Description:

This audio presentation will assist social workers by giving a framework for analyzing ethical conflicts which occur within social work practice. Examples include when the best interests of one’s own patient conflict with scarce resource allocation, or “greater good” arguments and loyalty to one’s employer and colleagues. Participants will learn to distinguish professional social work from other types of client-caregiver relationships and how this determines our professional standards, responsibilities and obligations. And participants will be given a frame for ethical reasoning in sorting through such dilemmas so that a course of action might be found which maximizes the benefit to all, especially the patient. Attention will be paid to both NASW's Code of Ethics as well as clinical, organizational and research ethics perspectives. 

Learning goals to achieve by the end of the session include: 

1. Learning to identify and distinguish the various type of caregiver relationships 

2. Identifying the professional responsibilities and applicable ethical precepts applied within clinical situations. 

3. Learning to identify and then apply ethical reasoning which takes into account principles of beneficence, nonmaleficence, allocation of scarce resources, divided loyalty, and patient autonomy. 

4. Better understand the application of both NASW's Code of Ethics and other ethics principles within social work practice.