1. Introduction

The MARCO Trust community has established the title of Creative Arts Therapists (CATs) for associated members to demonstrate to the community an acknowledgement of the highest standards of professional practice.  Therapy involves the formation of professional relationships based on ethical values and principles. CATs seek to assist clients to increase their understanding of themselves and their relationships with others, to develop more resourceful ways of living, and to bring about change in their lives. Therapy includes relationships formed with individuals, couples, families, groups, communities and organisations.

MARCO Trust expects that each practitioner working with the MARCO Trust community will belong to an appropriate professional organisation and will therefore abide by that associations code of ethics and conduct. This is in conjunction to abiding by the MARCO Trust Code of Ethics, Research and Conduct.

2. Responsibility

• CATs respect the essential humanity, worth and dignity of all people and promote this value in their work.
• CATs recognize and respect diversity among people and oppose discrimination and oppressive behaviour
• CATs respect the privacy of their clients and preserve the confidentiality of information acquired in the course of their work.
• CATs protect the right of their clients including the right of informed consent.
• CATs take steps to maintain and develop their competence throughout their professional lives
• CATs abide by the laws of the society in which they practice.

3. Ethical Principles of the MARCO Trust Community

The following principles are expressions of these responsibilities in action. They form the foundation for ethical practice. CATs shall:

• Act with care and respect for individual and cultural differences and the diversity of human experience.
• Avoid doing harm in all their professional work.
• Actively support the principles embodied in the Treaty of Waitangi.
• Respect the confidences with which they are entrusted.
• Promote the safety and well-being of individuals, families, communities, whanau, hapu and iwi.
• Seek to increase the range of choices and opportunities for clients.
• Be honest and trustworthy in all their professional relationships.
• Practice within the scope of their competence.
• Treat colleagues and other professionals with respect.

4. Competence

The maintenance of high standards of competence is the responsibility shared by all CATs in the interest of the community and professions as a whole. CATs are responsible for the realisation of the boundaries of their own competence and the limitations of their own techniques. They employ only techniques for which they are qualified by training and supervision.

When innovative techniques are used for which there are no established standards, CATs must take whatever precautions necessary to protect the welfare of their clients. CATs must recognise that personal problems may interfere with professional effectiveness. If personal problems do interfere, the CATs must seek competent professional assistance either in terms of supervision and/or personal therapy.

Members of the MARCO Trust community bear responsibility to assure that appropriate standards of competence, honesty and integrity are maintained. CATs shall seek continuing training or assistance to best serve their clients and they will also be encouraged to offer that assistance to other MARCO Trust community members, CATs and other professionals.

5. Public Statements

When making public statements about one's professional work, CATs must utilise the most current relevant material and must exercise the highest level of professional judgment. They must also clarify that their personal opinions do not represent the official position of the MARCO Trust community.  Members must be accurate about the efficacy of their work and their educational and training backgrounds when discussing their work in a public forum.

6. Moral and legal standards

CATs must be sensitive to the possible impact of their professional and public behaviour upon the community's trust in the profession. All members are obligated to be in compliance with all laws that govern their profession. They must respect the civil, human, and legal rights of all clients, supervisees, students or colleagues. CATs shall be aware that personal values affect their conduct in therapeutic work, supervision and teaching. They must recognize and respect the diverse attitudes which others bring to work and remain sensitive to those attitudes when dealing with topics which have the potential to cause offence.

CATs shall notify MARCO when they are convicted of a serious offence (being either any offence under the Crimes Act or an offence under any other statute that carries a potential sentence of six months imprisonment or more).

It is important for CATs to be honest and trustworthy in dealings with the MARCO Trust community and third party funders.

They shall endeavour to build healthy working relationships and systems of communication in order to enhance services to clients.  The MARCO Trust community encourages CATs to contribute to policy development and seek to maintain and improve the quality of service in their work setting and promote equal employment opportunity policies in their work settings. 

7. Confidentiality

CATs have a primary obligation to respect the confidentiality of information that is relevant to the treatment of a client, supervisee and student in the course of their professional activities. Clients are entitled to know the limits of confidentiality.

Before using private information, the CATs must obtain written consent from the person or persons involved and must adequately disguise all identifying information. Confidential information can only be released by written consent, unless there is imminent danger to the client or the community. At all times, the right of the client to confidentiality must be weighed, and by extension, the right to unimpaired treatment, the right of the community to protect its own welfare and the right of the profession to preserve its ethical standards must be equally weighed.

The CATs shall make provisions for maintaining confidentiality in the storage and disposal of records.

8. Welfare of the Client

CATs have the continuing duty to respect the integrity and protect the welfare of their clients. Due to the influential position that we hold for those in our care, CATs shall make every reasonable effort to avoid dual relationships that could impair professional judgment.

CATs shall evaluate their work with each individual, group and training to ensure that they are conducting their work within the scope of their practice and training. The parameters of their practice and training must be accurately represented to their clients.

Registered members shall not use their professional relationship to give or receive personal gifts or services to further their business, political or religious interests.

Sexual intimacies and sexual harassment are considered unethical behaviour. If one is engaged in sexual behaviour with a client, supervisee, or student, s/he must terminate this professional relationship and seek professional consultation and personal therapeutic assistance to resolve these personal issues.

Nonsexual touch must be approached with great sensitivity. The guidelines for somatic therapists can act as an aid here. Be sure to avoid touching erotic areas. When considering touch, be sure to assess the nature and intent of the touch and the transference-countertransference implications. Be sure to assess that the touch will continue to promote the therapeutic aspects of the work and does not lead to any other type of relationship. Be sure the client agrees to the touch in the context of your work together.

