Posted: November 9th, 2022

Social Work Practice: Values and Ethics

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Introduction

At its most simple social work is a constant and organised method to the social issues of households and people. It’s an method that focuses on serving to folks to Help themselves (Moore, 2002).^[1]Most practitioners enter social work due to a dedication to social justice, or on the very least a need to Help others and to see enchancment and optimistic change in folks’s lives. Fashionable social work, together with different public providers, is being more and more run alongside enterprise strains and market ideas. At present’s social employee due to this fact is confronted with the managerial method, efficiency indicators, care managers and care packages. Given the present state of issues the place all the things is guided by budgets and the necessity to fulfill these in cost by processing a case as rapidly as potential one wonders whether or not a social employee has time to be guided by normal moral ideas, not to mention a selected code of follow. Within the present local weather it’s straightforward to overlook that social employees are dedicated to the view of the intrinsic human price of every particular person, and the concomitant view that every particular person deserves the perfect care and recommendation potential.

In 1948 the Common Declarati^[2]on of Human Rights got here into being. The declaration encapsulates a view of the inherent price and dignity of the human particular person. The declaration espouses the notion of particular person freedom on the idea that such freedom didn’t infringe the rights of others, these are the rights on which a lot of social work follow relies. This paper will start with a normal definition of ethics. It can then have a look at the ethics and values which underpin social work follow. There shall be an Assessment of social work values and of their relevance to anti-discriminatory and anti-oppressive follow.

Ethics

Ethics are normal ethical ideas which might be supposed to tell the governing of human behaviour. Thus, most individuals would maintain to the view that some issues similar to cruelty and homicide are all the time unsuitable, or unethical. Moral codes, nonetheless, could also be primarily based on ethical ideas, however should not as generalisable or universally relevant. It is because they confer with specific professions and the best way wherein skilled behaviour is ruled. Such moral codes can’t be stated to be impartial or worth free as a result of they’re contextual. They come up inside a sure context and are utilized to a selected function as such, moral codes are influenced by the ideologies held in that context (Butler, 2000). The context being examined right here, is that of social work follow. Codes of follow and ethics are sometimes idealistic, as a result of they might be seen as offering a blueprint for the way a social employee ought to act when it’s not possible to legislate for each scenario, and this may increasingly lead to a false sense of safety (Banks, 2003). Social employees due to this fact, want to have the ability to recognise when the code of follow inside which they’re required to work, doesn’t function inside a framework that’s knowledgeable by human rights and social justice (Husband, 1995).

The Consumer’s Wants

Shon (1991) has argued that:

Professionals declare to contribute to social well-being, put their shoppers’ wants forward of their very own, and maintain themselves accountable to requirements of competence and morality. (Schon, 1991:11-12).

Some critics keep that the best way wherein social providers typically operates is self-serving quite than serving the wants of the shoppers, but social employees do police themselves and their career. The way in which wherein they do that is to suppose critically about what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and what ethical implications this may increasingly have. Definitely social work ethics mustn’t lead anybody to consider that the social work career ought to serve itself, quite the wants of the consumer must be most necessary. One of many methods that is achieved is by establishing clear relationship boundaries early on. It is because involvement with a consumer that’s too private is opposite to what the BASW has to say about social work ethics and values.

The social work career promotes social change, downside fixing in human relationships and the empowerment and liberation of individuals to boost well-being. Utilising theories of human behaviour and social programs, social work intervenes on the factors the place folks work together with their environments. Rules of human rights and social justice are elementary to social work (BASW,2001). ^[3]

Social work follow, as a way to be moral follow have to be centred on the wants of service customers Social employees of necessity intervene in folks’s lives and have an affect on conditions, moral resolution making is due to this fact an important element of social work follow (Osmo and Landau, 2001). The Affiliation is there to provide recommendation to social employees on what constitutes moral resolution making in numerous contexts.

Moral Determination Making

Determination making must be grounded within the values and ethics of social work. Among the points that social employees must take care of and that contain them in moral resolution making centre round balancing the rights of 1 particular person in opposition to others, round public welfare and problems with institutional and structural oppression. This will make life tough as a result of the social employee has then to establish when establishments and constructions are being oppressive and how the values of social work could also be used to fight this. Determination making can be problematic as a result of social employees are dedicated to confidentiality with respect to the folks they work with. Generally a social employee is confronted with a scenario the place she or he could, for the better good, be pressured to interrupt the ethic of confidentiality as a result of the consumer could also be a hazard to themselves of another person. This causes a battle of values and the social employee has, with the Helpance of his/her supervisor, to steadiness the wants of the person in opposition to the wants of the better good.

On the very least social work ought to start with a transparent dedication to social justice which seeks to problem poverty and discrimination in all its varieties as a result of social work has its roots within the nineteenth century strikes to eradicate poverty and unemployment.

Everybody has the proper to be shielded from abuse and to be handled with respect. This isn’t straightforward when Authorities discourses specific concern for inclusion and equality e.g. for these with psychological well being issues, then make use of discourses which ignore components similar to race, gender and class and social circumstances, which might be pertinent to any correct understanding of an individual’s situation. The Human Rights Act of 1998 makes it obligatory for native authorities to behave in methods which might be conversant with the Act. Social employees Help with the issues confronted by folks with disabilities. Social employees have an obligation to be conversant with the Human Rights Act and the Group Care Act of 1990. Social employees are confronted with making selections regarding what defines an individual with disabilities and additionally how one can assess their wants. If the unsuitable type of care is prescribed, e.g. detainment beneath the Psychological Well being Act for an individual who doesn’t fulfil the desired standards, then this might be an infringement of human rights.

