Values and Ethics

PROFESSIONAL VALUES AND ETHICS

Responsibility to the Client System

The term client system ' is derived from Lippitt , Watson and Westley who use it to signify the specific system that is being helped . The idea that the client is any expected beneficiary of the services of a change agent has been used for a long time by many social workers . Taking a somewhat different view , the client system can be considered as the individual , family , group , organization or community that , in addition to being the expected beneficiary of service , is a system that

asks for help and engages the services of a social worker as a change agent . And one can add a third dimension to the view of a client system - the idea that people become clients only when a working agreement or contract has been established between them and a change agent . The contract clarifies the purpose or goal of the change effort and the methods that will be used in the change activity . This working agreement or contract may be with the entire client system or some subpart of it . The social worker can also attempt to enlarge the client system by involving other members of a larger system . For example , the worker in the mental health clinic may start only with the wife of an alcoholic husband as a client and then attempt to include the husband and children in the client system Or the social worker may reduce the client system by limiting his contractual agreements . The neighborhood-center worker , for example may agree to work with an entire neighborhood organization to help it solve some internal organizational friction . He may later decide he cannot form a working agreement with the whole organization and limit his contract to a few members who are attempting to make drastic changes in the organization

Confidentiality

Clarification by the worker can establish the limits of confidentiality for the change effort . People who resist change because of a belief that receiving help from an outsider is a sign of weakness , or who believe they may lose rather than gain from a change effort , want to know what kind of records a social worker will keep and who is going to read the records or hear about their transactions . Further , people who agree to participate in action systems designed to reduce conflict between groups or organizations , to recommend new community programs , or to plan protest strategy often are fearful of being misquoted or of having their deliberations made public prematurely

The worker must indicate , at the beginning of the change effort what kind of records he will keep such as interviews to help him remember what happened to him . Agency policy in regard to press coverage of meetings also governs the confidentiality of proceedings

Self-Determination

I can now understand the dilemma of some administrators of nursing homes . They are burdened with so many responsibilities to take care and ensure that people who avail of their services are attended to and such services are...