Ethics Agreements for BayNVC

The following is a statement of ethics agreements for BayNVC and the Collaborative Trainers (COLTs).

Nondiscrimination

Trainers offer services to prospective or current clients and students without discrimination on the basis of age, culture, disability, ethnicity, race, religion/spirituality, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, marital/ partnership status, language preference, socioeconomic status, or immigration status.

Confidentiality

Trainers recognize that trust is a cornerstone of the coaching and student-teacher relationship. Trainers aspire to earn the trust of clients and students by creating an ongoing partnership, establishing and upholding relevant boundaries, and maintaining confidentiality.

Trainers will keep information confidential except when disclosure is required to protect clients or students or identified others from serious and foreseeable harm, or when legal requirements demand that confidential information must be revealed. Exceptions that may be reported include: a threat of serious bodily harm to self or another, disclosure of a realistic intention or plan to commit suicide, suspected abuse of children and vulnerable adults, and prenatal exposure to controlled substances.

Trainers will also not pass any information between clients, students or group members about other clients, students or group members without written permission to do so and specific instruction on what can be passed on. In long-term programs such as the Leadership Program and BayNVC Immersion Program, trainers will let students know, in advance, that trainers and assistant trainers will talk with one another about their sense of students’ needs and experiences in the context of the program.

Dual relationships

Dual or multiple role relationships occur when a professional assumes two or more roles at the same time or sequentially with a client or with someone who has a significant relationship with the client.

Trainers are aware of their influential positions with respect to students and clients, and they avoid exploiting the trust and dependency of such persons.

The following paragraphs detail our policy toward some specific dual relationships.

Trainers will not accept requests for private sessions from friends who were formerly students, but can accept them as members in group contexts like practice groups, workshops, retreats and can also accept them as organizational clients.

Trainers will not make direct, individual requests for personal donations from clients or students. Clients and students may be included in group requests for donations.

Business relationships

Trainers will not lend money to clients, students or group members; will not borrow from clients, students or group members, nor hold or transfer money between clients, students or group members; and will receive money from clients, students or group members only for services completed or planned.

Any trainer with current, previously undeclared financial arrangements with clients, students or group members that lie outside of these guidelines will declare them to the Collaborative Trainers and BayNVC Board, and provide their current plan of action, if it exists, to remove any such arrangement. In the absence of such a plan of action, the trainer will keep the board and the Collaborative Trainers informed on steps taken or under consideration and other relevant developments as they occur. If there are obstacles to providing the Collaborative Trainers or BayNVC Board with the information they request, the trainer concerned will provide prompt explanations of the obstacles, and plans and timelines for overcoming those obstacles.

Sexual or romantic relationships

Trainers will not engage in sexual and/or romantic interactions or relationships with current clients or students. This agreement applies to both in-person and electronic interactions or relationships. If a trainer is aware of interest in a sexual or romantic relationship between the trainer and a student, the trainer-student relationship must clearly and consciously end before any further development toward a romantic relationship.

Any trainer with current, previously undeclared sexual and/or romantic relationships with clients or students will declare them to the Collaborative Trainers and BayNVC Board, and provide their current plan, if it exists, to end any such relationship. If there are obstacles to ending the relationship, the trainer concerned will provide prompt explanations of the obstacles, and plans and timelines for overcoming those obstacles.

Commitment to this Policy

Acceptance of and commitment to act in accordance with these ethics agreements is a condition for continued participation as a trainer. Where relevant, prompt action in accordance with the ethics agreements, as requested by the Collaborative Trainers group and/or the BayNVC board, would be a condition for continued participation as a trainer.

Independent Contractor Status

All trainers are independent contractors, rather than employees or agents of BayNVC. Trainers are not supervised by BayNVC, nor do they have the authority to act on behalf of BayNVC in any manner.

rev. 02/2019