Main Ethical Principles of Social Work - Essay Example

Ethical Principles in Social Research Insert Name Insert Institution Introduction Ethics of social workers guide professional conduct and ensure smooth operations that do not affect any of the involved parties. The ethics of social work contain core values of social work and issues that call for the needs of social work. Social workers have a duty of discharging their social services. People who use and benefit from social services are mostly vulnerable and include children, women, elderly, sick, and poor, elderly or disadvantaged people in general. Ethics should be binding all the social workers and they have an obligation of promoting the benefits of social work to people using social services, employers, colleagues falling in other disciplines and the society as a whole. Therefore, the code of ethics should be applicable to all social workers, employers, and educators in the sector of social work. This is because it forms the foundation of effective social work (Campbell, 2002).The major principle of ethics of social workers is to have a responsibility of applying professional values and ethics that depend on codes of practice. Social workers are to act with compassion treating people with empathy and utmost care. The social workers must take into account the legal framework, governance, professional practice, and training standards in each country. With the maintenance and following of above standards, social workers must consider all avoiding cases that contravene these whether in relation to their employers or to people whom they serve at different levels (Habibis, 2012). Main ethical principles of social work The development of professional relationships with the people and all the organizations involved. These relationships should have a base in people’s right to privacy, respect, confidentiality and reliability. The workers need to work in partnership with families, individuals, groups, communities and even nations and their governments. Generally, the social workers should respect and value the input of colleagues from other agencies and groups. The principle of assessing and management of risks in the work environment and within the organizations ranks. They have a role of helping people to make right decisions and choices hence enhancing their autonomy and independence provided the decisions do not affect the rights and security of other people. Decisions affecting people’s civil or legal rights can only be taken in case they are ethically, legally, and socially justifiable. Social workers should participate in the provision of information to the people in a comprehensive way enabling them to make informed decisions. The workers are supposed to allow people to access all information about them provided there is a prohibition by the law. Equally, they should help people to seek for their rights, in certain cases make complaints, and seek for remedies. In addition, they should participate in appropriate sharing of information with respect to privacy and confidentiality between individuals, interagency and international levels. The social workers are to use authority in accordance to the rights of people and principles of human rights at all the times. This must be in a manner that is accountable, respectable and responsible. Their exercising of authority should be in a way that ensures that is appropriate safeguarding the people they work with ensuring they make choices which do not contravene human rights. Social workers are to participate in policies encouraging the empowering of people promoting positive programs ,procedures and practices which are empowering and anti oppressive .Workers have to respect peoples believes, values ,cultures ,goals ,needs ,preferences ,affiliations and relationships. The unit of social workers is to recognize their own prejudices so as to avoid cases of discriminating the population they are to serve. This will enable them to ensure that the services they provide are in a culturally acceptable and appropriate manner. The group must challenge and rectify transgressions of colleagues who discriminate against any group in the population or individuals (Krueger & Casey, 2000). Workers should be prepared at all the times to challenge abuse of human rights in their areas of jurisdiction. Their preparation should be to deal with discrimination, unjust policies, ineffective procedures, and practices. These attempts should be for obtaining just conditions for the vulnerable people in the society. Among issues to deal with should involve the discrimination of people from issues of power and separation from decisions affecting their lives. Social workers should never collude with individuals for the erosion of humanity like threatening of lives, vulnerable people, or asylum seekers. Records kept must always remain clear and accurate with impartiality providing evidence and enabling professional decision making with ease. There is a need to record only essential and important matters and ensuring they have sources. The source of information should be specific enabling follow up. They must have a critical evaluation of their choices and be aware of the impacts of their actions. This will ensure professionalism and operations in an effective and safe manner. Professional supervision and peer support is necessary for evaluation and improvement of practices (MacDonald, 2012). Specific ethical principles for handling vulnerable people Social research on issues of vulnerable influence many policy issues in relation to issues of victims of conflict.Equally responsible for overseeing policies for promotion of equity of opportunity in sensitive areas.There are three ethical principles of conducting research on vulnerable people; Conduct professional work with intergrity in a way that does not jeopadise future research,public standing of researchers,ability of others to implement publishing and offer promotion of the research result.the researchers have to be committed to the research and report responsibly and accurately.The entire process has to be comprehensive and unbiased. Repectig the rights and dignity of all the people involved in the research and all the people affected by the research.The researchers have to avoid generalization of the entire populations.Researches have to make conclusions and recommendations from verified data and findings. Put measures as comprehensive and effective as possible that guard the physical,social and psychological wellbeing of everyone participating in the research or subsequently affected by the research process.The researchers must understand their boundaries and professional competency. Generally ethics are about issues whether they are wrong or right,bad or good qualities that are attached to relations and how they affect outcomes of operations.This subject is most of the time used in relation to the welfare of human beings and their rights but to a large extent it covers the well being of nature and the environment.When researching in areas of vulnerable people always ensure that ethical principles are used to guide professional practice.Therefore there is a need for managing and sorting out of professional characters of the people involved and avoidance of negligence and abuse.The social workers have to develop applications for ethical reasoning for arriving at principled decisions. The workers and researchers of ethical issues need to be knowledgeable and use critical thinking approaches for collection of information in the field.The methods should use scientific enquiry,logic and apply discernment in all the applications.Information passed and obtained from the people should be well synthesised and must not create disharmony among the population.For the acceptance of social research with vulnerable people the workers have to employ and intergrate diversity and difference with the people as a unit.Diversity characterises and shapes the understanding of issues in a research environment bringing in different ideologies and knowledge resulting in quality and acceptance of the subject under study.Diversity include colour,age,sex,religion,gender,immigration,religion,political affiliation,race and sexual orientation (Pittaway, Bartolomei, & Hugman, 2010). Social workers have to involve research–informed practice and practice-informed research so as to be able to handle all the issues comprehensively and efficiently.Social workers have to use practice informed exercises to inform research,have an employment of eveidence based interventions, monitoring of their operations and evaluation of their own practices.Finally social research has a major goal of providing sustainable solutions for the wellbeing of all the involved parties,whether they are individuals,groups,communities or even states.Findings of research should be used efficiently to improve practice,policy,and social service itself.Social service workers must understand quantitative and qualitative research plus the understanding of scientific and ethical procedures and approaches for building of knowledge.The social workers must always strive for the betterment of humanity and upholding of human rights.This can be achieved only through the social workers comprehensive contribution to policy development and empowerment of societies in a sustainable manner (Mason & Nobel, 2000). References Campbell, R. (2002). Emotionally Involved:The Impacts of Researching on Rape. New York: NY:Routeledge. Habibis, D. (2012). Ethics and Social Research. SouthMelbourne: Oxford Universisty Press. Krueger, R., & Casey, M. (2000). Focus Group:A Practical Guide for Applied Science. Thousend Oaks: CA:Sage. MacDonald, F. (2012). The Code of Ethics for Social Work-Statement of Principles. London: British Association of Social Workers. Mason, J., & Nobel, C. (2000). Reflecting on Focus Group Research:Women Working With Violence:Women Against Violence. Pittaway, E., Bartolomei, L., & Hugman, R. (2010). "Stop stealing our stories": The ethics of research with vulnerable groups. Journal of Human Rights Practice (2), 229-251. Read More