Chapter 3: Ethics in Social Work

Question 1

What is scocialwork grounded in?

Answer 1

Social work is a profession with a distinct value base grounded in the pursuit of social justice and the elimination of oppression.

Question 2

What are social workers commitments to social justice shaped by?

Answer 2

Social workers’ personal, professional, and organizational commitments to social justice are shaped by adherence to core values and principles that promote ethical behaviour and guide work with clients.

Question 3

What does Reamer remind us about social welfare policies?

Answer 3

He reminds us that social welfare policies and subsequent programs “are ultimately shaped by deep-seated beliefs about the goals of government, the rights of citizens in relation to the state, the obligations of government toward its most vulnerable citizens, civil liberties, and the nature of social justice”

Question 4

What are the four periods of ethics is social work?

Answer 4

• the morality period,
• the values period,
• the ethical theory and decision-making period, and
• the ethical standards and risk management period.

Question 5

What was the morality period in social work?

Answer 5

The common assumption made by social workers was that the problems and challenges that people encountered were a result of their individual moral failures.

Question 6

How did social workers view their ethics and morality compare to clients during morality period?

Answer 6

Reflecting this highly paternalistic view, social workers were less concerned with the morality, obligations, or ethics of the profession, or their own ethical practice or professional conduct, and were instead more focused on the ethics and morality of clients themselves.

Question 7

What was the values period?

Answer 7

During the 1950’s social workers began to place focus on morality, values and ethics of profession and practice.

Question 8

What 3 things came during value period?

Answer 8

• Debates on mission of profession
• Set of core professional values (And competing values)
• Social work associations began to develop and publicize ethical standards and guidelines

Question 9

What was the ethical theory and decision-making period?

Answer 9

Controversial technological developments in health care, such as the termination of life support, organ transplantation, genetic engineering, and test-tube babies, sparked increased ethical debate. Alongside this, through highly publicized events like Watergate in the United States in the early 1970s

Question 10

What happened in the 1970s in view of ethics?

Answer 10

saw a surge of interest in the subject of applied and professional ethics. Professions including medicine, law, business, journalism, nursing, social work, and criminal justice began to devote significant attention to the subject.

Question 11

What are the the two main factors that the 70s seen an interest in professional ethics?

Answer 11

• Controversial technological developments in health care, such as the termination of life support, organ transplantation, genetic engineering, and test-tube babies, sparked increased ethical debate.
• Alongside this, through highly publicized events like Watergate in the United States in the early 1970s

Question 12

What are the two types of ethical theories?

Answer 12

• Ulitarian theories: Are theories that suggest actions are right and wrong according to their outcomes rather than their intrinsic features
• Deontologial: Theories that maintain certain acts are intrinsically good or bad in and of themselves, irrespective of their outcomes.

Question 13

Why was the 1960s/70s considerably important to social justice, social reform and civil rights? 8

Answer 13

• Social turbulence
• War
• Genocide
• Unethical scientific experiments
• Awareness of generalized structural inequalities
• Exploitation
• Malpractice
• Publicity of unethical rofessionals

Question 14

What was the ethical standards and risk management period?

Answer 14

A significan expansion of ethical standards to guide practitioners’ conduct and increased knowledge concerning prffessional negligence and liability.

Question 15

What came out of the ethical standards and risk management period?

Answer 15

• The creation and formalization of a comprehensive code of ethics for the profession
• Literature focusing on malpractice, liability and risk management strategies

Question 16

What is the code that the Canadian Association of Social Workers use?

Answer 16

The Canadian Code of Ethics for Social Work

Question 17

What does the Canadian Code of Ethics state? 3

Answer 17

• a responsibility to maintain professional proficiency,
• to continually strive to increase their professional knowledge and skills, and
• to apply new knowledge in practice commensurate with their level of professional education, skill and competency, seeking consultation and supervision as appropriate
• that social workers have “a responsibility to maintain professional proficiency, to continually strive to increase their professional knowledge and skills, and to apply new knowledge in practice commensurate with their level of professional education, skill and competency, seeking consultation and supervision as appropriate”
• Social workers rely on the values and principles of the Code and the Guidelines for Ethical Practice (2005b) to guide their professional conduct by outlining ethical responsibilities to clients, in professional relationships, to colleagues, in the workplace, in private practice, in research, to the profession, and to society.

