1. 1
Ethics and Social Work
Practice
Janlee Wong, MSW
National Association of Social
Workers

2. 2
Workshop Background
• Education workshop sponsored by NASW
• Participants should come willing to
participate in exercises and follow ground
rules
• Participants are to respond to the
exercises as social workers with a
knowledge of the NASW Code of Ethics

3. 3
Workshop Objectives
• What it means to be a professional
• Familiar with Ethics Values, Principles,
Standards
• Description and exploration of perceived
differences and dilemmas
• Discussion of Competency
• Resources

4. NASW
• What it means to be a professional
• You can’t be a professional and not a
member of professional association
• Not a union or government agency
• Private, non-profit (more versatile)
• We can’t do it without members
4

5. NASW Slide Show
• What are the benefits you can connect to
or think you may use in the future as a
professional social worker
5

6. 6
The Big Challenge
• Be aware of own spiritual/religious beliefs
• Knowledge of own bias
• Willing to challenge own beliefs
• Willing to articulate or explore own beliefs
• Respectful of beliefs of others
• Willing to listen
• Commitment to furthering your own skills,
knowledge and experience

7. 7
Perceived Dilemmas: Choose
• Sexuality
• Reproduction
• Marriage
• Education
• Government role
• Morality
• Religion/spirituality
• Charity
• Science
• Orientation
• Choice/Life
• Man/woman
• Broad/specific
• Small vs. big
• What good/bad?
• Small vs. big
• Public/private
• Directed/not

8. 8
Discussion Construct
Use this to frame your thinking
• Legalist
– What does the law say and do you follow
what the law says
• Moralist
– What is good and bad based on your “morals”
be they religious, philosophical or political
• Ethical
– Enhance human well being and meet basic
needs

9. 9
Warm Up Exercise
• Think of a situation that you feel was or
could have been unethical.
• What were your different courses of
action?
• What did you do and how did it turn out?
• How did you arrive at your decision (e.g.
consultation, research, intuition, etc.?)

10. What Was the Basis For Your
Thinking?
Characterize your thinking by the following:
• Legal, Regulatory
– Where did you learn this?
• Morality
– Where did you learn right or wrong?
• Ethical
– Where did you learn about ethics?
10

11. 11
Small Group Exercise
Discuss the following vignette. You’ll have 20
minutes including a 10 minute break to
discuss the vignette and decide what you
would do as a social workers. Consider
responses in the following categories:
• Legalist
• Moralist
• Ethical
A group discussion will be conducted afterwards

12. 12
The Big Challenge for Next Exercise
• Be aware of own spiritual/religious beliefs
• Knowledge of own bias
• Willing to challenge own beliefs
• Willing to articulate or explore own beliefs
• Respectful of beliefs of others
• Willing to listen
• Commitment to furthering your own skills,
knowledge and experience

13. 13
Small Group Exercise
• You receive a child neglect report about an
undocumented immigrant.
• She is 28, unemployed & has 3 children ages 4, 6 and 8
• She is leaving the children alone at home to party at
night. The six year old was found wandering the
neighborhood.
• If found out, she could be deported (her kids are citizens)
• What do you do?
• While considering your options, categorize them in
legalist, moralist and ethical terms.
• Be ready to report back in 20 minutes

14. 14
The Ethical Code
• Origin and development
– Early social workers, morality codes
– Rise of professional social workers
• Subscription and Enforcement
– Obligated to act ethically as a professional
social worker
– Ethical Duty as a professional social worker
• Evolution and today’s usage
– As a guide to ethical decision making

15. 15
NASW Code of Ethics
• The Code doesn’t specify which values,
principles or standards are most
important and outweigh others*
• It’s not a set of rules
• Social Worker ethics may conflict with
agency policies, or laws and regulations
• There may be reasonable disagreements

16. Ethical Pretest and Slides
• 2 minutes to complete Handout
• Review pretest slides and compare your
answers
16

17. Code of Ethics Slides
17

18. 18
NASW Code of Ethics
• The standards (6 areas)
1. Client
2. Colleagues
3. Practice Settings
4. As Professionals
5. To the Profession
6. To Society
• Supports:
– cultural competence/social diversity
– Respect for colleagues
– Fighting discrimination as professionals and through
social action

19. 19
Perceived Dilemmas and Ethics
• Sexuality
• Reproduction
• Marriage
• Education
• Government role
• Morality
• Religion/spirituality
• Charity
• Science
• Describe the ethical
issues for the terms
on the left using the
following:
– Client self
determination
– Responsibility of
– Role of
– More information
– Social justice
– Social action

20. Ethics to Practice
• While you may be versed in ethics, it
doesn’t do you any good until you practice
it
• One of the foundation values in ethics is
relationship
• To be an ethical and effective social
worker you must be able to form a
relationship with your client
20

21. Forming A Relationship with
Client
• Developing a relationship with the client is
key to social work practice
• When the client trusts you through the
working relationship, behaviors can
change
• Trust is based on ethical behaviors and
beliefs such confidentiality, respect and
confidence
21

22. Are these trust building ethical
behaviors?
• Giving personal information to client such
as personal email, phone number,
address, social networking site (Facebook
etc)
• Hugging and embracing
• Availability by phone for as long as client
needs it (work or home)
• Visits to client as much as client needs
them (scheduled and unscheduled)
22

23. Are these trust building ethical
behaviors?
• Having dinner or going to movies with
client. Treating the client.
• Helping the client with own money
• Having a drink with the client
• Inviting client to celebrate birthdays and
holidays with worker’s family
• Sharing successes and problems in
worker’s personal life
23

