on so I see a group from each class each week and then out of that group I will see individual kids so that way every classroom is getting coverage every week okay now about Merrimed which was my first job when I came over from California after completing my education over there Merrimed back then and I don't I certainly I don't work for them anymore but I worked for them for three wonderful years and Merrimed back then was a ship-based residential treatment center yes oh my gosh they go out on the boat absolutely the program has grown a lot since then so now there's a series of group homes and there's a lot of other things connected to it but back when I was the program director it was just the ship so we hired a staff of counselors and nurses and psychologists and the boat itself the ship itself came with a sail crew from the East Coast all these bearded gruff sailor typeset and but they were also used to being teachers because it was a sailing school vessel so we took 20 boys the logistics of having girls and boys on the boat wasn't going to work out so that they can see how it's close quarters I can see how many things complex yeah so we took 20 boys out of back then the very crowded Colo youth facility they have really emptied that facility out since then but back then there was 150 kids in there right I think there's like 15 in there now don't quote me on that but it's really really gone away from that idea so the so we took these we took 20 boys that have been identified from the staff at Coalow as having some you know quality give them a chance give a chance you know a lot of these kids we put in there a lot of those kids were in there for until they were a majority till they were 18 years old okay so we took them we put them on the ship and the program basically was sailing inner island every week Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday we go on to say we do stuff like go to Maui for ice cream or gosh what a great program and kind of change these kids lives in such a big way just to sort of get them out of that that sort of centralized like your hand thinking and putting them out there in the world so they just have you know and then getting into nature the outward bound and all that did you call it experiential education there's a whole way of doing treatment with children and with people in general called experiential education or experiential treatment and basically what boils down to is you take part in some activity that's a metaphor for life it's a metaphor for struggle and overcoming and and you know getting things done and you know being successful eventually right so sailing a big ship is a very challenging thing there wasn't anything automatic on this and the kids and the staff and the crew would all work together we would all pull lines together we'd all sing sea shanties together as we're doing this and and so yeah these kids were all street kids gang kids and stuff like that and so they would be in environment that they were completely unfamiliar with and then they would master it over the time they were with us they would begin the process of learning everything about about that ship and by the time they were done they would have had this experience of I can do this I took something that I was never able to do or didn't know anything about and have become successful and actually good at it now and that's just life changing stuff is the thing that changes people's lives yeah well this time has gone by so fast I can't believe it I have so many other questions and so many other things I'd love to be able to talk to you about but unfortunately we are out of time here so house digger I am so happy to have had you here thank you so much for coming and everybody out there I'm just really glad that you joined us today I hope you will come back every other Friday at three o'clock you will I will be here Cynthia Lee Sinclair on finding respect in the chaos this is think tech how about you come back and join us again