Question 18

What are the 6 Ethics Core Values?

Answer 18

1. Respect for inherent dignity and worth of persons:
2. The pursuit of social justice:
3. Service to humanity:
4. Integrity of professional practice:
5. Confidentiality in professional practice:
6. Competence in professional practice:

Question 19

Strengths of the CASW Code? 5

Answer 19

• First, it provides direction and guidelines when ethical dilemmas arise.
• Second, the Code assists in creating and maintaining a professional identity. The presence of the Code and its content affirms that social workers, as members of a single profession, share and are publicly committed to the stated values and principles
• Third, the Code establishes norms related to the profession’s mission and methods.
• Fourth, the Code provides standards that can help adjudicate allegations of misconduct, ensure public accountability, and protect clients from malpractice or abuse.
• Finally, the Code provides a public declaration that members of a certain profession should ensure that they have relevant and up-to-date skills, and that they will not discriminate against clients.

Question 20

What are the 5 limitations to the Code?

Answer 20

• can lead social workers to adopt a cautious, formal relational style with some clients.
• may overlook or neglect alternative ethical systems, such as those emphasizing collective rather than individual responsibilities.
• Third, some argue that codes of ethics are reflective of dominant discourses and hierarchical power relations and function in ways that preserve the status quo and social order. Codes of ethics are informed by and place high value on individualism, independence, and homogeneity of the client characterized by a liberal democratic philosophy
• code is ambiguous, and the interplay of professional standards, laws, and personal ethical standards can be a challenging part of the social worker’s decision-making process.
• morality and ethics are inherently socially constructed. In this sense, the moral authority of any group or speaker is historical, rather than timeless, and subject to revision.

Question 21

Why should you avoid following ethical decision making in a linear framework?

Answer 21

Indeed, a danger in portraying decision-making in a linear way is that the social worker may be perceived as a detached observer of the process. Importantly, social workers are not detached, but are inextricably part of the process.

Question 22

What are the 5 steps to Decision making?

Answer 22

• Describe the case and context
• Define the ethical problem
• Explore values and biases
• Gather information: Research, theory and Code
• Explore options

Question 23

What is evidence based practice?

Answer 23

An approach that “bring[s] practice and research together so as to strengthen the scientific knowledge base supporting social work intervention

Question 24

What is practice based evidence?

Answer 24

Calls on practitioners to think about the outcome they and their clients hope to achieve and represent the outcome in a measurable way.

Question 25

What is burnout?

Answer 25

Over time, a physical and emotional state where one feels exhaustion and depersonalization along with a negative outlook.

Question 26

What is compassion fatigue?

Answer 26

An outcome of long-term exposure to clients’ suffering and traumatic experiences that can result in desensitization toward clients’ issues, thus impairing the worker-client relationship.

Question 27

What is vicarious trauma?

Answer 27

A profound shift of one’s worldview through hearing, providing empathy toward, and indirectly experiencing a client’s traumatic stressors.

Question 28

What is self-care?

Answer 28

Strategies or practices used to support one’s emotional, psychological, physical, and spiritual health and well-being.

Question 29

What are symptoms of burnout?

Answer 29

• Physical, emotional exhaustion
• Occurs in any profession
• Develops in response to workplace conditions
• Can still feel empathy and compassion
• Work dissatisfaction
• Feel under pressure and overwhelmed
• Gradual onset

Question 30

What are symptoms of compassion fatigue?

Answer 30

• Physical, emotional exhaustion
• Occurs in helping professions
• Develops from chronic use of empathy
• Decrease in empathy and compassion
• life dissatisfaction
• Permeates work, home and social life
• feel out of control
• Gradual onset

Question 31

What are symptoms of vicarious trauma?

Answer 31

• Post traumatic stress disorder symptoms
• Occurs in helping professions
• Develops fro chromic use of empathy with trauma survivors
• Profound shift in worldview and beliefs
• Life dissatisfaction
• Impacts all facets of life
• Feel out of control and powerless
• Imediate onset