Social Work is an intervention and value based profession. Social workers have the obligation to guide the Service users constantly regarding what is good and right things to do, and what are bad and wrong things that are not to be done.
OUR ETHICAL VALUES
Values are important for Social Work as Workers have to keep in mind the professional values of Social Work while taking any professional decisions. If one’s values are vague and inconsistent, his behaviour will be adrift and disorderly. Hence, Value set the standards for what is desirable in social work practice. It refers to a range of beliefs about what is regarded as worthy or valuable in a Social Work context (general beliefs about the nature of the good society, general principles about how to achieve this through actions, and the desirable qualities or character traits of professional practitioners). These core values aside others are:
C-ISOWN ETHICAL VALUES VIS-A-VAS PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL WORK
Principles refer to a foundation, conviction, point of reference and basis for discussion while Attitude is a favourable or unfavourable tendency.
Ethics therefore, are the values in action that influence preferences (likings) for behaviour in relationships. It is therefore about right and wrong.
The following broad ethical principles are based on Social work’s core values of service, social justice, dignity and worth of the person, importance of human relationships, integrity, and competence. These principles set forth ideals to which all social workers should aspire.
Ethical Principle: Social workers’ primary goal is to help people in need and to address social problems. Social workers elevate service to others above self- interest. Social workers draw on their knowledge, values, and skills to help people in need and to address social problems. Social workers are encouraged to volunteer some portion of their professional skills with no expectation of significant financial return (pro bono service).
Ethical Principle: Social workers challenge social injustice. Social workers pursue social change, particularly with and on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals and groups of people. Social workers’ social change efforts are focused primarily on issues of poverty, unemployment, discrimination, and other forms of social injustice. These activities seek to promote sensitivity to and knowledge about oppression and cultural and ethnic diversity. Social workers strive to ensure access to needed information, services, and resources; equality of opportunity; and meaningful participation in decision making for all people.
Ethical Principle: Social workers respect the inherent dignity and worth of the person.
Social workers treat each person in a caring and respectful fashion, mindful of individual differences and cultural and ethnic diversity. Social workers promote clients’ socially responsible self-determination. Social workers seek to enhance clients’ capacity and opportunity to change and to address their own needs. Social workers are cognizant of their dual responsibility to clients and to the broader society. They seek to resolve conflicts between clients’ interests and the broader society’s interests in a socially responsible manner consistent with the values, ethical principles, and ethical standards of the profession.
Ethical Principle: Social workers recognize the central importance of human relationships.
Social workers understand that relationships between and among people are an important vehicle for change. Social workers engage people as partners in the helping process. Social workers seek to strengthen relationships among people in a purposeful effort to promote, restore, maintain, and enhance the wellbeing of individuals, families, social groups, organizations, and communities.
Ethical Principle: Social workers behave in a trustworthy manner. Social workers are continually aware of the profession’s mission, values, ethical principles, and ethical standards and practice in a manner consistent with them. Social workers act honestly and responsibly and promote ethical practices on the part of the organizations with which they are affiliated.
Ethical Principle: Social workers practice within their areas of competence and develop and enhance their professional expertise. Social workers continually strive to increase their professional knowledge and skills and to apply them in practice. Social workers should aspire to contribute to the knowledge base of the profession.
Ethical Principle: People have the right to be accepted for what they are. The person must be seen within the context of his/her circumstances. Unacceptable behaviour is viewed as the manifestation of a process of dynamic causal factors.
Ethical Principle: The client and his/her situation are viewed objectively and this must be reflected in the worker’s attitude towards the service-users.
Ethical Principle: People’s needs and situations are unique, in that they are experienced differently by different people. The value of the individual must be re-established.
Ethical Principle: People want to be in the position to make decisions themselves, which affect their lives. People have the potential to promote their own interests.
11. Value: Self-help
Ethical Principle: People should be granted the opportunity to accept responsibility for doing something themselves to improve their circumstances.
Ethical Principle: The needs addressed must be those which the people themselves have identified and not that which has been forced upon them.
Ethical Principle: People want to feel that they belong to a group or community. Opportunities must therefore be created so that the individual can become involved with others.
Ethical Principle: The individual, group or community together with the Social Worker are partners in the intervention process. All parties therefore must have an interest in the intervention and accept responsibility for it by means of the division of roles.
Ethical Principle: Social Work implies, amongst others, change. Intervention with a view to change must however be applied in a responsible manner so that it will in no way be disadvantageous to the person.
Ethical Principle: People must be met on their level of functioning, which is familiar to them. This does not mean that the Social Worker has to sacrifice his/her own identity, but must rather make him/herself understood by the service user and move through the intervention at the client’s pace.
Ethical Principle: People find it difficult to share confidential information with outsiders. Information affecting clients must therefore be handled with great prudence. We encourage social work case officers and students of social work to take an oath or declaration of confidentiality during practice and practicum respectively.
Ethical Principle: Subjective elements are involved in every relationship including professional relationships. The social worker however should not become subjectively involved in an uncontrolled manner in the clients situation, as this can be at the expense of level-headedness and sound judgement, which can be to the detriment of the service-users or the situation.