 Okay, welcome back. We'll continue on with, we were doing ethics, ethics in counseling and we covered five of them. We will move on to the next one, which we're looking at. We were looking at cultural regard and just a couple more of points with regard to that Just to talk about how our knowledge of other practices and worldviews and also our sensitivity and skills in order to work with different cultures or different people of different faith or different attitudes is something that's important. Knowledge is definitely needed. It should also, you know, our knowledge about people or cultural practices or worldviews that conflict with our Christian faith also is something that we need to be aware of in order for us to stand on with this practice of being able to have that call towards working with others and the dignity that we keep. Even as we're dealing with people of other faiths. So what we need to work with is to understand that a counsellor's belief system, whatever their belief system, we maintain that respect and strive also to understand their position or their value issues that may be important to them and also foster values that informed their decision making in that process. So, like we said, we are careful not to impose our values, not to impose our faith. You know, even we may, as a counsellor, may be in a position or may be in a place to expose counsellors to our faith orientation. We do not impose our beliefs or practices on the counsellor and that's something that we need to take extreme care to do. And that's what we mean by saying, you know, having a call to dignity where they are determining for themselves what they would like. Okay, now this is specifically in view of us working with those of different religions, different faith. Okay, the next one is what we look at a call to soundness, which is managing a case management. Now, what do we do here? What do we say? It is when we are meeting a person, an individual, we do see them as a byproduct of many other aspects or areas in their life. If you look at them as a whole, there is just not a body, there's just not a psychological experience, there's just not a spiritual experience, but there is, you know, they belong to a culture. They belong to maybe a family, they belong to a larger community. There are multiple relationships that keep them, right, or that influence them or that impact them. So when we are working with people, we are also looking at them not just as an individual, but looking at them on a larger framework or a larger orientation, right, where we are including their holistic them as a whole person. And that's what it requires for us to maybe coordinate. It also requires for us to have a plan in a way that brings about the best interest for the person you're dealing with in respect to their socio-cultural factors as well. So the plans or intervention or treatment plans are developed utilizing some principles. One is based on, of course, their own problem or the issue they come from, where you're also helping them to promote their own ownership. You're also incorporating other kind of assessments that you may have. You're identifying certain goals, certain objectives and ensuring that this also includes their cultural or their holistic person, not just the problem that they're coming up with, but them as a holistic person. And that's where you need to be sensitive to other factors where we help to treat our counsellors with their understanding or with their framework and continue to provide them the best of service by really looking at them as a whole. So when you look at case management, what the word actually means is just not one area of them, but all areas is something that we are looking at. If you remember when we spoke about understanding needs, we spoke about seeing the person as a whole being. They have a physical being, they have an emotional being, a rational being, a spiritual being and a volitional being. Now all of this is what brings them as a person. And that's what we mean by saying case management is not just looking at it from a spiritual point of view or a psychological point of view or an emotional point of view, but really bringing up everything together as a whole. And the last one is community presence in Christian counselling. Now as a counsellor, as Christian counsellors, we need to be aware of the larger role that we play in the community at large or in the society in general. So as Christian counsellors, we acknowledge that we live in a culture that probably does not share a common Christian value base and therefore we need to be mindful to present ourselves as the salt and light or as the ambassadors of God. And while we do that, we conduct ourselves with dignity, we conduct ourselves with humility, avoiding any practice or any behavior that brings dishonour to God or brings dishonour to the name of Christ and that we will uphold every value, every principle that God gives us. And we pray that we will adopt to this code professionally and live it up honorably to see that even as we are helping, we maintain that sense of identity, that the identity that we have in Christ as well as a sense of unity into the faith. So being mindful about that even as we work at a larger community. So this is where some of these code of ethics is what we incorporate even as we build ourselves on practice. The next part that I'm going into is something that's a little bit more practical. It is to establish certain boundaries. Boundaries even as we work alongside with people and this may be very practical guidelines that we need to keep in mind, taking upon some of those ethical considerations that we've seen. So what are boundaries? Boundaries are things that they're guidelines and they're based on certain principles and these code of ethics that we spoke about. So it indicates a certain board or a certain limit and we operate within certain boundaries so that we make our work relationships, we keep it professional, we keep it safe and we have certain limits for the services that we deliver. Now, when we're looking at the concept of boundaries, we need to have some concepts in place. One is a personal identity. There needs to be a sense of personal identity which is constant over time, which means we need to understand our roles and our responsibilities and where we are and who we are and what is it that we are standing for, even as