Whose ethics? A Comparative Analysis of School Social Workers' and Educators' Codes of Ethics

Background and Purpose: Schools present a rich environment for mental health intervention with young people. Practitioners like school social workers have access not only to students who might not otherwise receive mental health services, but also have access to these clients' peers, teachers, and their daily milieu—an advantage that most clinicians can only dream of. Still, the opportunity to treat students at school brings contains dilemmas. Among these, confidentiality of student information stands out. Literature on the confidentiality of student information in schools (e.g., Evans, Sapia, Lowie & Glomb, 2002) is highly consistent with mental health professions' codes of ethics, drawing a firm boundary around the practitioner and client when it comes to confidentiality. This stance, however, does not incorporate the complexities or opportunities that the school environment presents. Multiple adults in schools find themselves involved in sensitive student issues like family violence, teen pregnancy and mental health crisis. Tensions arise over how much mental health practitioners in schools can or should share their knowledge of students, and over how they ought to work with educators. In an attempt to more effectively address these tensions, this paper considers more fully the “school” perspective.

Methods: Empirical data was drawn from a larger study of the teacher's role in providing social-emotional support to high school students. For the purposes of this paper, I analyzed data from interviews with teachers (N=45), students (N=35) and school-based mental health professionals, including school social workers, psychologists and counselors (N=7). I coded and analyzed these data for emerging themes related to confidentiality and teacher-practitioner communication about students. In addition to these empirical data, a content analysis was conducted of educators' and various school-based mental health professionals' codes of ethics. The focus was on text related to confidentiality and the exchange of information about students.

Results: Evidence was found of significant concerns and tensions about confidentiality in this study's student, teacher and practitioner participants. Educators' and practitioners' actions generally followed their professional codes of ethics. These codes of ethics did conflict with one another. I identified two significant areas of conflict: firm vs. loose parameters about sharing student information, and a perspective on information-sharing as disclosure vs. staff consultation. Interestingly, school guidance counselors' code of ethics dwelled somewhat between the two poles of educators' and mental health practitioners' codes, and yet contained both of these conflicts.

Conclusions and Implications: Confidentiality of student information is a serious issue for students and requires vigilance from educators who involve themselves in students' personal lives. The current state of affairs in schools, as suggested by this study, is one of unresolved tension regarding this issue. This tension traces directly to conflicts between ethical codes of the two professions—mental health and education—that work together in the school setting. Authentic dialogue between practitioners and educators, informed by sound empirical evidence gathered with school populations, is needed to more fully address tensions about confidentiality. School social workers, with their training in both clinical and organizational practice, stand in a strong position to integrate both perspectives.