Mastering Social Work Values and Ethics

Service users often say that the traits they most value in social workers are their ability to be non-judgmental, their listening skills and their sense of fairness: their strong ethical value base. But how can social workers ensure the decisions they make are ethically sound? This book offers guidelines to negotiating ethical dilemmas in various social work settings; from direct care work with individual service users to working within organisational and multidisciplinary contexts. It provides social workers with useful frameworks within which to re-visit their personal value base and enable more reflective, and therefore more effective, practice. Case studies and questionnaire style chapters encourage reassessment of values including views on abortion, female genital mutilation, drug and alcohol misuse and homosexuality. By assessing a range of dilemmas at both personal and organisational levels, this book offers the tools and resources to enable professionals and students to self-manage and develop their practice. This book is essential reading for social work students, practitioners, managers, practice teachers and assessors, and trainers, as well as those in allied professions. This series of short, accessible books focuses on the everyday key skills that social workers need in order to practise effectively and ensure the best possible outcomes for service users. Easy to read and practical, the books feature chapter summaries, practice examples based on real-life situations, and exercises for the reader to enhance their learning. The books in this series are essential reading for post-qualifying social work students and social work practitioners.

Farrukh Akhtar is an independent social worker with over 20 years of experience in the field. She is also a senior lecturer in social work at Kingston University, UK, where she teaches Applied Professional Ethics.