we are in a place of working with others. We look at it as we grow in maturity in our faith, it should percolate into our professional spaces or into our ministry spaces where this identity that we have in Christ is constant regardless of whatever pressures that there may be or whatever up and down there may be, we ensure that we keep that identity going. Now, there are certain contracts that we build and that's why the concept of boundaries are important, certain practical guidelines that we build through a contract. What does that contract mean? The contract is a place where there is a certain space which is safe for a counsellor and a counsellor's relationship to occur. And so that can be maybe the time where you will meet, the time of contact, the date of contact, the place where you all will meet. You set limits to that, to the responsibilities of a counsellor counsellor. It's not that because you're a counsellor or someone who they're getting professional help from. You are there for general advice giving or general situation. So that's a certain boundary that you need to maintain. Otherwise, those boundaries become extremely blurred. It's important that the counsellor doesn't lose oneself in that relationship. That is, you avoid over-involvement and thereby you decrease the well-being of the counsellor and it decreases your own well-being. So you're providing a role model as you're building some of these boundaries and when you set the boundaries and when you manage the boundaries, you're definitely bringing about a certain limit of how much your involvement needs to be. Because you're being in a state or in a helping profession, counsellors may not understand that boundary and it's important to draw that line between the self of the counsellor and the self of the counsellor, even as you're working through some of these boundaries. Why is it necessary that we need to talk about these boundaries? It's one is to recognize boundary issues as they arise. If for example, maybe your counsellor keeps calling you beyond 9.30 in the night. Maybe once or twice depending on whatever the reason is that's fine. But then as it keeps going on, you need to establish those boundaries. Like maybe emergency situations is something that I say is you can get in touch with me either through email or through WhatsApp during these specific times, but in an emergency situation, please feel free to message me. But then if you do see that it's going on beyond that specific guideline, that's something that you need to build up. You're also clarifying your ethical expectations that there is some kind of limits that you're placing. You need to talk about the boundaries so that you as a counsellor yourself have a clear idea where your boundaries are, or even have a plan of action if at any point of time there is any unprofessionalism or something that is unsafe that creeps into this place of counselling. It also reduces the risk of counselling exploitation when you are placing your boundaries. You're also maintaining a certain counsellor-counsellor relationship where you know that you cannot step beyond a certain line or certain limit. It reduces the anxiety of counselling as a lot of things are clear over there, especially when it comes to confidentiality. A lot of things are clear that nothing will be breached. It increases the well-being of the counsellor as well as it provides a role model for counsellors to be able to establish some of those boundaries. Now who negotiates these boundaries? Who is the person that actually brings up or talks about these boundaries? It's the duty of the counsellor to bring it up in the best interest of the counselling. So the counsellor is the one who should be responsible in managing and maintaining these boundary issues. And for that, as a counsellor you need to be very clear about what your boundaries are and be able to articulate it as well to your counselling. There are certain clear boundary areas that we need to be extremely clear about. Now I do understand when it comes to pastoral ministry, there are some that are absolutely not negotiable, but there are some that may be blurred, like for the first one, social activities. Maybe you're in a church setting and a lot of people who you're meeting as your counsellors may be in the same worship place as you are. And we do see that and some of them can be exceptions. However, we're talking about this in extreme professional spaces. Now for example, for me as a counsellor, I do meet a lot of my counsellors at church. We sit together at worship, but there again, there needs to be a strong boundary that I place in my head that even though this is there is a social activity that's going on, maybe it's a worship service that's going on and careful not to bring up issues that we've spoken in a counselling room, maybe in the presence of 3-4 people or maybe in the presence of a worship place. So that's something that the counsellor needs to be extremely clear and sure about. Other boundaries is yes, there are clear boundary areas not having any intimacy, intimate relationships with those with other counsellors. Having family members or friends as counsellors is something that again you do not engage in because of the kind of emotional connection you have with them. The ability to be objective in that space may be diminished and that's why you wouldn't address closer friends or you wouldn't address close relatives like maybe a lover or a relative, employee, employer, instructor, a business partner or a friend. You keep away some of those counselling some of these people who are there in your life. Areas where boundaries may blur and this is something that is important for us to understand. Now some of these boundaries like we said are not really clear cut or maybe not really defined and these can be potential areas of problems that we need to pay close attention. Like I said, like self-disclosure, how much would you disclose to someone who you know, maybe who's in your same church or someone who you're really helping, how much would you disclose. Next one is giving or receiving significant gifts or about overlapping relationships. Maybe this is someone you knew earlier, maybe as an acquaintance or as a person who's probably a member of the church and then they become a counsellor and that's why we said that it could be blurring of this or later a counselling becomes a friend