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RUNNING HEAD: APPLICATION
Application on Code of Ethics
Mathew Ridge
Concordia University: MHS 560
April 13, 2014
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The Code of Ethics is an excellent reference or guideline for any professional in
the human service profession. One of the biggest ethical dilemmas in the human service
profession is mixing your personal ethics and beliefs while having to stay professional
and following all the policies and procedures the employers and the government have
implemented. No matter what type of position you have in the human service field, it is
still going to be ran like a business. As you would like to think that as long as you are
trying your best all will be fine. Unfortunately there is an expectation that needs to be met
in any profession. Although it is unfortunate it is imperative to meet this standard that
human service professionals are held to. The following ethics that we will go over in the
paper are found to be important while helping individuals in need and keeping
professional and sticking to the business standard that is expected out of human service
providers.
The Code of Ethics (NASW, 2008, Purpose) recognizes that social workers
“should be aware of the impact on ethical decision making of their clients’ and their own
personal values and cultural and religious beliefs and practice (Dolgoff, Harrington, &
Loewenberg, 2012). Having knowledge of your core values and how it affects your
identity and choices made are always going to effect how you communicate with other
individuals. Communication is stressed and key while helping individual grow and be
successful. Communication does not only work between the human service professional
and the client. Communication also is between management, peers, clients, and associates
that have just entered into new positions. Having knowledge of your core values and the
communities core values will be beneficial to helping individuals in a particular
community and environment. The key is finding how your knowledge and values that
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will help and encourage clients to be successful and how other co-workers core values
will help as well. Having an open communication about your core values with clients,
peers, management, and other associates will help you and your teams strengthen to help
find different alternative options for clients that are in need of help.
Being involved with individuals on a daily basis and staying professional is
important. There needs to be a clear relationship with the client and the human service
provider. Personal and professional boundaries with each and every one of the clients
need to be set by the human service provider. Dual relationships are highly frowned upon
and can hurt the professional relationship with clients and communities. Dual
relationships happen when a human service professional interacts with a client in a role in
addition to that of the human services professional role (Dolgoff, Harrington, &
Loewenberg, 2012). Dual relationship can also be between co-workers and leadership. It
is important to not mix business with pleasure. On a professional setting when peers have
dual relationships it will create an emotional distractions in the decisions that have to be
made to help clients or the organization. The emotional distraction will cloud the human
services provider in critical decisions. When a human service provider is helping an
individual that they are involved in a dual relationship with, they may not want to
properly diagnose the client in order for them to receive certain help. Dual relationships
will lead to false or misdiagnosing and put the client at risk and the human service
providers needs in front of the clients.
As new individuals enter into the work force in the human service profession or
any profession for that matter, it is important not to lead them astray. Guiding associates
is a key factor in helping them become a great leader in the field. As the new associates
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are learning the leader needs to understand their role and inform the new associate where
they are at, where they can improve and where they are exceling. Vicarious liability –
means a supervisor is responsible for the actions of a supervisee that were conducted
during the course of employment, training, or field instruction, including potential ethical
lapses (Dolgoff, Harrington, & Loewenberg, 2012). Direct liability may be charged when
harm is caused by the supervisor’s act of omission or commission, such as when the
supervisee is assigned duties for which the supervisee is inadequately trained or
experienced, or when supervisors do not follow supervision guidelines promulgated by
their state boards and/or professional associations (Dolgoff, Harrington, & Loewenberg,
2012). Being the training coordinator at our facility it is important for me to keep
communication between both the trainers and the trainees. I have to make sure they are
fully trained in order to sign off that they understand their actions that are taken. When
the communication is not been presented to the trainee what is expected or what is
allowed then the trainer is at risk. Being a training coordinator there is strict process that
is followed by myself, the trainers, and the trainees in order to make sure the new
associates are properly equipped to be successful and do not work outside their
knowledge or experience. The guidelines ensure that the trainer does not ask them to
preform any tasks that they have not been trained on. Being vicarious liable and directly
liable for the trainees actions, allows myself to not rush any processes and make sure the
new associates are properly trained in order to help them be successful and the
organization be successful. If the guidelines are not followed then the clients that our
organization serves will be at risk. This is important for any organization to have
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knowledgeable associates in order to have the highest quality possible while working
with clients.
As human service providers, it is part of your role in advocating not only for
individuals but also to the community you are working in. An important question you
will have to ask yourself in some circumstances is; is it better to provide help one
individual or the whole community that is at risk. Duty to warn is an ethical dilemma
that will break some Code of Ethics while obeying other Code or Ethics. Code 1.07c
reads; social work ethics prohibit revealing confidential information, but this is ethical
imperative may be to overridden” for compelling professional reasons. The general
expectation that social workers will keep information confidential does not apply when
disclosure is necessary to prevent serious, foreseeable, and imminent harm to a client or
other identifiable person” (Dolgoff, Harrington, & Loewenberg, 2012). So the question
depends on the human service provider. Do they think that the community is at risk and if
so is the community more at risk and it will be beneficial to break confidentiality with the
client in order to help the entire community. Or is breaking confidentiality completely
unethical and the human service provider is willing to take the risk that the individual
they are working with will not hurt anyone within his or her community. One way or
another the decision that the human service provider makes is going to affect the
community, so determining the human service providers client will be important in
breaking confidentiality. This ethical dilemma will truly relay on the human service
provider core values, but it is important to have both types and human service providers.
The human service provider that does not break confidentiality helps the profession by
showing individuals can be open and honest with the human service provider and they
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will keep all information confidential. On the other hand the human service provider that
breaks confidentiality may have a greater affect on a community that is unaware of the
danger that one individual may have upon the community.
There has only been five different Codes of Ethics that have been pointed out in
this reflection. The Code of Ethics are important in order to hold human service providers
accountable for their actions and keep high standards of professionalism that human
service professional strive for. Improving these five Code of Ethics are only going to
improve the human service industry. Codes of Ethics can be interpreted in many different
manners by many different cultures or communities. It is important to improve on the
Code of Ethics in order for they’re to be less interpretation and have the same baseline for
all human service providers. The Code of Ethics is a good way to prevent any wrong
decisions, misdiagnosis, or emotional involvement.
As the human service profession grows there needs to be room for the Code of
Ethics to grow. The Code of Ethic will need to adjust in order to fit communities and not
fail the individuals that are in need of help from human service professionals.
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APPLICATION
Reference:
Dolgoff, R., Harrington, D., & Loewenberg, F. (2012). Ethical decisions for social work
practice. (9th ed.). Belmont: Brooks/Cole.