If the registered member feels the client is not benefiting or the work is developing into an area in which they do not feel adequately trained, s/he must consider professional consultation and referral to another professional. This will best serve the client.

9. Professional Supervision

The purpose of professional supervision is for CATs to reflect on and develop effective and ethical practice. It also has a monitoring purpose with regard to therapists’ work. Supervision includes personal support, mentoring professional identity development and reflection upon the relationships between persons, theories, practices, work contexts and cultural perspectives.

Professional supervision is a partnership. It is a contractual, collaborative and confidential process, based upon informed consent.

Professional supervision may take a number of forms, including individual or group supervision and may involve telephone, email and letters. It may be live or may be based on personal recall, notes, videotapes, audiotapes, transcripts or client’s creative works.

• CATs shall arrange for regular and ongoing supervision with competent supervisors, who should be members of another professional body with a Code of Ethics acceptable to the MARCO Trust community.
• The frequency of supervision shall be in relation to workload and relative to the experience of the CATs.
• CATs should seek supervision from a person who is not in a position of authority over them.
• CATs should seek cultural consultation to support their work with persons who have different cultural backgrounds from their own.
• CATs and supervisors shall be jointly responsible for establishing a supervision contract, which should be regularly reviewed and time-limited.

Responsibilities in Professional Supervision

CATs shall be responsible for:

• Selecting and taking to supervision relevant aspects of their work and their personal functioning.

Supervisors shall be responsible for:

• Assisting the CAT to explore and address their professional practice,
• Helping counsellors to monitor their competence, safety and fitness to practice - disclosing concerns about the work of the CAT to the CAT, before taking further action.
• Maintaining the boundaries between supervision and other relationships the supervisor may have with the CAT.
• Supervisors should actively participate in professional education in supervision.
• Supervisors should participate in ongoing professional development.
• Supervisors should obtain supervision for their work as supervisors.
• Supervisors should take into account limitations to their competence and suggest consultations and referrals when appropriate.

CATs and supervisors are jointly responsible for:

• Distinguishing between supervision relationships and other professional or personal relationships.
• Identifying when the CAT needs to seek counselling for personal concerns.

10. Special consideration for CAT work in non-ordinary states of consciousness

When working in creative arts therapy, the CAT must help the client move between and understand the power of the various states of consciousness, e.g., the literal, emotional and imaginal realms. It is very important that the therapist be sensitive to this and aid each client in appropriately using the metaphoric world in the literal aspects of their lives.

As CATs who value images and symbols, we must be sensitive to the various levels that the image evokes and not reduce them or pathologise them without understanding their symbolic meaning and essence.

As a member of the MARCO Trust community, one must provide adequate provisions to ensure a client's safety as s/he enter these non-ordinary states.

11. Research

Research is defined here as any activity in which creative arts therapy practice is written about, spoken about in public, or recorded for purposes other than to benefit the client. It includes the writing of assignments about creative arts therapy by students in training programmes, the recording of therapeutic interviews for demonstration purposes, the use of case studies in articles and books, institutional data collection, and any planned research studies into creative arts therapeutic practice or client concerns.

Value of Research

• CATs should promote and facilitate evaluation and research in order to inform and develop creative arts therapeutic practice.
• CATs should limit the demands of any research exercise to what can be justified in terms of benefit to individuals or the community.

Informed Consent

• CATs shall provide research participants with sufficient information about the purpose and nature of the research to enable informed consent to be freely given. This information shall include the right to withdraw.
• CATs shall obtain consent from research participants for how personal information will be used. This consent will be obtained without inducement or coercion.

Confidentiality

• CATs shall protect the privacy and respect the confidences of research participants.

Conflict of Interest

• When research purposes may conflict with creative arts therapy purposes, CATs should ensure that the therapeutic relationship is given priority.

Respect for Diversity

• CATs should carefully design, carry out and write up research in a way that promotes cultural sensitivity and respect for difference.
• CATs undertaking research should avoid contributing to the marginalisation or objectification of people.

Institutional Requirements

• CATs should familiarise themselves with and adhere to institutional requirements governing research work they undertake. This includes seeking prior ethical approval where relevant.

Acknowledgment

• CATs should give due credit through joint authorship, acknowledgement, footnotes or other appropriate means to those who have contributed significantly to any research publication.

Reporting

• CATs should report research results fairly and accurately.

12. Working with groups

Safety

• CATs shall, as far as possible, protect group members from physical threats, intimidation, coercion, undue peer pressure and psychological and/or physical harm.

Informed Consent

• CATs should provide prospective group members with information about the purpose of the group, the therapeutic approaches to be used and how the group will be conducted, including the relevant cultural practices or kawa.
• CATs shall ensure that group members’ choices to join or leave a group are made freely and without coercion.

Formation

• CATs should be responsible for screening the suitability of prospective group members.
• CATs should be responsible for creating the structure and conditions of the group in ways that are consistent with the group’s purpose.

 Confidentiality

• CATs shall seek agreement from group members to respect the confidences and privacy of other group members and shall oversee the protection of these confidences during the life of the group.
• CATs shall inform group members of the limits of confidentiality in groups.

In order to keep the highest standards of professional practice, each CAT shall hold and practice this "ethos", this way of the MARCO Trust community; our code of ethics. If you have questions or concerns about any aspect of this code of ethics, please contact the professional standards co-chairs.

MARCO Trust - The Centre of Creativity for Well-being

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