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Ethics
2 JCPSLP Volume 17, Supplement 1, 2015 – Ethical practice in speech pathology Journal of Clinical Practice in Speech-Language Pathology
Dr Suze Leitão
(top) and
Christina Wilson
Editorial
The Ethics Board has produced an ethics supplement
containing all the articles in JCPSLP written by
members of the Ethics Board and colleagues
over the past decade. For almost 10 years, Ethics Board
members, professional colleagues, community members
and National Office staff have been contributing to the body
of knowledge about speech pathology practice and the
national Code of Ethics that binds all members.
The Ethics Board has increasingly strengthened its
commitment to member education in a variety of ways
taking a pro-active and educative approach to ethical
practice, ethical dilemmas, ethical problems and decision-
making for all members. This includes those who are
newly graduated as well as more experienced clinicians,
academics and researchers who have developed a
repertoire of strategies to deal with ethical problems in the
workplace.
One of the primary goals of the Ethics Board is to
respond to questions about ethics and develop education
and training materials for members. To this end, the Ethics
Board undertakes a workshop every year at the Speech
Pathology Australia National Conference, which always
has full attendance and stimulating debate. Following the
2010 revision of the Code of Ethics, the Board has recently
revised and significantly updated the Ethics Education
Package and developed a work book for members. Both
the package and the workbook can be downloaded from
the Speech Pathology Australia website and members
can undertake activities, read theory, participate in team
discussions and record their work. Work undertaken in the
Ethics Education Package will be eligible for Professional
Self-Regulation (PSR) points. In addition, the Board
contributes a regular article or column to the JCPSLP (or
the ACQ as it was known until a few years ago).
The Ethics Board has decided to aggregate all the
articles written over the last decade into a single ethics
supplement so that members can use this as an easy
resource to add to the educational material available to
them.
The Ethics Board understands that leaders who want
to establish a practice of positive workplace ethics within
their organisations should develop written ethics standards,
provide ethics training and ensure that resources are
available to staff who need advice or find themselves in
ethical dilemmas. Speech Pathology Australia is at the
forefront of this approach in developing a strong aspirational
approach to ethics, a robust national Code of Ethics,
comprehensive training material and a number of places
where dialogue, debate and questions about ethics can be
raised and discussed in a safe and constructive way.
Speech pathology is a comprehensive discipline that
has a number of self-regulation functions built into the
structure and function of the membership body. Speech
Pathology Australia’s reputation in dealing with ethical
issues is growing and is seen as sustainable within the
communities and sectors within which we operate. The
Ethics Board uses a number of different fora to ensure that
there is open and legitimate debate about ethical issues
and that members and the community have avenues to
raise areas of concern. The fact that we have a published
set of procedures that are clearly defined and transparent
engages members and the community to trust the
Association in our ability to manage complaints and to
ensure continued self-regulation.
The Ethics Board provides frameworks for members
whereby they can consider how they make ethical
decisions, what assistance they might need and how to
develop a self learning approach to the application of ethics
in standards, practice and behaviours.
We hope that you find this ethics supplement to be an
accessible resource that you can draw on in your own
reflective practice, whatever your stage of your professional
journey.
Dr Suze Leitão, Chair Ethics Board, and Christina
Wilson, Senior Advisor Professional Issues (2010–2014)
Author correspondence
The articles in this supplement have been published
previously in different issues of JCPSLP and thus the
author correspondence details may have changed. If
you are unable to contact an author, please contact
the Senior Advisor Ethics and Professional Issues at
National Office: .