Due 4/26 8pm EST

Benchmark Counselor Impairment and Wellness Paper Assignment Instructions

Overview

In more recent years, the American Counseling Association (ACA) has recognized that professional counselors, like all helping professions, are at a higher risk for burnout, vicarious trauma, and impairment. The purpose of the Benchmark Counselor Impairment and Wellness Paper Assignment is for you to be able to objectively explain issues that arise from being a professional counselor and how to mitigate those through personal wellness and self-care strategies.

Instructions

For this assignment, you will:

· Write a 6 page paper in current APA format with professional guidelines including a running head, title page, abstract, headings, and reference page. The abstract must provide a brief, but detailed, overview of the paper in 150–250 words. The title page, abstract, and reference page do not contribute toward the page requirement. 

· Your paper should include the following sections: 

o Professional Counseling and Impairment: In this section, include a definition for impairment, a discussion of how and why counselors become impaired, what that impairment looks like, and how it can impact the practice of counseling. This section should be approximately 2 pages long.

o Ethical Implications of Impairment: In this section, include a discussion of ethical misconduct.  Research information on ethical violations in the field, and summarize the information in your own words. Additionally, research your state’s counseling board website and if available, summarize the most frequently occurring ethical violations in your state. If this information is not readily available online, discuss your state’s process for obtaining the information. This section should be approximately 1 page long.

o Impairment Prevention: In this section, include a discussion of what counselors can do to protect against impairment. Draw on the ACA Code of Ethics in this section. This section should be approximately 1 page long. 

o Wellness Assessment: In this section, you will assess your own risks by taking the assessments listed under the Benchmark Counselor Impairment and Wellness Paper Resources on the Benchmark Counselor Impairment and Wellness Paper Assignment page. Discuss the results of the assessments and in what ways you see your results reflecting your current life. It should be 2 pages long. 

o Personal Wellness Plan:  In this section, develop a personal wellness plan based on the results of your assessments. It should be 1 page long. Include reflections of the following questions:

§ What areas of your life need more or less attention? 

§ What changes do you need to make? 

§ What steps are you willing to take to reach your goal of implementing needed changes?

· At least four sources are required for this paper, including the course textbook, ACA Code of Ethics, state counseling board website, and at least 1 article identified via LUO library search and/or professional counseling association websites (e.g., ACA and its divisions; state counseling association) to support your work.