Ethical breaches rarely begin with misconduct. They begin
with erosion.

A session runs fifty minutes long. A fee is waived once, and
then again. A crisis text is answered at ten at night. Notes fall three days
behind. None of these start as ethical failures. They start as care, delivered
under strain.

In trauma-shaped systems that strain compounds. Urgency is
constant, responsibility feels limitless, and the clinicians doing the work
absorb both. Over time, small accommodations quietly become standard practice,
and the distance widens between what we intend to do and what we actually do.
That gradual movement away from best practice is ethical drift.

This session examines drift as a systems phenomenon rather
than a personal failing, and looks at the structure of a practice as one of the
most reliable safeguards against it. We will look at how financial strain,
caseload saturation and professional isolation increase ethical vulnerability,
and how ordinary business decisions function as containment in trauma-exposed
work: fee integrity, caseload design, cancellation and boundary policies,
documentation systems, consultation structures and referral pathways.

This is not a session about charging more. It is a session
about understanding how the conditions we practise in create ethical risk, and
how deliberate structural design reduces it.

Participants will leave with a working definition of ethical
drift, a way to recognize it early in their own practice or team, and one
structural safeguard they can put in place right away.

Learning objectives

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• Define ethical drift and
  identify its common early indicators in solo and group practice.
• Describe how the conditions
  of trauma-shaped systems, including chronic urgency and amplified
  responsibility, increase a clinician’s vulnerability to drift.
• Explain the relationship
  between financial instability, caseload saturation and compromised clinical
  judgment.
• Identify structural
  safeguards that reduce ethical risk, including fee integrity, caseload design,
  policy clarity, documentation systems and consultation networks.
• Name one area of drift risk
  in their own practice and one structural safeguard to implement.

Who this session is for

Clinicians, group practice owners, and clinical supervisors.
It is designed to be useful both to newer practitioners setting up their
practice for the first time and to experienced practitioners who recognize that
some things have quietly slipped.

Format

• 60 minutes, delivered
  virtually, with a guided individual reflection exercise in the final section.
• A PDF workbook will be
  provided to registrants in advance.
• The session will be recorded
  and the replay made available to registrants.

Registration will be open until November 30, 2026

Date: Tuesday, December 1, 2026 from 12:30pm - 1:30pm

Facilitated by: Liane Wood

Cost: OAMHP Members - $25, Student Members - $20, Certified Members - $20, Non-Members - $30, Non-Member Student - $25

CECs: 1

Location: Zoom

Style: Virtual

Please note: There is a limit of 50 participants.