The Children Act : Professional And Personal Boundaries

Every Child Matters 2003 and Children Act 2004 updated in 2010 to Help Children Achieve More

This essay will address the ethical dilemmas faced by social workers and how they address these ethical dilemmas when working with service users and carers. It will be illustrated that codes of practice and codes of ethics are of paramount importance when dealing with these dilemmas as they are ones that guide social workers as to how they should try and solve these dilemmas.

Social workers face complex ethical issues in every aspect of their profession. This work is often ethically challenging because it involves direct contact and interaction with individuals who are vulnerable. There are many factors that influence our decision making especially when working with at risk youths, we often face challenges in wanting to take on certain roles to protect our clients. These roles often conflict with our professional obligations. When our personal and professional values conflicts, our decisions may affect the individual, family, group, community and the organization.

This essay will focus on how contemporary social workers work to balance the competing demand of care and control. It will start by outlining the nature of the contemporary social work and what it is like and how it works within society. The discussion will then move on to look at and discuss the key professional values of social work practitioners and analyse its relationship to their own personal values, this will also bring into account how these values and views influenced the relationship a social worker can have with both service users and other agencies. Lastly it will explore the range of challenges and dilemmas that are faced by social work practitioners in everyday practice when it comes to trying to balance the demand of care and control and how they work to overcome these problems in order to ensure an effective and fair service to all who avail of it.

In recent times safeguarding of children has once again come under spotlight with cases such as Madline McKan and the horrific murders of Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells. Prior to this the Children’s act of 1984 and updated 2004 version highlighted that all professionals have an obligation to report suspected abuse. There was a public inquiry in 2000 to address the failure of the law which was not upholding the protection of vulnerable children. There was changes to the legislation and the government set up The Every Child Maters (ECM) initiative. This works in line with current legislation Working Together to Safeguard Children 2006 Act. This Act authorised guidance on how organisations and individuals should work together to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people in accordance with the Children Act 1989 and the Children Act 2004. All organisations must have the succeeding policies and procedures:

The aim of this act is to simplify the laws that are already in place, which protect children and young people in the UK. It was seen as a “serious shake up” of children’s rights and protection, and also made it clear what the duties are for all who work with children and young people and how they should work as a team in the event of a child abuse allegation.

The section of the National Association of Social Work Ethics that will be discussed will be number four which includes Social Workers’ ethical responsibilities as professionals. This ethics code concentrates on a several different factors which include: 4.01 Competence, 4.02 discrimination, 4.03 private conduct, 4.04 dishonesty, 4.05 personal impairment, 4.06 misinterpretations, 4.07 solicitations, and 4.08 acknowledging credit.

Professionals working in health and social services, educational establishments, and those working for the police and the probation services are bound by statutory law such as Working Together to Safeguard Children 2013 (replacing previous 2010 Act). The statutory includes all nature and impact of child abuse and neglect, procedures to best protect a child, the different roles, processes and responsibilities of all agencies and practitioners involved. It also provided the appropriate action to be taken to safeguard and to promote wellbeing and welfare of children at risk of a possibility significant harm. The 2013 Act sets out important principles to be followed when working with children and their families. Among the other aspect of the act

The social work profession’s Standards of Practice outlines the boundaries in the relationship between social workers and their clients and sets a mandate of their responsibilities as a social worker (Alberta College of Social Workers, 2013, p. 30). In the Code of Ethics, boundaries are also set at a high standard as we must draw metaphysical lines between personal roles or interests and professional (Canadian Association of Social Workers, 2005, p. 7) to prevent forming a dual relationship with clients. Another boundary is to halt the possibility of the social worker from using the time they have to help themselves rather than helping their clients (CASW, 2005, p. 6). In addition to these boundaries, it is crucial for social workers to not share too much of their personal life with clients by placing mental boundaries of how much they feel they can share of their personal life with their clients.

Social workers are ethically obligated to engage in social and political action that help seeks to ensure that all people have equal access to the resources. NASW (2008) (pg. 27) The Code of Ethics further notes that social workers should be aware of the impact of the political arena on practice on practice and should advocate for changes

The case study demonstrates tension within legislation, and between legislation and social work ethics. Evident in, the Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA98) Article 8 right to respect for private and family life, and Article 3 freedom from torture, inhuman or degrading treatment (Department for Constitutional Affairs, 2006). Relevant to Mr C’s disclosure regarding daughter D. In relation to legal and ethical tensions, the Code of Professional Practice for Social Care (CoPP) stipulates in s.1 respect the views and wishes, and promote the rights and interests, of individuals and carers (Care Council for Wales, 2015). Furthermore, reflected in the Code of Ethics for Social Work principle 2 respect the right to self-determination (British Association of Social Workers, 2012). However, these social work values may feel challenged when applying duties and powers inherent in social work practice. For example, an approved mental health professional

Introduction Within the field of social work, one of the ethical problems that has been found to be challenging has been the issue of managing boundary relationships. These relationships involve instances where the social worker’s professional ethics are brought into disrepute. Some of the boundary issues that social workers experienced while dispensing their duties or when dealing with clients involved: sexual relationships, religious issues, business dealings and social life (Reamer, 2003). Social workers are expected to deal with their clients’ professionally, but when the relationship that they have with the client becomes either dual or multiple; this could easily result in conflict of interest.

The Policy, Ethics and Human Rights Committee (2012) published the ‘BASW Social Media Policy’, which states that social workers should create suitable personal and professional limits, it outlines that personal and work communication should be separate and that accepting service users and carers on networking sites produces a personal relationship which is undesirable. This is a challenge for social workers as it raises the issue of dual relationships in social work; it is believed that for professional social work to be successful, social workers should only have a professional relationship with service users. Tensions arise when service users try to establish a personal relationship with social workers. Then if social workers remind service users they are not friends, they may lose trust. Overall social networking is a challenge as it creates tensions with service users over personal and professional

Firstly, read and re-read the AASW code of ethics to become familiar with its guidelines. Read about the ethical guidelines and dilemmas that social workers commonly face. The Code of Ethics is quite upfront about them.

This essay will explore what it means to be a professional social worker and what the term ‘social work’ entails in contemporary England. Then, it will briefly focus on the history of social work regulation as well as exploring how ‘personal values’ and ‘professional values’ impact on social work practice and also explain how professional standards, codes, values and ethics are relevant to social work practice and their relevance to service users and carers.