Units

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Sample subject outline - Semester 2 2013

Note: Subject outlines often change before the semester begins. Below is a sample outline.

Rationale

The practice of psychology involves a unique process that requires an understanding of special roles, power relationships, boundaries and ethical principles in order to safeguard client rights. It requires skills in working with individuals and groups from a diverse range of backgrounds, including those from other cultural groups. An understanding of legal issues and relevant legislation and standards is also essential in professional practice.

Aims

The broad aim of this unit is to provide you with training in professional practice issues. A major goal is to raise your awareness of the many ethical, legal and supervision issues you may encounter in practice, and to encourage you to become reflective practitioners throughout your professional lives.

Objectives

On successful completion of this unit, you should be able to:

• Identify and discuss some of the major ethical and professional issues encountered in psychology practice, particularly as applied to the Australian population, including Indigenous Australians;


• Analyse and reflect upon significant aspects of your own clinical psychology practice in relation to ethical codes of practice;


• Articulate a decision making model used to solve ethical dilemmas;


• Describe the theory, approaches and ethical issues underlying professional supervision;


• Identify and understand relevant legislation and standards;


• Demonstrate the information literacy skills required to implement evidence-based practice (EBP), and describe the key processes involved in applying EBP to your work as a psychologist;


• Identify important issues in keeping records, writing legal reports and being an expert witness in a court case;


• Describe and demonstrate key cross-cultural competencies in relation to psychological practice;


• Demonstrate an ability to synthesise and critique the research and theory on one major clinical issue or emerging clinical practice and one cross-cultural approach;


• Review and describe the research on ethical practice from both professional and consumer perspectives.

Content

This unit presents an overview of ethical, legal and professional issues encountered in professional psychological practice, and also emphasises the role of cross cultural competencies as applied to Indigenous Australians and people from diverse cultural and linguistic (CALD) backgrounds, and capacity to provide and utilise supervision in addressing these. The unit also presents an introduction to the theory of supervision and provides an experience of a supervision process in order to review practice issues, dilemmas and ethics.

The unit will cover the identification and critical discussion of such ethical principles and professional issues as boundaries, professional relationships, disclosure, intimacy, informed consent and therapeutic collaboration vs manipulation, therapist role, confidentiality, privileged communication, records, note taking and privacy. Gender, social, and cultural issues including indigenous issues, professional responsibility to the profession / client / public and self including duty of care and duty to warn and protect. Personal values in relation to sexuality, violence, abuse, euthanasia, drug taking etc., and the ethical problem solving process, codes of ethics e.g. APS. Record-keeping and your potential role as an expert witness are discussed, and various legislations, such as child protection, are examined. The APS Code of Ethics and relevant case studies of ethical dilemmas will be discussed.

Professional supervision will be discussed, including models of supervision, role of supervisor, supervision content, and types of supervision (live, delayed, group, individual, developmental etc.)

Approaches to Teaching and Learning

The unit material is presented through a didactic, interactive approach augmented by student practical exercises integrated with group discussion and feedback. The unit has particular objectives while content and process can be adapted to the pace and needs of the class group. You are expected to take some responsibility for your own learning and are also encouraged to contribute your experiential knowledge and current learning in class activities. You need to be able to access QUT library databases online to meet the requirements of the unit.

Assessment

There are two pieces of assessment. The marking criteria for the assessments will be discussed in week 1.

Assessment name: Written Assignment
Description: You will be required to write a 4000 word assignment on one of the topics covered during the unit. This will allow you to do self-directed learning in an area that you wish to gain more in-depth knowledge about. You will be expected to articulate what the major issue or question is, including some cross-cultural perspective, critically evaluate how it affects the work of a professional psychologist, drawing upon the evidence relating to the topic, and how you might effectively deal with the issue in your professional work as a professional psychologist. In order to ensure that the questions and issues that you will be critically analysing are appropriate and of sufficient breadth and depth for this assignment, you will be asked to first present your intended assignment question to the Unit Coordinator and obtain approval no later than week 4 of the semester.
Relates to objectives: 6, 8 & 9.
Weight: 50%
Internal or external: Internal
Group or individual: Individual
Due date: Week 11

Assessment name: Examination (Theory)
Description: This will involve short answer and brief essay questions about issues related to practice of professional psychology: professional ethics, Australian Psychological Society Code of Ethics and Guidelines, hypothetical questions about ethical dilemmas that may be experienced by a professional psychologist, issues related to the Mental Health Act and other legislation, writing reports and acting as an expert witness in court, issues related to supervision and evidence-based practices. This examination will test the ability of the student to problem solve ethical dilemmas, make independent ethical and professional judgements and to justify these judgements, as well as testing their knowledge of APS ethical guidelines and principles.
Relates to objectives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 & 10.
Weight: 50%
Internal or external: Internal
Group or individual: Individual
Due date: Central Exam Period

Academic Honesty

QUT is committed to maintaining high academic standards to protect the value of its qualifications. To assist you in assuring the academic integrity of your assessment you are encouraged to make use of the support materials and services available to help you consider and check your assessment items. Important information about the university's approach to academic integrity of assessment is on your unit Blackboard site.

A breach of academic integrity is regarded as Student Misconduct and can lead to the imposition of penalties.

Resource materials

There is no set text for this unit.

Risk assessment statement

There are no out of the ordinary risks associated with this unit.

Disclaimer - Offer of some units is subject to viability, and information in these Unit Outlines is subject to change prior to commencement of semester.

Last modified: 13-Sep-2012