These levels include: individual, family, and community, and state, federal and local agency. When all three levels are accounted for, and a counselor takes consideration for all levels when providing client services, confidentiality and privileged information are less likely to be a problem for clients or agencies.
Reporting Mandates.
In order to protect children and adults that cannot advocate for themselves, all counselors are considered mandated reporters. Mandated reporters are responsible and obligated to report abuse and neglect of any kind. When clients disclose information to therapist, therapists are expected to abide by the ethical rules of confidentiality. Confidentiality is considered an ethical term in contrast to privileged information, which is a legal term. These two terms can be confusing to clients and are not interchangeable; therefore, it is important for all counselors to know what state and federal laws are applicable to their agency. .
Schultz (1990) discuss how confidentiality and the reporting laws are not clear enough to help therapist maintain both ethical and legal law. "The helping professions must address the question of proper management of confidentiality. Therapists must become more aware of how reporting laws threaten therapy and work towards solutions which enhance the welfare of clients, including abuse victims (Shultz, 1990).
Duty to Warn.
Duty to warn provides a mezzo level of counseling responsibility, which means that the counselor is responsible for the well-being of not only their client, but the community as well. Duty to warn was derived from a case in 1969. Prosenjit Poddar was a voluntary outpatient at the student health service at the University of California, Berkeley and was in counseling with a psychologist named Moore. Poddar had confided to Moore his intention to kill an unnamed woman (who was readily identifiable as Tatiana Tarasoff) when she returned from an extended trip.