Mindful Ethics: An Acceptance-based Approach to Ethics

*Participants will earn 3 Ethics CE hours*

This is no ordinary ethics workshop! It doesn’t focus on risk and legalities, and it won't leave you stressed about your capacity to keep up with every detail of your ethics code. 

This workshop is about using mindfulness and acceptance skills to integrate your personal and professional ethics into your work - every day, moment to moment. It is about approaching ethics in a way that is personally and professionally meaningful. Specifically, this training is designed to provide a mindful perspective to the ethical guidelines for mental health professionals. 

Dr. Martin will use the basic tenets of mindfulness and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to explore how ethical dilemmas can be considered from a stance of mindful awareness, acceptance, and psychological flexibility. We will consider examples of challenging situations and discuss how processes such as experiential avoidance and inflexible thinking may contribute to negative outcomes. We also will discuss how approaching these situations from a mindful, accepting stance may increase the likelihood of actions that are consistent with ethical standards. Finally, Dr. Martin will lead experiential exercises to encourage participants to connect with their values surrounding ethical work and their identities as ethical scientist-practitioners. 

Attendees will participate in large group didactic instruction and will have the opportunity to discuss ethical dilemmas in small groups.

Participants will receive 3 ethics CE credits/hours following their ompletion of the program.

Testimonials from past participants:

"This was the best, most useful ethics presentation I’ve ever attended!" - Neville Galloway-Williams, PhD

"Excellent, meaningful presentation, with the ability to apply this mindful approach in a small group." - Gretel LaVieri, LCSW

Staci Martin, PhD is a licensed psychologist who specializes in using mindfulness and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to treat adolescents and adults with medical conditions at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD. Her research focuses on ACT interventions for people with chronic pain and parents of children with health conditions. She is the Principal Investigator of two ACT-based protocols and has published over 80 peer reviewed publications. Dr. Martin is a past board member of the Association of Contextual Behavioral Science (ACBS), President Emeritus of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of ACBS Board, and current chair of the ACBS Plenary committee. She also is an associate editor of the Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science. She has been conducting ACT trainings since 2014 and is recognized as a Peer-Reviewed ACT Trainer. Her other training topics have focused on ACT for health and wellness, maximizing the power of mindfulness in sessions with clients, ethics, and cultural competence

Additional Program Information:

Target audience: social workers and counselors

Content level: all levels

Learning objectives:

1. Participants will be able to explain how to apply an acceptance-based therapeutic framework for dealing with ethical challenges.

2. Participants will be able to explain how approaching ethical challenges from a mindful, accepting, and psychologically flexible stance can increase the likelihood of actions that are consistent with ethical standards.

3. Participants will be able to identify at least two personal values that pertain to ethical practice in your work as a mental health professional.

Outline and Agenda:

9:00 - 9:10 - Introduction
9:10 - 9:40 - Hooks and Helpers
9:40 - 10:00 - Understanding Ethical Challenges
10:00 - 10:30 - Moral Injury
10:30 - 10:45 - Ethical Mindfulness
10:45 - 11:00 - Break
11:00 - 11:15 - Perspective Taking: Dealing with Difficult Clients
11:15 - 12:00 - Small group exercise
12:00 - 12:15 - What now?

Course interaction and system requirements:

This live webinar hosted on Zoom is fully interactive. Attendees may ask and answer questions throughout the presentation (using their microphones and/or the chat option). System requirements for Zoom can be viewed at https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362023-System-requirements-for-PC-and-Mac.

Fee and registration:

Cost is $80 for 3 CE credits/hours. Refunds are available for up to seven days prior to the program (this may not include TicketTailor fees). After that, we offer credit that can be applied to a future program. Registration is open until the course is full. In some cases, we will enable a wait list option once the course is full.

Course completion and CE info:

To receive CE credit/hours, participants must log in at the scheduled time, attend the entire program and complete an online evaluation at the end of the program. If you are licensed in Illinois, an additional exam must be requested and completed in order to receive credit for the program.

Certificates will be emailed out within 7 business days following receipt of evaluation.

CE credit is currently available for social workers and counselors in all 50 states (see below for more information). All other professionals (including psychologists and marriage and family therapists) must confirm CE approval with their state board.

Bright Ideas Continuing Education, #1757, is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Organizations, not individual courses, are approved as ACE providers. State and provincial regulatory boards have the final authority to determine whether an individual course may be accepted for continuing education credit. Bright Ideas Continuing Education maintains responsibility for this course. ACE provider approval period: 11/19/2024-11/19/2027. Social workers completing this course receive 3 ethics continuing education credits.

Bright Ideas Continuing Education has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7705. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Bright Ideas Continuing Education is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.

Bright Ideas Continuing Education is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0781.

​Bright Ideas Continuing Education is also authorized by the Board of Social Work Examiners in Maryland to provide social work continuing education. 

Our credits are also accepted by the New Jersey Board of Social Work Examiners.

If you have any questions, concerns or special accommodation requests, please contact us at 410-575-3870 or info@brightideasceus.com.​