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Chapter 1
Values and ethics in
social work with
children and families
Steve OāLoughlin
A C H I E V I N G A S O C I A L W O R K D E G R E E
This chapter will help you begin to meet the following capabilities from the Professional Capabilities Framework:
ā¢ Professionalism
Identify and behave as a professional social worker committed to professional development.
ā¢ Values and ethics
Apply social work ethical principles to guide professional practice.
ā¢ Diversity
Recognise diversity and apply anti-discriminatory and anti-oppressive principles in practice.
ā¢ Justice
Advance human rights and promote social justice and economic well-being.
ā¢ Judgement
Use judgement and authority to intervene with individuals, families and communities to promote independence, provide support and prevent harm, neglect and abuse.
ā¢ Critical reflection and analysis
Apply critical reflection and analysis to inform and provide a rationale for professional decision-making.
ā¢ Contexts and organisations
Engage with, inform and adapt to changing contexts that shape practice. Operate effectively within your own organisational frameworks and contribute to the development of services and organisations. Operate effectively within multi-agency and inter-professional settings.
It will also introduce you to the following academic standards as set out in the 2008 social work subject benchmark statement:
5.1.1 Social work services and service users
5.1.3 Values and ethics
5.5 Problem solving skills
5.5.3 Analysis and synthesis
5.7 Skills in working with others
Introduction
This chapter will discuss issues that arise in working with children and families in a diverse society. Students will be encouraged to examine their own values and beliefs and the implications these have for practice. The chapter will consider the value requirements for social work practice contained within the Professional Capabilities Framework (PCF) (2012) and the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) standards of conduct, performance and ethics (Van der Gaag, 2008) which were the standards being used in 2015 as amended in January 2016. In a review of the Professional Capabilities Framework Final Report, published in August 2015, the College of Social Work reconsidered the framework, however the demise of the College meant that this work was left incomplete. The British Association of Social Workers (BASW), which has its own standards of practice and ethics, had been suggested as a body to continue this work however how this was to be accomplished was unclear. The report also indicated that the HCPC standards of conduct, performance and ethics were themselves to be reviewed in the following two years.
This chapter will consider the scope of the current values and ethics as well as discussing their impact. In addition, it will explore the impact of social differences that affect the position of families in society, for example poverty, class, race, religion, culture, sexuality and gender. The tensions between welfare principles, childrenās rights and protection and the right to family life will be considered.
Diversity of families
Social work with children and families rarely involves working with one individual. It involves working with families that are complex, diverse and constantly changing. The family may consist of one or more parents or carers. It may consist of relative carers such as grandparents, who may be paternal, maternal or by marriage. The family may consist of non-relative carers such as friends. Additionally, it may consist of parents or carers who share the same race, class, culture, religion and sexuality, or alternatively it may consist of parents or carers who have different race, class, culture, religion or sexuality. There may be one or more children in the family, some of whom may share the race, religion and sexuality of their parents and some who do not. To add to the complexity, people constantly enter and leave families, by birth, marriage, adoption, divorce and death. Millam (2002: 31) describes some of this complexity and diversity when she says that:
The child and family social worker needs to both understand and value the complex, diverse and different family forms and be able to assess the relative merits of each one they encounter. The child and family social worker also needs to have a clear idea about why she or he is doing what they are doing as well as being aware of some of the complicated ethical dilemmas which they will encounter. Who is the main focus of the work or intervention: the child or the family? Clearly the childās welfare is paramount but in order to achieve an outcome for the child work will also need to be done with the family. Before you begin to think about who you are working with you will need to have an understanding about what you believe is important. The value or importance that you place on the work you are doing and the ethical or moral stance you take (that is simply whether you feel that the work you are doing is right and proper) are the two areas that we are going to explore. As Beckett and Maynard (2005: 1) have stated: āValues and ethics do not simply exist at the fringes of social work, but are at the heart of social work practiceā. I would go further and state that values and ethics are not only at the heart of social work practice but they constitute the life force that permeates every part of social work practice. Having an understanding of what factors might influence your decisions will help to guide your practice. These factors will include personal values and ethics, professional values and ethics, agency values and ethics, and societal values and ethics. In order to do this you will need to have an understanding of your personal values and ethics.
Developing an understanding of your own starting point
ACTIVITY 1.1
Think about your personal views and assumptions about how children should be cared for while they are growing up. Make a list of those you feel are most important. How do you think you came to choose these?
