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The Right Of Self Determination

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The Right to Self Determination
Introduction
Ian’s Story: His Right to Self Determination, by Robert Alcock (2014), the article aims to highlight an ethical dilemma faced by a social work student on placement in a homeless shelter.
The case study draws on ethical frameworks and theories that have been applied during practice and the questions raised at the end of the five-month placement. This critique analyses and evaluates the resolutions made around Ian’s mental capacity to make autonomous decisions and the students personal involvement in an intervention of protecting Ian from harm.
Ethics, Framework and Theory
Ethics are essential to social work practice and run through all facets of practice. The emphasis of this argument is on student placement and the expectation of the student to work within the ‘code of ethics’ framework that supports the agencies policy, systems and rules.
Alcock (2014) mentions, that the placement agency approaches individual self-sufficiency as being underpinned by a funding directive “to prepare single men for future independent living”. Two avenues for this approach are the belief that hostel residents will adhere to a series of systems and rules as set by the agency and that the staff will respect the men’s right to make autonomous decisions.
These systems, rules and expectations fall within the broad ethical framework of deontology, making the limits of their ethics explicit. Deontology insists on obedience and compliance, and as such, an

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