of yours. And there again then it's important to re-establish your counselling relationship or physical contact. Maybe it's a person that like I said, it's a church member who is a person who's coming to you for counselling but then when you meet them in church maybe you will have a handshake or you may give them a hug. So we need to recognise that we need to be careful about how we respond to this because they may not be complete right from answers to this. Okay, what are certain boundaries or danger zones that we look at is when the counsellor over identifies with the counsellor's issues. When there is too much of an involvement or it's preoccupying your mind as a counsellor it continues to preoccupy your mind that you need to give them the best help or you're making the cause or you're making additional extra support and help to them. That's when you would know that you may be identifying with their issues or there's a strong attraction to the counsellor's personality or you spend time with the counsellor outside of your work or work area. There again it becomes an issue. Sharing too much of a personal information with the counsellor again becomes an additional problem because there again there's a lot of lines that get blurred. And this is something that I spoke about is transparency and counter transparency. So transparency is when there is a redirection of feelings about a specific person that maybe your counsellor is talking about onto someone else and this is usually the counsellor. So they are redirecting their feelings about what they feel about someone towards the counsellor. And that this becomes like a red flag. It's a dangerous zone because then there isn't again, there isn't objectivity. And counter-transference is the redirection of a counsellor's feelings towards the counselling. And both these areas is somewhere that maybe a counsellor needs to identify and move away from being in that helping relationship, move away and referring somewhere to somebody outside. That becomes an important issue there. Certain do's and don'ts when we are looking at boundaries is to be careful not to, so there are certain not to's. Not using gestures, tone of voice, expressions or any other behaviour that a counsellor could interpret as being demeaning or abusive either sexually or otherwise. Because this is something we need to respect culturally, right? Because we may not understand, especially if we are in a place where we have different cultures, what we may be doing like maybe sitting too close or holding a person's hand, all of that could be culturally very offensive in some cultures. So be extremely careful on how you display any form of a gesture or voice expression. Not making comments about a counsellor's body or clothing. That's an absolute no-no. Not engaging in inappropriate affectionate behaviour with a counsellor. Again that is something that is a no-no. Again others, not talking about your personal sexual preference or problems or fantasies. Not requesting a date with a counsellor, ensuring that whatever personal psychological needs that maybe a counsellor has that you meet it in other areas of your life, right? And not bring it on to the counsellor thereby bringing further damage. And it's important to maintain supervision or consultation relationships. It's always good to have a supervisor or someone to discuss some of the cases with or the counselling issues so that the counsellor gets the best kind of help through that. What do you do when you have a dual relationship? What is the role of a dual relationship? So basically something that you need to consider, what is dual relationship is what happens is that you're not just a counsellor but you're probably having another role with a counsellor, right? Maybe it's like a church member. Now some of these relationships can blur those boundaries. Now these blurring of boundaries often increases the risk of exploitation because sometimes the role becomes very very confused, right? So these dual relationships can involve the breakdown of proper professional or ministeral boundaries. So it exists when there are two or more roles are mixed in a manner that could probably harm the counselling relationship or the process of counselling. So this includes counselling as well as personal or business or financial or romantic relationships. So we need to understand that not all dual relationships are unethical. It is the counselling exploitation that is wrong, not the dual relationship of itself. So it remains like I said the responsibility of the counsellor to monitor and evaluate any potential harm to the counsellor. So that's why it needs to be taken care of very seriously. And I think this is when we're looking at these dual relationships sometimes these dual relationships are unavoidable. Like for example you and your counsellors belong to the same church or a counsellor lives in your neighbourhood or maybe they're working as a staff in your own organisation, right? Or your counsellor becomes like an employee in the same place that you're working. Now how do you deal with these unavoidable dual relationships? One, open an honest discussion with the counselling on the nature of your relationships and something that I remember that happened is there was a counsellor who had come to me and was holding a very high position in a certain organisation. Now it so happened that I have a friend in that organisation so once when I went to meet the person this my counsellor was sitting right in front in the next table and what I did I mean I had to I didn't acknowledge the person because this friend of mine knows that I'm a counsellor I didn't acknowledge the person at all but at the end of it when he finished his coffee he came up to me and he said hello to me and I just had a casual conversation later I sent him a message saying because I wanted to be careful that I didn't express my knowledge of you because I didn't want to put you at a difficult spot and then there was a perfect understanding he said I perfectly understand I thank you that you were cognisant of that so that open discussion with counselling on the nature of that relationship is very important be aware of threats to confidentiality so that's why you need to be careful maybe certain times counsellors may see you at a social setting they may not want to acknowledge you and you need to understand that that's fine