COMMENT
Your list will be personal to you and many factors will influence your views, for example the experiences you have had as a child or parent, as well as your familyās or carersā attitudes, beliefs, religion and cultural backgrounds. This list will almost become an internalised standard by which you judge and will be judged by others, except that you also have to consider that your standards might be challenged as being too high, too low, too narrow or too accepting. They are, after all, exclusive to you. Your standards might even be considered to be appropriate for a certain era, and inappropriate or even wrong for the present. A situation that you might like to consider is whether you should let young children cry or comfort them. Your personal views might be that it is okay to let children cry for a while, but your professional view will be that it depends on how long the child is crying for and whether it is a cry of pain, hunger, discomfort or a cry for attention. Your personal values and beliefs could well mean that you are personally discriminating. It is therefore essential that you also use, understand and adopt some external standard to guide you. You can do this by considering your professional code of practice. This code or standard list will usually contain things that you should and must do if you are to become a more effective, empowering and thoughtful practitioner.
Professional values and ethics
As a professional you will be committed to certain standards of behaviour and conduct towards service users or the children and families you are working with. These are currently (in 2015) outlined in the Professional Capabilities Framework (2012), which describes the values and ethics for workers at various stages or levels of their careers: Principal Social Worker (PSW), Advanced Practitioner, Experienced Social Worker, Social Worker, Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE), End of last placement, End of first placement and Readiness for practice and Entry to the profession. In addition, from July 2012 the standards for the social work professional body which regulates and registers practitioners, the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC), should also be followed. The latter currently includes some fourteen points, three of which (relating in the main to clinical interventions) will need some revision for social workers. For example, removing a child from their family is a serious form of intervention, whereas offering advice about childcare is a less serious intervention. Child and family social workers are concerned about risks and safety to both themselves and others but they are not directly concerned about āinfectionā as this is a health matter rather than a social care issue. Finally, health will need to be clarified to include a wider definition, which also covers emotional and psychological health (see Van der Gaag, 2008).
In August 2015, just prior to the demise of the College of Social Work, a number of changes to the titles of the different levels within Child and Family Social Work had been proposed. The HCPC were also to undertake work to revise their standards within two years. There is a pressing need for clarity, simplification, consistency and integration so that workers can feel confident that the ethical basis of their profession is being safeguarded.
Values and ethics in the PCF were much more detailed than before and prospective practitioners should be more aware of the impact that their own values and attitudes can have on relationships with others from when they enter the profession. This is sometimes difficult to ascertain as people vary in their level of insight and self-understanding. For example, you might expect a woman to have more insight and understanding about the oppression that women experience than men, but if a man has been brought up in a family that has more female members he may have more insight than a man who has not had the same experiences. The child and family worker should value and be committed to working with children and their families and this should be reflected throughout their careers.
Having obtained a place on a social work course a prospective practitionerās awareness of their personal values is to be further tested before they are allowed to practice. This can be usefully done by engaging prospective practitioners in activities in which their learning is reviewed and where they are given the opportunity to challenge and be challenged in their views and assumptions.
Your first practice placement offers you, as a prospective practitioner, further opportunities to develop, review, understand and learn about your values and ethics and this knowledge should be further consolidated during the last or final placement. The emphasis will be on understanding and managing the impact of your own values on professional practice and on the ability to identify and (with guidance) manage potentially conflicting values and ethical dilemmas, as well as becoming more knowledgeable, accountable and increasingly autonomous.
Having qualified as a social worker the next stage is to undertake a year being assessed and supported in employment (ASYE) where your ethical reasoning and values are again being tested.
As a qualified social worker the focus on self-understanding continues as you are required to be able to critically reflect on and manage the influence and impact of your own and othersā values on professional practice; but equally as a practitioner you are also required to work in partnership with others.
The values and ethics strand of the PCF for the experienced social worker suggests that the worker should be able to demonstrate, model and promote their skills at this stage whereas the advanced practitionerās knowledge and skills should be such that he or she is able to provide advice, guidance and challenge to others.
It is not clear who will be responsible for guiding social workersā ethical practice. Although a Chief Social Worker was appointed for children and families to promote good practice, only time will tell if the values and ethics of practice will continue to be developed and be as prominent as they should be. These values and ethics are vital for those below PSW to follow and aspire to since they should inspire faith and confidence in the leaderās knowledge and commitment to working with children and their families. This level of understanding should improve the standard of workers. But how are the current qualified workers to be assessed and supported in having an understanding of the importance of values and ethics as some of the workers undergoing training?
Although the General Social Care Council Codes of Practice (GSCC, 2002) were not described as values or ethics, and are now part of social work history, they did form the basis of the professional values and ethics for social care workers. They informed professional beliefs about what is important and right and they emphasised or championed the rights of service users and were akin to the ethics and values expressed by BASW.
The six main points of the Codes of Practice listed below were divided into sub- sections of...
