Values and Their Significance
The values give general descriptions and provide the means of talking about what is significant to us (Healy, 2014). . These are the forms of ideas we hold that provide the meaning and importance to our lives thus they underpin the beliefs, affects the decision we make, actions we undertake and the form of life we live (Hepworth, 2016). By understanding the values, they help us in coming to understand how we come up with our reality and provide us with the insight into the personal form of realities of the others. Values can also refer to a particular kind of the beliefs that the individual holds on what it is considered to be valuable or worthy.
Professional Values and Societal Values
According to the SWHS, the values are the forms of the active beliefs about how the peoples ought to behave normally and about their esteem preference over the life circumstances (McDonald et al, 2003). All the workers or the professionals have their own values preference that provides them with the direction and the purpose. The professional values are no different from the societal values in any way, but instead, the professionals adopt the selected forms of the societal values and the society. Therefore impose the sanctions to the professions via the supportive structure of the legislature, the delegation of roles for the societal activities, funding and the forms of the mechanisms to ensure that the functions or the roles which are delegated are done (Rubin \" Babbie, 2007). The broad or the wider forms of the societal values in a state may be reflected for instance in the laws of the state which assure and gives the declaration of the human rights of the citizens.
Influence of Personal, Political, Societal, and Cultural Encounters
The personal, political, societal and the forms of the cultural encounters affect the values the person develops, so it is quite crucial to becoming aware of these forms of influences. The values which the peoples are holding affects the manner under which they act and treat the other peoples and without the conscience of these peoples may unconsciously at in what may be considered as the discriminatory way or the oppressive way (Rubin \" Babbie, 2007).
Personal and Professional Values in Social Work
Every person has some sets of beliefs that affect their actions; some are quite personal to us whereas the others are the form of the shared beliefs. Our moral codes clarify what is of value to our lives and thus give the identification of who we are. As a social work scholar, we are instructed to be vigilant of our forms of the personal values and how these values might be diverse the peoples of various culture .the professional values are strongly grounded on a code of ethics presented by the Australian Association of the Social Work practice (Rickard, 2018). The social workers are required to respect the persons and the vulnerable peoples. The highlighted standards, for example, protecting the rifts and the freedom of the service users are the carers, maintaining the trust, promoting the independence and adhering to the respect and the accountability. There are also some of the agency policies, legislation and the procedures which govern or direct the way under which the social worker must practice (Rickard, 2018).
Ethical Dilemma in Social Work
One of the dilemmas which could substantiate to be quite conflicting for a social worker is the cat of balancing the level of the confidentiality with the duty to secure or to protect versus the contradictory right to the self-determination. The main question with the relation with the ethics inherent in the social work is how a social worker can conduct himself or herself towards the clients (Congress\" McAuliffe, 2006). What are the limits of the worker-client relationship? Let us take a case of which you are a social worker dealing with the female's client, Mary in the mental health hospital. You have been working together with Mary for the last three months, and she has the son aged six years old who are experiencing the behavioural challenges. After some past few months, the relationship with Mary has become concrete, and she then feels she can disclose to you about her issues like the financial constraints and her depressions. By working closely with Mary, you have come to instruct her on various ways to deal with her son's behaviours and from this; her son has changed the practices (Congress\" McAuliffe, 2006). Nevertheless, during her visit, Mary discloses to you about a situation she had with her son at the time he was acting out and she was forced to push him simply because she was frustrated. This situation caused the son to bang his head down leaving his face with the bruises. Mary requested you not to tell anyone, but the big problem here is that the law strictly requires you to make a report on what has happened (Whitty \" Little-johns ,2015). You understand that Mary and her son have improved and they continue well, nevertheless, if you report this case then the relationship between you, marry and the son will be affected permanently. What can you do?
Conflicting Values in Social Work
The above circumstance highlights some of the challenges that a social worker encounters. This is referred to as the dilemma of the social work forms of values. The values which include obeying the client's right to his/her self-determination and the confidentiality can be a difficult method since there are certain conditions were going against the privacy is sanctioned by the law and the forms the professional values (Whitty \" Little-johns ,2015). For instance, the confidentiality might be distorted with or without the customer's knowledge or the permission to make a report on the abuse and the neglect. This is considered as the conflict of the professional values and the personal values hence the situation is always considered to be the ethical dilemma. This is a situation under which the obligations and the professional roles which are deeply rooted in the core values, conflict (Zastrow, 2016). . In the social work, the confidentiality refers to the rules and the norms which are applied to the form of the information provided by the customers to the social workers thus the social worker shouldn't disclose this information to anyone unless on special circumstances(Lum, 2004). It is quite clear that the most of the social workers professional admit that is acceptable in certain circumstances to breach the confidentiality, however, the principle which governs the maintaining the details of the client's secrets, are taken to be crucial to have the client's trust.