24. Are these trust building ethical
behaviors?
• Sharing one’s own personal life story
when client has a similar life experience
• Bending or breaking agency rules to help
client
• Telling the client how to bend or break
rules
24

25. Harming by Helping
• Unethical behaviors misconstrued as
helping or trust building can be harmful
• Can you identify any in yourself?
• “When social workers have not clearly
identified and/or managed their emotional
issues and baggage that they brought into
the profession, the scope and nature of
client/worker relationships can become
quite blurry.” Rose M. Handon, BSW, MSA, LSW
25

26. Conflict and Dilemma
• High percentage of ethical dilemmas result
of conflict between organizational
demands and professional values
26

27. Conflicts
• Organizational
Policies
• Statutory and
regulatory
requirements
• Ethical codes
• Personal values
• Moral authority
• Loneliness and
Isolation
27
What conflicts have you had or seen?
What happened?

28. Stress Results
• Anxiety, depression, stress related
disorders
• Relationship problems, physical and
mental illness
• Lack of confidence in decision making,
changes in work performance, uncertainty
about the profession, prejudice against
clients, demotion or loss of employment
28

29. Coping
• Not following agency rules and procedures
• Passive aggressive
• Low and decreasing tolerance
• Denial or “brush off”
• Afraid to write reports or to speak up
• Withdrawal, burnout
• Substance abuse
29

30. In Child Welfare
• Supervisors play a vital role in modeling,
coaching, and engaging in frequent
discussions with workers on topical issues
of client engagement, rapport-building,
and assurance of proper boundaries in the
worker/client relationship.
• Impacts could be increased or diminished
depending on supervisory and social
support networks within the organization
30

31. Coping
• Fitness or exercise
• Become task focused
• Seeking new knowledge
• Seeking new supervisors, co-workers,
mentors
31

32. Cynical Realization
• About money, power and politics
• Not about serving people
• Some turn to social justice and activism
• Some leave their jobs or the field
32

33. Exercise
• Vignette
– 19 year old drug addicted single mom abused
and neglected 1 month old baby, gave baby
drugs
– Child in foster care for 6 months now, mom
was referred to drug treatment and parenting
classes
– Mom attended a few classes but dropped out
– Mom promises to do better
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34. Ethical Values
• Who is the client
• How can the client be helped?
• How can those around the client be
helped?
• Can the system help?
• If not, what can be done?
• Is there a conflict with the system?
• Can the social worker help?
34

35. More Ethical Issues
• Take a minute to reflect on your personal
values regarding:
– Abortion
– Immigration
– Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual
• Do they differ from the ethical
perspective? How?
35

36. 36
Vignette #1
You work at a private agency that provides
counseling to pregnant teens. Your 16
year old client is 1 month pregnant and
wishes an abortion. Your agency has a
new director and he has issued a new
policy. Before any abortion is performed,
48 hours must elapse after a parent or
guardian is noticed. The notification may
be waived upon a request to a court.

37. 37
Vignette # 2
You receive a referral of children in a drug
bust. You find out there is an
undocumented 14 year old with a record
and has committed crime. Some
community groups are lobbying for policies
that would require you to report your client
to both law enforcement and immigration.

38. 38
Vignette #3
You work for a private adoption agency that
works only with married couples. A gay
couple has come to your agency to adopt
a child and you find out they recently
married. Your director is opposed to gay
marriage and gay adoptions.

39. 39
Wrap Up
• Did the issues in this workshop make you
uncomfortable?
• Were you concerned about the
implications of the exercises in your
practice as a social worker?
• Did you feel you could not consider some
ethical perspectives due to your beliefs?
• Are there some practice areas that you
feel you cannot work in?

40. 40
Summary
• All social workers are faced with ethical
dilemmas everyday
• Ethics are not laws or scriptures
• Ethics provides a means to discuss and consider
different perspectives
• Ethics provide a guide but the decision is still up
to the social worker
• A social worker must determine if they are
competent to provide services to certain
populations in certain settings

41. 41
Resources
• Belcher, J.R. D. Fandetti and D. Cole (2004). Is
Christian Religious Conservatism Compatible with the
Liberal Social Welfare State?, Social Work, 49, 269-
276
• Garland, Diana R. (February 17, 2006). Religiously
Affiliated Organizations and the Opportunities and
Challenges of “Faith Based Social Initiatives.
Invitational Address Council on Social Work
Education, Chicago IL. Retrieved from
http://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php
/24345.doc
• Hodge, D.R. (2002). Does Social Work Oppress
Evangelical Christians,? A “New Class” Analysis of
Society and Social Work, Social Work, 47, 410-414.

42. 42
Resources
• Markkula Center for Applied Ethics
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/
• NASW Code of Ethics – www.socialworkers.org
• Reamer, F.G.,(2006). Ethical Standards in Social Work,
Washington, DC NASW Press
• Social Work Speaks (2005), Washington, DC, NASW
Press
• Summers, A.B., S.J. Brannen, (October 28, 2006),
Bridging the Gap Between Social Work Educators and
Conservative Religious Students, Workshop Presented
at the Baccalaureate Program Directors Annual
Conference, Los Angeles, CA

43. References
• McAuliffe, Donna, (2005), “I’m Still Standing:
Impacts and Consequences of Ethical Dilemmas
for Social Workers in Direct Practice, Journal of
Social Work Values and Ethics
• Handon, Rose, (2005), Client Relationships and
Ethical Boundaries for Social Workers in Child
Welfare The New Social Worker Online
Magazine
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