Essential Ethics for Social Work Practice

When social work students begin their professional education, it is important to understand how to put social work values and ethics into practice. This textbook provides students with guidance on how to implement core ethical duties including promoting social justice, practicing in a competent manner, fostering human relationships, ensuring clients have access to services, and maintaining high standards of honesty and integrity. Students will also learn how to engage with supervisors, coworkers, clients, attorneys, and others to discuss conflicting obligations and manage ethical dilemmas.
This textbook includes rich case illustrations and examples of critical thinking using a range of practice situations. In particular, students will learn how to apply deontology (duty-based ethics), teleology (consequence-based ethics), virtue ethics, and narrative ethics to explore ethical issues and determine appropriate solutions. Students will also learn how to strengthen their moral fortitude, the strength to do what is right even when pressure or constraints from others are making it difficult to act in an ethical manner.
Read more