By Prof Leon van Vuuren

Professional ethics is dynamic and professions and their regulatory institutions should regularly consider whether its codes of ethics are still relevant and responsive to contemporary ethical challenges faced by practitioners.

Psychology is no different. In South Africa the promulgation of the Children’s’ Act in particular, is an example of an area that has triggered a re-think of the current Ethical Rules of Conduct for Practitioners Registered under the Health Professions Act, 1974, as it pertains to the psychology profession. For this reason, the Board for Psychology has tasked its Committee of Preliminary Inquiry to act as coordinating function of the Board in facilitating a code revision initiative.

A desired outcome of any ethics management initiative undertaken by an organisation or a profession is the establishment and entrenchment over time of a sustainable ethical culture. A heavy-handed approach based on a proliferation of ethical rules may ensure mindless compliance, rather than mindful application.

It was thus decided to design a broad ethics management intervention, rather than merely an ‘update’ of the code of ethics. Such an intervention consists of the following four steps:

1. An ethics risk analysis
   Obtaining insights and expectations from the profession’s primary stakeholders to enable the formulation of an ethics risk profile consisting of threats and opportunities;
2. Revision of the code of ethics and regulations
   Informed by the ethics risk profile;
3. Integration/institutionalization of ethics in the profession
   Example: through ethics management structures, education, training, communication strategies, ethics helpdesks, a facility for the safe reporting of unethical behaviour and disciplinary procedures;
4. Reporting on ethics performance
   Report to internal and external stakeholders on ethics performance.

It is envisaged that the ethics management process outlined in Steps 1 – 4 will be a three-year project to commence in the second half of 2012, with further actions to be identified for implementation beyond the three-year period.

Stakeholder (partner) engagement and intensive involvement by stakeholders in ensuring buy-in of all partners, is imperative to the cause of creating an ethical culture in the psychology profession.

The Board’s partners, e.g. universities, training institutions, professional associations, BHF, etc, would thus have to play an intensive role in the ethics management process as a whole, as opposed to, for example, a quick-fix code revision action.

The ethics management process as envisaged, will be introduced to the profession during the Board’s Panel Discussion at the upcoming ICP 2012 in Cape Town. Further communication on expectations regarding stakeholder involvement in the process will be distributed to stakeholders after the congress.