Traveling the "information highway"...

Traveling the "information highway" in the proces of career counseling or providing career counseling services via the Internet attitude additional challenges for counselors. In this article, the authors use popular ethical guidelines to guide discussion of and possible resolutions to, challenges pos through incorporating the Internet into career counseling.

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Although greatest in number counselors continue to practice face-to-face counseling with their clients, the Internet is quickly becoming a standard counseling tool for career counselors (Gysbers, Heppner, & Johnston, 1998; Harris-Bowlsbey, 2000) Career counseling professionals now must restrain at least minimal competencies in the use of computer and retrieval of information forward the Internet (Stevens & Lundberg, 1998) one counselors may choose to make known and provide interactive online service. The number and variety of Web sites and the issues involved in infusing the Internet into counseling are major challenges. A latter search for career-related Web sites terminateed in a range of sites, from 256 to 23137 depending onward the search engine and search space of time used.

One not seldom used option for simplifying the search proces is to use published lists of useful career Web sites. For example, Bolle (1998) and Harris-Bowlsbey, Dikel, and Sampson (1998) have tendered recommendations of key Web sites for career counselors. The rapid change of Web site addresses and the ne for common updating of information limit the usefulness of these lists of Web sites. The information forward the Internet is not static, does not have a regular update schedule, and may be part of e-commerce which affects the intent of the published information. Locating career-related Web sites is a quick and easy proces whereas narrowing them down and practicing counseling using the Internet as a tool can be excited overwhelming.

In our practice, we recognized potential benefits and drawbacks in the use of the Internet in our career counseling. We were disturbed that caution may have been thrown to the wind in the service of this evolving and flashy tool, the Internet, and therefore reviewed the National Career evolution Association's (NCDA) NCDA Ethical Standards (NCDA, 1991) and the NCDA Guidelines for the Use of the Internet for Provision of Career Information and Planning Services (NGDA, 1997) to guide our practice in this fresh terrain. With no road signs to guide travelers, single in kind can easily become lost, make a wrongful turn, or have an accident onward the new "information highway" and throw away sight of some important practice issues along the way. We move these information highway road signs for of recent origin counselors in the field and attract favor to that seasoned counselors pause along the road to examine their practices.

Pedestrian Crossing

Using the Internet in career counseling requires careful attention to the clients that counselors assist Introducing the Internet into counseling and using appropriate measures of informed co-operation and confidentiality gain new importance. As the NCDA Ethical Standards (NCDA, 1991) state, a counselor's primary obligation is to consider the integrity and promote the welfare of the client (see Section B1) As in all counseling relationships, a portion of the initial assessment should focus onward identifying the most appropriate service to, and treatment for, an individual, based onward the client's stated needs. When using the Internet, the NCDA Ethical Standards state that "career counselors must also make secure that clients are intellectually, emotionally, and physically compatible with the use of computer application and understand its final cause and operation" (NCDA, 1991, Section B16) This also emphasizes the importance of selective use and introduction of the Internet in its exact perspective (see NCDA, 1991, Section C1) The Internet can be a useful tool for finding career information, work at jobs openings, and assessment tools; it is best used as an adjunct to counseling, and with caution. The cautions that ne to be communicated to clients about the information place on the Internet include the importance of verifying source credibility; the publicity of dated information, such as piece of work postings; the level of transmission security; and the multiple issues related to online assessments (discussed in more detail later).

Informed concurrence regarding the use of the Internet in counseling is required from both sets of NCDA (1991 1997) guidelines for practice. For chiefly counselors, this requires minor changes in the disclosure form and actions to include the use of the Internet as an adjunct information tool. A more challenging requirement is the assurance of confidentiality with the use of a of the Internet tools, as required in Section B2 (NCDA, 1991) Although many Web sites are encrypt and make secure privacy of information, counselors cannot assure clients of that privacy. In addition, if clients concluded online assessments, the information provided to the trial companies is not private. In this case, we approve using client numbers rather than names to identify ensues and never storing results online.