 to this video session where I will be discussing the code of ethics of social work. So what is the meaning of code of ethics? The word ethics means the guiding principles or the set of guidelines that are important for social work professionals. So what is the meaning of code of ethics in social work profession? Since social work is a profession there are certain guidelines for the social work professionals who are either in training or who are in practice in various fields. Social work is a professional activity. The implicit of its practice are ethical principles which prescribes professional responsibility of every social worker. So the primary objective of the code of ethics is to serve as a guide in the everyday professional conduct of social workers. So therefore today we will be discussing the National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics. It is a universally accepted code of ethics and it is mainly divided into four sections. The first section is the preamble then we will discuss the purpose of NASW code of ethics. Then the ethical principles and the ethical standards that are set for an equality maintenance of this particular profession. So let us come to this preamble of the code of ethics. The mission of social work profession is rooted in a set of core values. There are core values which are embraced by every social work professional. If we see the history of the professional social work we will see that the foundation of social work is based on these certain principles. They are the attitude of service then social justice for all the groups those which are vulnerable also then we have to respect the dignity and worth of the person not only as a social worker but also the clients and the people in general who belong to the society they need to be respected that is known as serving the dignity and worth of the person. Then a social worker lays emphasis on the importance of human relationships. Human relationships are very important for maintaining social work profession therefore social workers need to respect this aspect of human relationships. Then we come to the word integrity. Integrity means how right you are in being professional in your social work profession so and competence means your ability to be professional in your activity therefore these are the guiding principles that we see are important for code of ethics. Next we go to the purpose of the NASW code of ethics. Professional ethics are the core of social work. The profession has an obligation to articulate its basic values principles and the standards. It set forth the values principles and standards to guide the social workers. The code is relevant to all social workers as well as students who are in training of social work. Regardless of their professional functions the settings in which they work for or the population they serve these NASW code of ethics is universal for the social work profession. The NASW code of ethics serves basically six purposes. Its main purpose is to offer a set of values and it basically deals with the core values that is honesty, integrity and the attitude of service. All these things are important or these are known as the core values of social work. Then the NASW code of ethics also serves as a guide to social work practice. It helps professionals in times of uncertainty or ethical conflict. For example when a social worker is in an ethical dilemma how to deal with a particular case or how to go forward about it then these code of ethics are the main guide in taking forward the steps in solving the client's problem. It helps in socializing the novice social work professionals for example you are the social work students or the people who are newly trained in social work. They are socialized into the big community of social workers through the NASW code of ethics. The code articulates standards of practice of the profession throughout the world therefore it lays a standardized set of practices and professionalism among the social workers universally. The ethical principles as discussed in the previous slides the ethical principles are based on social works core value of service, social justice, dignity and worth of the person, importance of human relationships, integrity and competence. So social justice for all the vulnerable groups then dignity and worth of every person across classes, across caste or gender or color so each person has to be respected and that is how you build a professional relationship. Here that is known as human relationships and integrity and competence of the social worker should be intact only then it will be an ethical practice of social work values. These principles set forth ideals to which all social workers should aspire. So these are basically the guiding principles to which the social worker has to follow. Now coming to the ethical standards it covers a huge portion of the code of ethics of NASW code of ethics for social workers. The following ethical standards are relevant to the professional activities of all social workers. These standards mainly concern these six aspects. They are social workers ethical responsibilities to the client number one then social workers ethical responsibility to the colleagues then to the practice setting. Now setting can be anything it can be a hospital setup it can be a school setup or a client setup where it might be a home domestic setup or it can be any clinical setup or it can be a industry workplace setup. So in all these settings there are different ethical guidelines that a social worker has to follow. Social workers ethical responsibilities as professionals and those to the social work profession is important here and then lastly the ethical responsibility of a trained social worker towards the broader society and society comprises of different groups of different beneficiaries therefore all these components have to be kept in mind. Now coming to an important aspect of social workers ethical responsibilities we are talking about how and in what way they have to deal with the clients. Now who are clients? Clients can be the individual people who come to you seeking help or it can be a group of family members it can be a group of for example a group of addicts who are either addicted to any substance or an alcohol. So these are the types of clients or they can be people who need counseling maybe group counseling or maybe a community that comes to you so they are known as the clients. Now coming to the ethical responsibility towards a client a social worker has to have commitment towards the client's problems that means his or her problem has to be empathized and understood from their perspective that is when only a social worker can develop commitment towards the clients. Next one is self-determination. So this is in relation to the principle of social work which talks about clients self-determination that means we have to respect the client's choices in determining or taking decision towards the client or it towards the solving of the client's problem that is self-determination the right to decide of the client about his or her problem and how to go about it. Informed consent means the process of social work intervention has to be