This program has been approved for 3.0 Continuing Education hour in Ethics for licensure.

NASW Vermont Chapter is recognized by the New York State Education Department's State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed social workers #SW-0683.

Professional social work practice is based on commitment to the well-being of clients, a respect for their dignity, privacy, the right to self-determination, the right to be offered and provide informed consent, and a duty of care to the clients. These principles seem universal, but social workers often find themselves working with clients who may not have the capacity for self-determined decision-making. Some of these are:

• persons with dementia, developmental disabilities, or some types of neurodiversity

• persons with serious mental disorders,

• minor children, especially those caught in custody issues

• persons receiving treatment involuntarily, perhaps as a condition for other services

• persons who present as at risk for imminent violence or self-harm,

These situations present huge clinical and ethical challenges to social workers, because they are likely to be adversarial and contentious, even as the social worker seeks to maximize client self-determination and welfare. They often lead to poor case outcomes, anger directed at the social worker, lawsuits, professional complaints. and struggles with professionals from other disciplines that have less focus on client autonomy. They are also major sources of social worker burnout and compassion fatigue.

This three-hour workshop will address these challenging issues:

• Who is your “client”? Are there multiple “clients” that you must factor in to your work?

• The clinical and ethical issues related to the social worker’s assessment of diminished capacity

• The client who is receiving treatment involuntarily

• The potentially violent or self-harming individual

• Integrating legal obligations, agency rules and guidelines, the NASW Code of Ethics, and your personal moral judgments as guideposts/guardrails.

• The critical need for collegial consultation.

The workshop will also provide two specific algorithms for resolving these ethical/clinical conundrums, and we will work through several real-life case studies during the program.