In every field of work, an individual must learn to separate their personal and professional values in life. In order to deal with a client effectively there must not be any personal emotions involved that may distract you away from the issue at hand. Learning which cardinal values and which ethical principles are going to come easy or difficult for you may help you establish this separation between personal and professional life.
Cardinal Values
There are five cardinal values of social work. The five cardinal values are access to resources, dignity and worth, interpersonal relationships, integrity, and competence. Access to Resources is the value of making sure all human beings get the proper resources that they deserve. These resources will allow the client to be able to deal with everyday life trials and allow them to reach their full potential. As a social worker it is our job to make sure our client gets all of the resources allotted to them. We must make sure that our client’s needs are always met. The respect for Dignity and Worth and Interpersonal Relationships values tend to intertwine with each other. Our clients are equally as important as the next. In the social work field, our role is to not judge clients on their wrongdoings. Our goal is to try to understand each individual and how they experience life. As individuals, we must examine our own prejudices and stereotypes- both positive and negative (Hepworth). Integrity is the value in which as a social worker we must be trustworthy to not only our clients but also our fellow social workers. If we are honest with our clients and treat them with respect, they will do the same. This trust may also allow the client to open up even more, allowing you to be able to get them all forms of assistance they need. Competence is practicing only within our areas of ability and continually develop and enhance professional expertise (Hepworth). In order to do a job successfully, one must go through the proper training and classes if needed. The same kind of process is used in the social work profession. In order to be effective in a certain work environment, you must be competent on the service provided at that specific work place. These five cardinal values are important to understand order to be successful in the social work profession.
Key Ethical Principles
There are four Ethical Principles used in the social work profession. These four principles are self-determination, informed consent, professional boundaries, and confidentiality. Social workers respect and promote the right of clients to self-determination and assist clients in their efforts to identify and clarify their goals (NASW). Social work staff could limit clients’ right to self-determination once, in their skilled judgment, clients’ actions or potential actions create a significant, predictable, and at hand risk to themselves or others. Even once clients have reduced ability for self-determination, social work staff ought to act to confirm that they exercise their capacities to the fullest possible extent. If we tend to see our major role to be that of providing solutions and dispensing recommendations, we have a tendency that could foster dependency, degrade clients, and relegate them to a grip of passive cooperation. We have a tendency that could also be denying folks the chance to realize strength and self-regard as they face their difficulties. On the opposite hand, if we have the opportunity to request to affix in an exceedingly mutual effort to look for solutions, we will be enablers of amendment, thereby serving to clients to look at issues realistically, to think about varied ways and consequences, to know themselves totally and gain awareness.
Providing informed consent allows our clients to know that we value their decision in finding services. The Code of Ethics indicates that clients should be informed when their services are being provided by a student (NASW). Boundaries see clear lines of distinction that are maintained in an attempt to preserve the operating relationship. they assist stop conflicts of interest, making the client’s interests the first focus and avoiding things wherever the social worker’s expertise could also be compromised. though serving to relationships could involve a high degree of trust and client revealing, the connection isn't an intimate one, like could be intimate with a lover, partner, or friend. once clients trust that boundaries exist, they're more able to target the problems that they're seeking facilitate. Boundary violations account for more than half of ethics complaints (Hepworth). In order to prevent dual relationships, maintain awareness of potential dual relationships, discuss worrisome things with colleagues and supervisors, and make sure that the importance of the serving the client relationship is preserved in questionable boundary things.
Confidentiality is the state of keeping or being kept secret or private. Without confidentiality, clients won’t honestly face their problems. It is our responsibility to respect clients’ privacy, to assemble info just for the aim of providing effective services, and to disclose info solely with clients’ consent. The principle of confidentiality has limits. These limits are supervision and consultation, if the client is a danger to others, suspicion of child or elder abuse, subpoenas and privileged communication, and the case of children (Hepworth).
Value and Principle that Cause Discomfort
The value that would lead me to having discomfort in the work place is the dignity and worth of a person. I feel that if forced to work with a client who is a rapist, an abuser, or murderer would be very difficult for me. I believe that it would be difficult to keep in mind the value of the dignity and worth of that person. My personal values may kick in and force me to judge that individual. However, in the professional setting, I know that I would have to put my personal values to the side. Although I would be in discomfort I would have to still find all of the assistance possible for that client. For example, if one of my clients ended up being my mother’s abusive ex-boyfriend who killed my baby brother but is now having difficulty finding a job who may hire an ex-convict, I would have to push all of my personal feelings to the side. I would have to make sure he gets all of the resources to jobs that would hire him. If he needed assistance getting to the job interviews, I would have to provide him with transportation assistance resources. Although, I would judge him and not want him to get any help, as a person he has the right to help. This value is important in practice because it allows the practitioner to move past what a person has done to figure out how to get them what they need. Every human being has the right to opportunities and resources.
