"We know that prevention is the highest form of healing from Exodus 15:26: "If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in His eyes, and keep all of His commandments, I will put none of the diseases upon you that I have put upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord your physician." God is saying here that He is preventing disease. Since, in preventing disease, we are emulating God, prevention is the highest form of healing. ...God in this context is like a physician who says to his patient, "Do not eat this food or it will make you sick."

"Physicians do not usually discuss lifestyle changes with their patients. Prevention is on the back burner, and someone has to get burnt to get treated. Our secular society deems it reasonable to pay tens of thousands of dollars for coronary bypass surgery but unreasonable to pay a few dollars for prevention." Source: Jewish

2.4 Questions stretch the mind. "Once someone's mind is stretched by a new idea it can never return to its original form." Oliver Wendell Holmes.

The Principles of Ethics are models of standards of exemplary professional conduct. These principles of the code of Ethical Conduct for Prevention professionals express the professional's recognition of responsibilities to the public, to service recipients, and to colleagues. They guide members in the performance of their professional responsibilities and express the basic tenets of ethical and professional conduct. The Principles call for commitment to honorable behavior, even at the sacrifice of personal advantage.

These principles should not be regarded as limitations or restrictions, but as goals toward which Prevention Professionals should constantly strive. They are guided by core values and competencies that have emerged with the development of the field.

Principles

I. Non-Discrimination

Prevention Professional shall not discriminate against service recipients or colleagues based on race, religion, national origin, sex, age, sexual orientation, economic condition, or physical, medical or mental disability. Prevention professionals should broaden their understanding and acceptance of cultural and individual differences, and in so doing, render services and provide information sensitive to those differences.

II. Competence

A Prevention Professional shall observe the profession’s technical and ethical standards, strive continually to improve personal competence and quality of service delivery, and discharge professional responsibility to the best of his ability. Competence is derived from a synthesis of education and experience. It begins with the mastery of a body of knowledge and skill competencies. The maintenance of competence requires a commitment to learning and professional improvement that must continue throughout the professional’s life.

a. Professionals should be diligent in discharging responsibilities. Diligence imposes the responsibility to render services carefully and promptly, to be thorough, and to observe applicable technical and ethical standards.

b. Due care requires professionals to plan and supervise adequately and evaluate, to the extent possible, any professional activity for which they are responsible.

c. Prevention Professionals should recognize limitations and boundaries of competencies and not use techniques or offer services outside of their competencies. Professionals are responsible for assessing the adequacy of their own competence for the responsibility to be assumed.

d. Ideally, Prevention Professionals should be supervised by Certified Prevention Professionals. When this is not available, Prevention professionals should seek peer supervision or mentoring from other competent Prevention Professionals.

e. When Prevention Professionals have knowledge of unethical conduct or practice on the part of an agency or prevention professional, they have an ethical responsibility to report the conduct or practices to appropriate funding or regulatory bodies or to the public.

f. Prevention Professionals should recognize the effect of impairment on professional performance and should be willing to seek appropriate treatment for themselves.

III. Integrity

To maintain and broaden public confidence, Prevention Professionals should perform all responsibilities with the highest sense of integrity. Personal gain and advantage should not subordinate service and the public trust. Integrity can accommodate the inadvertent error and the honest difference of opinion. It cannot accommodate deceit or subordination of principle.

a. All information should be presented fairly and accurately. Each professional should document and assign credit to all contributing sources used in published material or public statements.

b. Prevention Professionals should not misrepresent either directly or by implication professional qualifications or affiliations.

c. Where there is evidence of impairment in a colleague or a service recipient, a Prevention professional should be supportive of assistance or treatment.

d. A Prevention Professional should not be associated directly or indirectly with any service, products, individuals, and organization in a way that is misleading.

IV. Nature of Services

Practices shall do no harm to service recipients. Services provided by Prevention professionals shall be respectful and nonexploitive.

a. Services should be provided in a way that preserves the protective factors inherent in each culture and individual.

b. Prevention Professionals should use formal and informal structures to receive and incorporate input from service recipients in the development, implementation and evaluation of prevention services.

c. Where there is suspicion of abuse of children or vulnerable adults, the Prevention Professional shall report the evidence to the appropriate agency and follow up to ensure that appropriate action has been taken.

V. Confidentiality

Confidential information acquired during service delivery shall be safeguarded from disclosure, including - but not limited to - verbal disclosure, unsecured maintenance of records, or recording of an activity or presentation without appropriate releases. Prevention Professionals are responsible for knowing the confidentiality regulations relevant to their prevention specialty.

VI. Ethical Obligations for Community and Society

According to their consciences, Prevention Professionals should be proactive on public policy and legislative issues. The public welfare and the individual’s right to services and personal wellness should guide the efforts of Prevention Professionals to educate the general public and policy makers. Prevention Professionals should adopt a personal and professional stance that promotes health.

*Adapted from the National Association of Prevention Professionals and Advocates (NAPPA) Code of Ethics, 1995  Source: http://www.preventionthinktank.org/index.htm

3.2 Prevention is embedded in the particular culture of the client:  Different cultures have different ethical standards and thus prevention issues. Cultures may be differentiated geographically, socially, nationally etc.