Secondary School Administrators’ Attitudes Toward Confidentiality in School Counseling

Abstract

The school counseling literature emphasizes the importance of confidentiality in the counseling relationship. In some circumstances, school policy may require disclosure of content discussed in counseling unrelated to threat of harm to self or others. This pilot study investigated secondary school principals' attitudes toward the practice of confidentiality in schools. Analysis of the survey data revealed that the sample of principals supported the practice of confidentiality in school counseling in the absence of threat of harm to self or others.

School Administrators and School Counselors’ Legal and Ethical Alliance

“…These unique perspectives can make conflict a real possibility as each discipline tries to adhere to their individual professional ethics code (Herlihy & Remley, 2019; Weaver, 2007). School administrators and school counselors interpret and apply ethics through the lens of their particular discipline and conflict can be a byproduct, especially in areas such as confidentiality and advocation (Kimber & Campbell, 2013; Lashley & Stickl, 2016; O’Connell, 2012).…”

“…The complications of work with minors in school result in issues being considered through the lens of the different disciplines, resulting in ambiguity at times (Alexander & Alexander, 2018; Reamer, 2008). When conflict does occur, it often revolves around the ethics of child abuse reporting, confidentiality, or advocacy (Arndt et al, 2020; O’Connell, 2012). These three topics at the center of legal battles involving school administrators and school counselors (Stone, 2022a) are the focus of this article.…”

Breaching confidentiality to report students’ risk-taking behaviours to school administrators

“…Previous studies investigated reporting of students' risk-taking behaviours to parents (Sivis-Cetinkaya, 2018;Sullivan & Moyer, 2008), or reporting of risk-taking behaviours in general without specifying the recipient of the information (Atanasov, 2016;Bodenhorn, 2006;Lazovsky, 2008;Rae, Sullivan, Razo, & Alba, 2009;Stone & Isaacs, 2002). Few researchers (Kimber & Campbell, 2014;O'Connell, 2012) examined SAs' perceptions of confidentiality, or how SCs perceived SAs in terms of respecting confidentiality between the counsellor and the student (Har & Jusoh, 2015;Lehr, Lehr, & Sumarah, 2007). In a pioneer survey study conducted with an American sample of SCs (N = 378), Moyer, Sullivan and Growcock (2012) examined factors that SCs rated as important in deciding whether to breach confidentiality to report students' risk-taking behaviours to SAs.…”