The principle that would lead me to discomfort is the self-determination principle. It is easy to give advice to a client and give them several options in resources, however, they must be determined to actually go through with the process. You can’t force anyone to do anything they truly don’t want to do. An example of this would be, I have a client who wants to get their GED. The client comes to my office asking me for resources to be applying to and the different programs. The client also asks for help with transportation. I give this client information to three different GED programs at the surrounding schools. I also give the client a bus pass to get to and from the classes and back home. I tell the client to go ahead and apply to one of the programs and next time we meet I’d like to hear how it is going. The next time we meet, I find out the client hasn’t applied to get his GED and has just been using the bus pass to go see his girlfriend. In this situation, I have given the client several resources. However, he isn’t determined to apply himself and to better his life. As a social worker I must try to still show my client that he has potential and has the ability to get his GED. I must exercise my capabilities to the fullest possible extent. This principle is important in practice to show client’s that you are determined to help them as much as possible and to guide them towards self-determination. This will help clients to take full advantage of anything placed in front of them.
Personal Values Vs. Professional values
As an individual outside of the professional setting, I have many personal values. Some of my main personal values are religion, determination, respect, trustworthiness, and stability. My religion is a big part of my life. A majority of my beliefs coincide with my religion. Being that I am a religious individual, I may not see the dignity and worth of an individual who killed someone, especially a child. Outside of the professional setting, I wouldn’t care about the person who killed and what they don’t have. I would just see that person as a bad person. However, in the professional setting, I would have to do everything in my will power to get that person some resources. As far as determination goes, I am determined to succeed in life. In my eyes, there is no way that I will not succeed and live comfortably. I am determined to help my family someday. When it comes to self-determination in the work place, I feel like it’ll be very difficult to assist someone who isn’t determined to better themselves when I am determined. Another personal value I hold is respect. As long as an individual is respectful to me, I shouldn’t have a problem with them. In the work place, I would find it disrespectful if I gave a client so many resources and tried to make them determined to use those resources and they end up not using them. I would feel like I was wasting time finding all of the resources when the person wasn’t even determined to use them. Trustworthiness is one of my most important values. If an individual lies to me constantly I wouldn’t want anything to do with them. In the work place, I would have no choice but to keep working with that client. The client in the GED situation may have said they were going to apply and didn’t but if they came back for more resources although they lied, I couldn’t turn them around. Lastly, stability is also very important to me. Being that I didn’t have much stability growing up, as an adult I always strive to be stable in everything I go to do. In the incident with the client who murdered the baby, he also wanted stability. I have no choice but to give him that same value that I also want. He has the right, just like I do. These values can align with self-determination and dignity and worth of a person, but they can also differ in many ways.
Resolving Conflicts
In every profession, you must separate your personal life from your business life. In the social work field there may be times where it is hard to juggle the both because they affect each other. Another one of my personal values is compassion. I am a very caring and compassionate person. An example of a conflict may be my client is a little girl who is in the foster care system but her foster parents don’t pay attention to her very well. Her foster siblings tend to bully her. When I do our house visits, she tends to cling to me and really bond with me. I start to have compassion and care for this little girl. It comes to the point where I want to try to be her foster mother. This is a major violation of going against professional boundaries. As her social worker, I am not supposed to engage with her in a personal matter. It is against professional protocol to try to be my client’s new mom. In this situation, I would have to step back and analyze my personal and professional values. I would have to realize that is against the principles of my career. If I don’t want to potentially lose my job, I must strictly keep my relationship with the little girl professional. To resolve this conflict, I may just have to look into other homes with foster parents who have time for a little girl and who are very compassionate about fostering her. In any conflict in the work place involving the personal and professional values, you must weigh all of the options and decide on the best decision route to take.
Conclusion
Self-assessment is not any easy thing to do. Through looking at the social work professional values and my own personal values, I was able to understand what to do when faced with certain scenarios. I also was able to realize that it’s easier to say you’ll keep the two different sets of values separate but still get caught up in the conflicts between the two. In personal life, it is your job to make sure you, yourself have all of the resources you need. In professional life, despite your values, it is your job to make sure your clients get every opportunity and resource to better their lives. This assessment helped prepare myself for when I’m forced to push aside my own values to do what is in the best interest of the client.