Passing Your Recorded Skills Session - Breaking Confidentiality in Counselling

In Episode 263 of the Counselling Tutor Podcast, your hosts Rory Lees-Oakes and Ken Kelly are back with this week's three topics:

Firstly in 'Theory in Practice' we look at passing your recorded or observed skills session.

Then in 'Practice Today', Rory and Ken take us through what happens if you have to break confidentiality.

And lastly in 'Practice Matters', Rory speaks with Camilla Hyland, the head of member services, and Kate Mahoney, head of professional standards from the National Counselling Society about the NCS's membership benefits.

Passing Your Recorded Skills Session [starts at 02:47 mins]

Being assessed is a stressful time for any student, but in this section, Rory and Ken offer some tips that might help to take some of the pressure off:

Remember that it's natural to be nervous, it's a challenging experience.

The secret is practice.

If it's your first experience with recording it'll make it more nerve-racking - try practicing with recording beforehand.

Start recording and listening back to your skills practice.

Meet up with peers and colleagues over Zoom and record your practice.

Evaluate your own skills sessions.

Welcome feedback and mistakes, you can learn a lot from them.

Try out a number of different skills.

The more you understand what happens when you apply a skill and understand what the skill asks of you, the easier you will find it to apply that skill.

The more you know, the less you fear.

Try working with people you don't know that well - this gives practice of being observed.

Look at the criteria of what they'll be looking for in the session - checking your endings etc.

If you're recording anything - see about using college equipment so that data can be disposed of correctly.

Know how many skills you need to demonstrate - using one skill won't be enough, even if you use it very well, and using too many may make the session feel disjointed and counsellor-led.

Work in a triad (a listener, a speaker, and an observer) - make sure you get the speakers feedback first to prevent it being tainted by the observers.

Take note of the skills you use and their purpose, make note of its role within the actual practice session, what affect did it have?

Breaking Confidentiality in Counselling [starts at 23:45 mins]

It's likely that at least once during your practice you will be required to break confidentiality, and it's important that you are prepared for this.

The key moments of this section include:

Deciding to break confidentiality requires clear thinking.

Look into what your contract says, legally you're required to break confidentiality in the event of terrorism, drug trafficking and money laundering, and harm to self and/or others.

It's important that you make your exceptions to confidentiality clear in your contract and in your first session with your client - make sure they understand the contract they are signing.

The Caldicott Principles are an example of the steps you should take when breaking confidentiality. You should only use information that is required, sharing the absolute minimum.

Harm to self - when it comes to self-harm, it is up to you to decide where you draw the line and at what point you should share this information. You may just question the client to ensure they are doing this safely (using clean instruments etc.), you should also consider why the client is telling you this. Is it possible that they want you to tell someone?

The aftermath of breaking confidentiality: you will need to rebuild your therapeutic relationship. Be honest - let them know it was out of concern for them.

Does your agency have requirements on breaking confidentiality that are different to your personal ones? Make sure you add these to your contract.

Ensure you're writing in your notes if you have broken confidentiali...