Challenges in Social Work
Another form of the conflict which is observed in the social work is the core valued based versus the social work valued based, for example in the case of dealing with the sex offenders. The personal resilience nature of the social worker is quite crucial when dealing with the sex offenders. This profession demands a practitioner to assist in empowering the individuals to see other people's strengths and focus on building them (Lum, 2004). As a result, there are various ways under which the social worker can control and solve the values and take the control over the mixture of the innate feelings which are agitated by these mistakes or the conflict. These comprise of the labeling, validating the experienced trauma, recognizing apprehending the attachment complexities and finally understanding the pathway under which an individual has undergone to reach where they are. These methods are helpful in encouraging the individual's top trust that they can live a purposeful life and attain the goals and objectives without causing a threat to the others (Lum, 2004).
Self-reflection and Professional Development
As the social worker student, I am sure that I will encounter some of the complex circumstances than the others. My form of the personal beliefs have been rooted in me from my tender age thus studying to be a social worker and having studied new values which I have to take into the considerations will be hard. The code of the practice stipulates that the social worker ought to protect the right and focus in promoting the interest of the service users and also the carers this it is quite crucial to recognize that the proper actions are to evaluate someone's level of needs while performing the tasks at the professional levels(Reamer \" 2013). Furthermore, the social worker professionals operate from the perspective of the Framework Theory and Practice that helps in understanding the trend of the inequality and the oppression that are inherent in the society. Using this framework will assist in developing the skills needed within the practice or the exercise without the inequality or the oppression (Rubin \" Babbie, 2015). This knowledge and skills will also assist in boosting the working relationship among the multi-agency and also the multidisciplinary groups. These apply to my practice and will boost my ability as the social worker (Reamer \" 2013).
Challenges in Ethical Decision Making
The social worker always makes some of the inappropriate decisions where there is no wrong or right. This essay depicts that the social work values like the client self-determination and maintaining the confidentiality can bring up uncertain results leading to confusion between the process and the values thus resulting in a situation which is difficult to find the right response. The client's levels of concerns have several aspects thus it could be assumed that the greater the level of knowledge and skills that the practitioner is in is able in a position to develop in the decision making, the more effective and the proper this would be for the social worker in practice. The foundation of the proper social work practice understands your values and the principles and how you always interact with the peoples. Through the commitment and the consistent development and training, I will gain a lot of skills on the total commitment practices to important values and the principles.
References
Reamer, F. G. (2013). Social work values and ethics. Columbia University Press
Lum, D. (2004). Social work practice and people of color: A process-stage approach. Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.
Whitty, J. A., " Littlejohns, P. (2015). Social values and health priority setting in Australia: an analysis applied to the context of health technology assessment. Health Policy, 119(2), 127-136.
Congress, E., " McAuliffe, D. (2006). Social work ethics: Professional codes in Australia and the United States. International Social Work, 49(2), 151-164.
Rickard, J. (2018). Australia: A cultural history. Monash University Publishing.
Rubin, A., " Babbie, E. (2007). Research methods for social work. Cengage Learning.
McDonald, C., Harris, J., " Wintersteen, R. (2003). Contingent on context? Social work and the state in Australia, Britain, and the USA. British Journal of Social Work, 33(2), 191-208.
Hepworth, Dean H., Ronald H. Rooney, Glenda Dewberry Rooney, and Kim Strom- Gottfried(2016). Empowerment series: Direct social work practice: Theory and skills. Nelson Education,
Zastrow, C. (2016). Empowerment Series: Introduction to Social Work and Social Welfare: Empowering People. Cengage Learning.
Healy, K. (2014). Social work theories in context: Creating frameworks for practice. Palgrave Macmillan.
Rubin, A., " Babbie, E. R. (2015). Empowerment series: Essential research methods for social work. Nelson Education.
