Social Work for Sociologists: Theory and Practice

CHAPtEr 3

Key Values, Ethics, and Skills

for Working with People

Kate van Heugten and Anita Gibbs

Introduction

This chapter discusses developments in social work thinking about values and
ethics. It explores how values and ethics are expressed in practice, whether
dealing with everyday value-based problems or with rarer, more intractable
dilemmas. In-depth understanding of values and ethics in practice will pro-
vide sociologists with tools to enhance their self-awareness, reflexivity, and
capacity to work ethically with a range of service users. Many of the topics
explored in this chapter will resonate with sociologists because sociologists
also need to consider the impacts of their work on individuals and communi-
ties and because sociologists, too, have ethical codes, particularly in relation
to undertaking research. Sociologists’ understanding of the broader scope of
ethical considerations that play out in human services practice may, however,
be somewhat limited or tentative, and sociologists may gain from greater
understanding of social work perspectives.
The chapter begins with an explanation of the relevance of values in
practice and an exploration of the definitions of values and ethics. The history
of ethical thinking in social work is briefly outlined, and an overview is given
of some major ethical theoretical considerations and key concepts. Social
work values are explored, taking into consideration their contested nature,
as well as how these values relate to skills and practice frameworks. Finally,
ethical dilemmas are discussed, and some specific ethical dilemmas arising
from Aleena’s situation (introduced in chapter 2) are considered, to illustrate
how ethical processes and models are used in work with individuals, families,
and communities.