because you need to understand your role as a professional to them so participating in that how you participate will really determine the outcome of it okay now just like a side note and I think this is important to understand is how these rules of ethics codes what is the application of it what is the exemption of it now pastors and unlicensed pastoral counsellors by regulation and by law now this is in an American standard they're not typically required to hold to the same standard of professional conduct as other practitioners but you definitely do recognize here that you have a moral and an ethical imperative that still exists as part of you being a Christian that ethical boundary that still exists so maybe not all of this may apply to each one of us but nevertheless there is a sense of imperative or an ethical need or a moral need that we have to ensure as part of our faith that we do not do anything that will cause a sense of decline or anything that will breach your counsellor's information or anything that will bring down their trust and trust towards you so here it is that kind of presented these considerations at these ethical boundaries now I am open to any kind of questions you may have and I think we have around 20 minutes if you don't have any questions I'd be glad to respond to that any questions? okay so I suppose that isn't anything so just maybe I think I just want to spend maybe 10 minutes and then we could probably close our call the first thing is just for those of you who have not finished your assessment please kindly do it by tomorrow after tomorrow there wouldn't be a correction so please ensure that you finish it I hope all of you are able to access it some of you are thinking there are 7 or 8 of you who have done it that's great but if there is anyone else who needs to complete the assessment please do that because without those marks you will not get your final marks to not go up so please ensure that you finish that okay that's fine secondly I just would like to one just to probably maybe there are 8 of us here I think on this call if there is anything that really caught your attention through this course that's one and any feedback I really would like any kind of a feedback that you all could give me and please make it constructive negative feedback is great because you can build on either in the content or the delivery or in whatever there is if you can provide a feedback that would be really helpful for students coming after this to really enhance the course whether it's being content in whatever way possible to ensure that we can build on the content, build on the delivery so two things one is just a word of how this has helped you or if it hasn't helped you that also is great and secondly any kind of feedback success I see that you have raised your hand would you like to ask a question yes it's a question good morning everyone an incident happened here in Nigeria a very notable pastor wearing the quarry style we are ministering we collected the mic and the pop in the service was going on and he said if we don't want to sing get out of the otter if we don't want to come early to church get out of the otter in such a way what kind of counseling can we give to those members who came for counseling so success I heard you saying that a pastor said if you cannot sing get up of your chair what he said yes why the ministration was actually going on it's a service period service time and coming out and pick up a mic and in presence of all the congregations telling the quarry style if you don't want to sing you get out of the otter if you come late to church you stop coming to the church and I was wondering because we are not brought up in that way so what kind of counseling because one of the members actually came and said this is what the pastor did but I am very very careful because this is a ministry of attention and actually I watched the video because it's everywhere so what kind of counseling can somebody give to such members who came to seek for counseling okay but I do understand success that they were at a church service counseling isn't it no yes it's a church service but after the church actually one of them came to me and said this is what happened what can I be able to how could you help them how could you help them now I get that I think what you are saying is that these are church members and the pastor was quite a brush or very strong they were not following certain things they were asked to leave the church and they were upset okay now I got that so I think in a situation like this it's important to especially the members have come to you one is yes to hear them out to really hear their pain point I am sure it has upset them it's discouraged them that maybe a pastor has tweeted or has spoken like this quite out rightly and for maybe certain things like coming late or if they are not singing that could probably seem you know quite minor and as a result of which is why maybe they are hurt so I think one of the good thing is to just hear them out just to bring them to a place of calm what we should be careful not to do is not to justify or what you say it's not to either justify or condemn the actions of the pastor that's not what we are there to do our our idea is to help the person whatever they are going through to really be able to share to come to a place of you know understanding what that meant to them and how they would like to move forward without any form of anger or resentment or hatred towards the pastor right so that's what something we should be careful about doing not to justify the action of the pastor or neither to condemn the action we stand as a neutral party even as we are talking so that's with the counseling maybe with the pastor if you do have some form of access it may be good to give a feedback without disclosing the name of the members who came to you that such and such people came to me for help because they were hurt maybe as an observer mentioning that probably some of the actions or some of the things that you observe the church service maybe we may need to re-look at our our response to someone who comes late to service our response to those who are not singing in service or who are not standing up in service whatever it may be that we may need to look at carefully of our response of how we react to some of these observations without really giving or disclosing