Creating Safe Meetings

Professionals entering the fields of education and human services will spend much of their career engaged in meetings. The vast majority of these meetings will be in small group or private sessions. It is in these environments that sexual misconduct or other crimes of opportunity can easily occur if a professional does not take proactive steps to create a positive meeting environment. This chapter will discuss the vital importance of creating safe meetings so a professional can oversee not only a safe meeting for all those in attendance but also a productive and positive meeting designed to meet the needs of their students and clients.

The Resonant Roar of the Internet

This chapter will examine the intersection of law, policy, and appropriate teacher conduct in the online environment through a series of vignettes and offer suggestions for both the pre-service and in-service teacher to successfully navigate social media throughout their careers. The author has captured contemporary relationships through the lifeline of social media and has highlighted some of the ultimate consequences of the line between personal and professional lives that became blurred in the online environment. The issue of the First Amendment protection as well as the issue of the Educational Amendments of 1972 (Title IX) are addressed.

Legal Issues Involving Educator Sexual Misconduct

In addition to the trauma for victims of an educator's sexual misconduct, such conduct can have lasting consequences for the educator, their employer, and the community the educator serves. The educator who crosses professional boundaries and engages in sexual misconduct with students faces the possibility of both professional and personal consequences. In addition to discussing these consequences, this chapter will identify and examine the liability risks for school employers when an educator engages in sexual misconduct. This chapter will also provide insight into how a school employer can to adopt and implement measures to prevent and manage risks posed by sexual misconduct through background checks, training, supervision, reporting procedures, and conducting investigations when appropriate.

Sexual Boundary Violations in Counselor Training and Supervision

Professional boundaries represent the sets of behaviors and interactions that are considered appropriate and ethical between people in professional relationships. These can be defined by considering the roles of the people involved, the scheduled times for these interactions, and the designated places for them. Boundary violations happen when interactions deviate markedly from the social conventions of professional relationships. Sexual boundary violations happen when sexual behavior is introduced into the training relationship. Because of the inherent power differential, sex in trainer-trainee relationships is considered unethical and harmful. This chapter will discuss sexual boundary violations in counselor training including incidence rates, perceptions of trainers and trainees, ethical and legal implications, how sexual boundary violations begin, solutions and recommendations, and suggestions for future research.

Specific Concerns for Teachers, School Counselors, and Administrators

This chapter describes the types of sexual misconduct most prevalent in schools and the types of professional conduct needed by educators to counteract these inappropriate behaviors. Teachers, school counselors, and administrators will learn the best ways to organize the physical space in several types of instructional settings as well as maintain professional interactions with students in all settings. Additionally, educators will learn to evaluate their own behaviors and how they may inadvertently be promoting inappropriate relationships between themselves and the students in their schools.

Advancing Sex Positivity while Combating Sexual Misconduct

Social work professionals are accountable to ethical standards and a code of conduct that were developed to protect clients from harm. As accusations of sexual misconduct by social work practitioners is possible, it is important that agencies and organizations decrease the amount of additional harm that may result from the reporting and investigative process. Unfortunately, some agencies engage in practices that hinder the reporting of sexual misconduct, such as: victim blaming, lack of transparency, and limited communication during the investigation. Within this chapter, the authors propose that social work professionals adopt a sex positive approach to managing and investigating reports of sexual misconduct by practitioners. According to the authors, a sex positive approach seeks to challenge agencies and organizations to treat such cases seriously while respecting the individuals involved and limiting the risk of further violating or isolating the complainant.

It's Complicated

Social media has become an intricate part of daily life. Posting, tweeting, and chatting have become common practices since the birth of the social network. This technological revolution has altered the way we interact and communicate in fundamental ways. Consequently, a cultural shift has accompanied this change, with notions such as etiquette and personal boundaries undergoing dramatic transformation. In the virtual world, the lines that separate individuals' personal and professional lives often become blurred resulting in some confusion about what constitutes appropriate social media behavior. With that in mind, the purpose of this chapter is to discuss key issues associated with the impact of social media has on individuals' professional lives. This task will employ a multipronged approach in describing the growth, use, and potential problems of social media in the workplace. In addition, policies and legal statutes regarding social media use by academic and human service professionals will be discussed at length.

Maintaining Professional Faculty-Student Relationships

University faculty departments are being challenged to adopt guidelines, policies, and procedures on how to maintain professional boundaries in order to keep up with the demands of university Title IX policies and the rapidly changing advances in technology. While some behaviors are more clearly defined as inappropriate (e.g. sexual harassment), others are less well-defined (e.g. texting). What constitutes as harmful unethical behavior on the part of a faculty member depends on the context in which the behavior occurs. As a result, it is important for faculty to maintain clear boundaries in order to prevent harming or exploiting students for their benefit. This book chapter will utilize this case study to: (a) examine the power differential in the student-faculty relationships, (b) examine contextual factors that lead to boundary crossings, and (c) identify preventative measures that can be taken by faculty and students to minimize the potential for boundary violations to occur.

Preventing Sexual Misconduct

The purpose of this chapter is to introduce sexual misconduct within the school setting to the reader, the relevant studies concerning each topic and how each position (teacher, counselor, and administrator) connects to the issues. The goal of the writing is to show the current findings and to give the reader the direction of where future research is needed. In just one example, the topic of the location of sexual offense will be discussed. Specifically, where in the school or surrounding environment will the sexual misconduct (assault, etc.) is most likely to occur. With the knowledge of so called “isolation zones” an administrator can better position monitors (electronic or human) to discourage actions of misconduct.

Exploring the Role of School Counselors in Preventing and Addressing Educator Sexual Misconduct in K-12 School Systems

The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) National Model for School Counseling highlights the role of professional school counselors in supporting the academic, personal social and career development of students. The ASCA Model further emphasizes the role of school counselors as leaders, advocates, consultants and collaborators for student development. The 2010 Ethical Standards for School Counselors further highlights students' rights to be treated with respect and dignity as well as their entitlement to a safe school environment that is free from abuse. This chapter explores the role of school counselors in working collaboratively to prevent and address sexual misconduct in schools. The author takes the position that the existence of sexual misconduct in any form hinders student development and directly undermines the efforts of educators to support their growth. The chapter emphasizes the importance collaboration, collective responsibility and the adoption of policies that effectively prevent and address sexual misconduct in schools.