Certification Program

Ethics and Risk Management

Eight one-hour classes
Meets once a week for two months
Taught by Eric Harris, Ed.D., J.D.

Unlike most other coaches, legal and ethical issues take on critical importance to a trained clinician because we often have a license to protect.

An intrinsic and highly unique element of the MentorCoach Training Programs is its strong emphasis on the intersection of legal, clinical, and coaching issues. This includes advising our students about how to act in a manner consistent with the state and national ethical guidelines for their particular profession — whether it is as a psychologist, social worker, counselor or any other discipline — as well as teaching them how to recognize and manage risk wisely.

In addition to role plays and simulations of potential problems and options on how to handle them, this course takes a hard look at the questions all coach-clinicians need to consider, including:

• If you sit in an office in a state where you are licensed and your client is in another state: where does that coaching take place if you are working by phone?
• Is there a "duty to warn" when you are operating as a coach?
• As a coach, how should you react if you intuit your client needs psychotherapy?
• How do you distinguish between psychotherapy and coaching?
• Do coaches need malpractice insurance, just as clinicians do?
• Does your current clinical malpractice insurance cover you for your coaching practice? If not, what are your options?
• The informed consent agreement: why it is critical and how to craft one.
• A clearly worded contract is essential: what yours needs to say.
• Key prisms through which to pass any decisions regarding the ethical ramifications of a coaching decision.