the names of those who've come to you that may help a little bit but this may not be a counseling scenario nevertheless with the members of your church I think it's just hearing them out helping them to really discern and understand how they would like to respond without your involvement of either justifying or condemning the actions of the pastor I hope that helped success okay I hope that helped so Ken that I think there are seven of us on the call just quickly in a minute or two if you are one any kind of how this course has either helped you not helped you and any kind of feedback that you would have would be really helpful please we have just 10 minutes 10 to 15 minutes we could try and complete that yes Lubega please go ahead before this course thank you pastor before this course I thought I knew a bit of counseling but I saw that I really needed to go back to baby Kiras I'm so glad that you were able to see a lot more praise God for that yes Divya thank you ma'am am I audible thank you so much the course was so useful it was a great eye opener actually especially even if I'm not doing any professional counseling but even if interacting with people even in the family with our own spouses it has taught me a lot and I wish there was more time you know to really go in depth but really thankful for the course and it was amazing thank you for making it so interesting I know it could be sometimes you know point after point but you made it so interesting with all the K studies and really appreciate ma'am thank you so much thank you any feedback looking out so far as much feedback as possible yes success go ahead um thank you and thank you and thank you this is so oxon and so helpful I must tell you all my books all my course materials I utilize them everywhere and I'm so grateful I'm so grateful for having you as my lecturer and there is no cost to leave behind in the APC and by next session I'm going to recommend a lot of my church members to join oh lovely thank you thank you so much success thank you anybody else anyone else thank you so much pastor for this time of learning it's been for me it's been really a blessing because get to interact with a lot of people especially young people and also there are a lot of elderly people as well so it really helped me understand where do I stand where do how do we put in the the word especially I really enjoyed the session where we spoke about the body language and the thing that we personally need to be aware of while talking to others the language non-verbal communication and all that stuff really enjoyed that part because it really helped me as a person to connect with people and also to try and understand and also I think throughout this course I became a little more aware of myself where is my shortcoming and try and understand how I can be a better person in talking to others especially the temperament that we personally hold and when we interact with people we begin to understand where they are coming from not from you know a judgmental way and it's it's been a wonderful journey for me personally and thank you so much for that the case studies have been really really interesting and it makes a lot to think which is really helpful so maybe we could I think it's on the number are on point now the case studies that we have but in case if you would like to increase few more case studies that would be really helpful that's great thank you thank you so much Pastor John thank you anybody else okay great okay thank you so much I just would like to really add thank you so much for being a wonderful lot you have been a quiet lot but nevertheless I think there have been definite points of time that each of you all have given you know made me really think thank you so much because I think I really enjoy that it expands my understanding it expands me needing to really look into details so thank you so much really I haven't seen many of you in person but I just pray that at some point of time God brings that that we could meet each other in person and just exchange a prayer so thank you so much bless all of you if some of you are going into your next year pray that God really uses you and your ministry can we just close with a word of prayer before that also want to thank all those e-learning students thank you so much for your feedback for engaging with me through your discussion points some of you have really you know week after week I do see how much you are invested in learning and a prayer for all of you and rich blessings to each one of you wherever you are in your ministry and your family God bless each of you let me just close with a word of prayer Heavenly Father we just see how faithful you have been to us through these past months as we've tried to unpack this very important ministry God even is all of us are Lord a little bit better in knowing and understanding Father none of this makes sense without the power of the Holy Spirit over us Lord giving us discerning eyes and hearts and minds to really see deeper into the needs of people Father we pray God that you will bless each one of us you will give us those spiritual gifts of wisdom and knowledge as we talk and as we share give us your heart God as we interact with our families with people our friends those who are members of our church maybe even counseling is at a more greater professional level Father we just we need your grace and your mercy your love passion Lord yet Father to be firm and to be to be instructional in the places that you have called us to be Father a Lord enhance our knowledge enhance our skill enhance our ability most of all Holy Spirit we pray that our focus and our eyes are on you even as we minister that we will hear from you we will know from you God what are the right things to say what not to say thank you God Lord I pray for each student here all my students and on the e-learning portal Father each of them I place them to your throne of grace wherever they are at as in whatever they do God that you will expand God their areas of influence and their area of impact Father make them Lord run ambassadors for you thank you once again we ask God that your presence and your power be over us in Jesus precious name I pray Amen thank you all so much God bless and we shall meet at some point of time Divya may I just request you to stay back while while the rest of us speak in business thank you okay thank you