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Ethics in Social Work
Chapter Summary
This chapter introduces students to the guidelines for ethical behaviour in social work practice and the development of contemporary ethical standards. The first part of the chapter reviews the importance of ethics and gives a brief history of ethics within the field of social work. It describes four periods during which ethics evolved in social work, beginning in the early twentieth century and moving towards the present day. This is followed by a description of the Canadian Association of Social Workers’ Code of Ethics and its six core values, as well as a summary of the code’s strengths and limitations.
The second part of the chapter addresses ethical dilemmas and the process of reflexive decision-making. It explores some of the challenges that social workers face in practice and uses examples to illustrate the complexity of ethical choices. It also discusses the common elements found in most ethical decision-making frameworks: describing the case and context, defining the ethical problem, exploring values and biases, gathering information (from research, theory, and the Code of Ethics), and exploring options. The Indigenous ethics of interrelatedness, community, and reciprocity are explored.
The final section discusses the importance of self-care to ethical social work practice. It describes possible outcomes of occupational stress, including burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma, and suggests that both individual and collective self-care are integral to maintaining health and counteracting stress.
Learning Objectives
The goal of this chapter is to do the following:
- Review the historical development of ethical guidelines in social work practice.
- Introduce the CASW Code of Ethics and its contemporary applications.
- Highlight the interconnectedness of social work practice and self-care.
- Address current ethical issues in the context of historical ethical misconduct.
- Contextualize ethical social work practice through a reflexive lens.