Social employees are obligation sure to base their follow on ideas of human rights and social justice however on the similar time they should be extra conscious of how the inequalities that they see in society would possibly have an effect on their follow (Cemlyn and Briskman 2003). Society doesn’t all the time function in the perfect pursuits of the person particular person, moreover, the introduction of market ideas into social care can imply that the authorized framework inside which a social employee has to behave might also (nonetheless a lot it’s unintended) work in opposition to particular person rights. Some commentators e.g. Challis (1990) keep that previous to market ideas and managerialism being launched into social care, social employees operated with a a lot better diploma of freedom. It’s arguably the case that the social employee is obligation sure to behave in accordance with a course of that’s knowledgeable by the valuing of the human particular person and the idea of human rights, and could, due to this fact, should be ready to work outdoors of a framework that (albeit unintended) prevents them from working in accordance with this ethic (Cemlyn and Briskman, 2003). Wolff (2002) speaks of advantage ethics being the foundation of social work follow due to its concern with a simply society and justice for people. Bearing this in thoughts social employees search to have interaction in anti-discriminatory and anti-oppressive follow in all that they do.

Anti-discriminatory and Anti-oppressive Observe

An emancipatory and anti-oppressive perspective is a important element of moral social work, social employees must be folks enablers, enabling folks to face up for his or her rights and giving them a voice. Horton and Pattapen (2004) argue that in up to date society people are sometimes disempowered in numbers of how and really feel unable to deal with the foundations that information their lives. Social employees take care of the misery that outcomes from this and of their follow ought to Question Assignment social programs whereby an rising variety of folks endure from injustice, oppression, and exclusion from mainstream society. Anti-discriminatory follow means taking account of structural disadvantages i.e. how the constructions of society typically work in opposition to sure teams e.g. these with disabilities, girls, and ethnic minorities. It additionally implies that the social employee takes care to not use discriminatory language and to do their greatest to advertise the dignity and self-worth of service customers.

The ethos of the price of particular person human individuals is usually counteracted by present social work follow. Below the rules for social care social employees Help people to decide on what’s greatest for them, in follow nonetheless, care managers are the individuals who maintain the budgets and budgetary considerations can typically be discriminatory disenfranchising the person who the social employee is attempting to Help (Postle, 2000). Social employees attempt to keep away from this occurring however they work in a state establishment that always inadvertently works in opposition to the perfect pursuits of service customers. This is the reason social employees should be skilled to view the world from the angle of others in order that they extra simply recognise how the system oppresses (Moore, 2002)..

Conclusion

The ethics and values that underpin social work follow are devoted to social justice and recognition of the inherent price of every and each particular person. Social employees do their greatest to work in partnership with service customers and to do that in a approach that features and empowers folks. Social employees are devoted to Help folks transfer ahead and take management of their lives, the thought is to shift the facility steadiness away from the social employee and in the direction of the person who wants Help. The constructions of society are, in some methods, discriminatory and oppressive and social employees recognise that white masculine values drawback folks and they’re due to this fact dedicated to anti-discriminatory and anti-oppressive follow of their work.

Bibliography

Banks, S. 2003 From oaths to rulebooks: a important examination of codes of ethics for the social professions European journal of Social Work Quantity 6 No. 2 July 2003 p. 133-144

British Affiliation of Social Employees (2002) The Code of Ethics for Social Work.http://www.basw.co.uk/.

Butler, I 2000. A Code of Ethics for Social Work and Social Work Analysis http://www.elsc.org.uk/socialcareresource/tswr/seminar6/butler.htm

Cremlyn, S and Briskman L. 2003 “Asylum, Kids’s Rights and Social Work” Youngster and Household Social Work eight (three) pp. 163-178

Husband, C. (1995) The morally energetic practitioner and the ethics of anti-racist social work. In: Moral Points in Social Work (eds R. Hugman & D. Smith), pp. 84–103. Routledge, London

Ife, J. (2001) Human Rights Social Work: In the direction of Rights-Based mostly Observe. Cambridge College Press, Cambridge

Postle, F. (2000) ‘The social work aspect is disappearing. I assume it began with us being referred to as care managers’, Observe, 13(2), pp. 13-27.

Ring, C. 2001 “High quality assurance in mental-health care: A case research from social work” Well being and Social Care within the Group 9(6) 2001 pp. 383-390

Schön, D. A. (1991) The Reflective Flip: Case Research In and On Academic Observe, New York: Academics Press, Columbia College

Slote, Michael. From Morality to Advantage. Oxford: Oxford College Press, 1992

Wolff, J. 2002 “Contractualism and the virtues” Crucial Overview of Worldwide Social and Political Philosophy Quantity 5 No. 2 June 2002 p. 120-132

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Footnotes

^[1] See p.179

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^[3] http://www.basw.co.uk/articles.php?articleId=2&page=2