Ethics

All staff and students at the Sydney Gestalt Institute are bound by the GANZ Code of Ethics: please follow this link to read this code.

The Institute is committed to high standards of professional and ethical conduct and abides by the Commonwealth National Statement on Ethical Conduct and the ethical and professional guidelines as established by the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA), of which the professional association for Gestalt practitioners, GANZ, is a member.

The common ethical principles which guide the education of trainee counsellors as established by PACFA are:

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

Adherence to these principles guides Institute teaching staff in setting guidelines for students involved in minor research projects or assessments that involve working with other people.

When a student undertakes an assessment that involves another student or non-student disclosing private and personal information in a recorded interview, the student must:

Ask the client or interviewee to read and sign a Client/Interviewee Consent Form
Use a separate form for each person when there is more than one client/interviewee
Provide a copy of the completed Consent Form to the client or interviewee
Retain the original copy of the completed Consent Form in a secure location
Destroy or delete the content of the audiotape and/or videotape once a mark and grade have been awarded for the assessment
Sufficiently explain confidentiality issues to clients
Not disclose the name of the interviewee in any written material

The Review Process

Sydney Gestalt Institute has an Ethics Framework that is overseen by an Ethics Committee which both develops policy, protocols and criteria, and vets both academic and student activity.

This committee considers research protocol applications in addition to policy development specific to the usual types of research protocols considered by them. The Ethics Committee is guided by the Principles expounded in the Commonwealth National Statement on Ethical Conduct Guidelines

Substantial research projects (such as those conducted for GDGT07) must have the approval of the Ethics Committee. Students must submit a proposal detailing the goals of the research, the methodologies to be used, projected participants, and possible risks involved. This proposal must be submitted to the Ethics Committee who will review and then approve the proposal, make recommendations for a re-submission of the proposal, or decline the proposal.

Should the Ethics Committee decide that the project has merit, but needs further consultation for ethical approval, the proposal will be submitted to formally constituted HREC, such as that of the local Area Health service. At present, SGI has an arrangement with Dr Trevor Crowe of the Illawarra Institute for Mental Health at the University of Wollongong, that allows students to develop an application for submission to the Ethical Review committee of the Institute for Mental Health

Student submissions

It is the student's responsibility to become acquainted with the review process and any specific requirements of submission (e.g. closing dates, number of copies,) . Clear guidelines for students to follow will be posted on the Institute website. Students will also be provided a link to the Commonwealth National Statement on Ethical Conduct Guidelines, and the relevant sections of the PACFA and GANZ websites

Risk

Level of risk should be identified by the researchers when submitting proposals for review using the categorization system as required on the standard ethics application form. Students should consult their lecturer or supervisor to ensure they are correctly assessing risk

Statement of adherence to Ethical Principles

Participant Information Sheets should contain the following statement:

"This study has been cleared in accordance with the ethical review guidelines and processes of Sydney Gestalt Institute. These guidelines are endorsed by the Ethics Committee. You are free to discuss your participation in this study with project staff (contactable on .......................). If you would like to speak to an officer of Sydney Gestalt Institute not involved in the study, you may contact the Director on …………..

Submission of Applications

The original signed application plus two (2) copies should be lodged with the Director, marked for the attention of the Sydney Gestalt Institute Ethics Committee. Application may be made at any time. Processing of applications will normally occur with four (4) weeks from submission.

Administrative requirements

It is required that copies of the ethics application and subsequent correspondence be kept by the campus as a record of the process, i.e.:

the original application form
list of issues raised by the reviewers/ethics officer
responses by student
approval form (with any conditions if necessary)reports of any adverse events: the researcher must advise of this immediately. They can do this either by letter, or by using the Incident Report Form
If some correspondence is verbal, then a diary note of any important points