Client welfare
Place the client’s health, dignity, autonomy, safety, and legitimate interests ahead of convenience, ego, or commercial pressure.
Standards and recognition
Credibility begins with
conduct worth trusting.
The College advances standards for competence, judgment, ethics, continuing education, and responsible professional practice.
Professional obligation
Standards matter most when they require something of us.
A code of ethics is not a collection of flattering adjectives. It is a public statement of obligations: what professionals owe their clients, colleagues, institutions, and the field they hope to elevate.
ACFP’s standards program will connect ethical conduct with continuing competence, evidence, scope, referral, honest communication, and meaningful accountability. The framework below states the principles guiding that work during the College’s founding period.
Founding principles
The obligations of professional practice.
Competence
Accept work only when education, experience, and judgment are adequate, and pursue continuing education sufficient to maintain them.
Scope and referral
Recognize the boundaries of professional preparation, avoid diagnosis or treatment outside lawful scope, and refer when another professional is needed.
Evidence and honesty
Distinguish evidence from opinion, avoid exaggerated claims, disclose material uncertainty, and never manufacture authority.
Individual judgment
Apply principles to the actual person rather than forcing the person into a fashionable protocol or predetermined system.
Privacy and boundaries
Protect confidential information and maintain professional relationships free from exploitation, coercion, and avoidable conflicts.
Equity and respect
Provide professional service without degrading treatment or unjustified assumptions based on identity, ability, age, appearance, or status.
Professional contribution
Strengthen the field through collegial conduct, responsible mentorship, candid correction, and service beyond personal commercial interest.
Recognition
Distinction should be earned slowly and understood clearly.
The College intends to recognize advanced education, sustained contribution, scholarship, leadership, mentorship, and service. Recognition will not be a disguised product sale or a decorative string of letters available to anyone with a credit card.
Future credentials and fellowship standards will identify the evidence required, the decision makers involved, renewal expectations, and the limits of what each recognition signifies.
Framework in development
Continuing education record
Verified documentation of completed ACFP programs and qualifying professional development.
Advanced recognition
Defined recognition for structured study and demonstrated development beyond entry-level preparation.
Institutional fellowship
A selective distinction based on achievement, contribution, integrity, service, and peer judgment.
ACFP does not issue a governmental license and does not represent that future College recognition will authorize clinical or other regulated practice.
Standards inquiry
Serious standards improve through serious challenge.
Professionals and institutions are invited to contribute sources, critiques, model policies, and practical concerns to the College’s standards development process.
Write to the standards office