Ethics 1
Consider a social worker who posts disparaging remarks about the poor on social media. Although posting comments on one’ s personal pages is a form of private conduct, this can bring disrepute to the profession whose mandate is to help the poor and vulnerable.
Social work, like a number of helping professions, requires the substantive use of self within the client-worker dyadic relationship. Thus, in light of the requirements of the self in the engagement process, social work is also one of the unique professions whereby the personal self needs to continually grow and develop in tandem with the professional self. This in turn would help to foster better congruency in the practitioner across private and professional spheres. Additionally, it would reinforce the vital need for supervision and the development of reflective practice.
When faced with ethical challenges, broaching the topic with our colleagues and supervisors would help us make sense of what is the best approach to take. There is a group of social workers who are drawing up guidance on various scenarios as a resource to support social workers when faced with complying with the code of ethics. Their commentaries can be accessed via a regularly updated website: http:// ethicalsocialwork. wix. com / ethicalsocialwork.
27 th March 2015
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