transparent in nature that means the social worker has to inform the client about the steps that he or she is going to take while dealing with the client's problem therefore good communication is important here and that is known as informed consent that is informing the client what and how you are going forward with the treatment of the client's problem. Now coming to competence as a professional how competent you are or what are your professional ethics and practices that will enable you to solve the client's problem that is known as competence you how skilled you are as a social worker to deal with the client's problems and then comes cultural competence and social diversity. Taking the example of a country like India which has a huge cultural identity of different groups it can be religious linguistic caste and ethnic identities that differ from region to region and also from group to group and individual to individual these cultural diversity social diversity has to be respected so therefore a social worker has to be careful that he or she does not heard the cultural sentiments of any individual therefore that is known as maintaining the cultural competence and social diversity which needs to be respected and the principle of individuality is applicable here. Individuality means identifying the client as unique from one another or the one as which is different from another's need therefore individualization principle is actually applicable in this particular setup. Then conflict of interest. Suppose a client comes to you to discuss about his or her problem with maybe a family member and after certain sessions you come to know that also the client has certain problems in his or her personality that needs to be modified so when you express that or when you in the transparent way you communicate that to a client there might be certain conflict in the perspective of you and the client in that case you have to deal with such conflict of interest in a very professional manner therefore there are different ways and techniques that you will be learning in counseling and in casework how to deal with different conflicts of interest privacy and confidentiality when a client comes to you he or she comes to you with a lot of trust or takes time to develop trust with you whether all the personal information that he or she is going to share with you you will be able to maintain that privacy and confidentiality of the client's information or not so it is the ethical responsibility of a social worker to maintain the privacy and confidentiality of the clients and you need to have access to the records of the client maybe previous medical reports or any other record that is important or any record of any important life event of the client which will be necessary to deal with the present situation of the client so therefore the clients have to seek permission and also to be able to go through the previous records of the client so that the problem the root of the problem can be found out and it can be solved in an effective way and also ethically it is not right to have any illicit relationship or for the social worker to be involved in any form of sexual harassment with the client to maintain professionalism it is important not to have any physical contact with the client or any sort of illicit relationship with the client and also sexual harassment or use of derogatory language is a big no in the profession of social work therefore these things have to be maintained in a very careful way there has to be payment of services because it is a profession social work is a profession and it is not a social service or charity therefore there has to be payment of services and this needs to be discussed with the client in the beginning itself so that later there won't be any problem in regarding the amount of fees or amount of payment that is expected from the social worker and the client can be mentally ready to have such a service with them now termination of services the word termination itself means that the way how you end a particular professional service or a professional relationship termination should not be abrupt it has to be there are certain steps that are involved in the process of termination for example there the client has to be mentally ready that you will no longer be able to deal with the i mean to intervene with the further with the client's problem and then how the closure has to be what are the steps that that clients needs to take what are the the guidelines that the client has to follow so therefore these things have to be kept in mind and also termination after termination there is a step which is known as follow-up so follow-up has to be done after the termination of services so social workers ethical responsibilities in the practice setting as i told you the practice settings can be anything for for example from the from a school to a hospital setting to a clinical setting then it can be a workplace setting or it can be any any domestic setting where you have gone for a home visit or any other place where social work practice needs to be done so these are the ethical responsibilities of a social worker with regard to the practice settings supervision and consultation therefore in a particular setting you need to supervise and consult the clients as to what is the problem how to go about it about the problem and also have a clear cut communication and discussion with the clients so that what are the expectations how you need to go forward it in what is the timeline or time frame that needs to be invested and everything therefore this kind of supervision and consultation is important here then education and training education and training is like for example you need to give a skill training to a particular set of clients and they need to develop their skills and their a certain modification of behavior all these things have to be trained and educated about to the client performance performance evaluation it means that the social worker has to evaluate every session for example what are the expectations that has been set about each session has to be evaluated by the social worker client records the as i told you these needs to be accessed by the social worker to have a clear understanding of the root cause of the problems and how to go forward about it then client transfer suppose a client comes to you and you realize that you are not able to deal with the client's problem and you are not expertise to deal with that particular set of problems then you need to transfer that particular client to another social worker that is known as client transfer and this has to be done in consent with the client and clear communication with the client continuing education and staff development suppose you are in a welfare organization and you you understand that the other staff and needs further training and education and certain development training has to be given then it has to be initiated by the social worker of that particular organization commitment to employers suppose as a social worker you are under the employment of a welfare organization you have certain commitment and responsibilities towards the employers worker management negotiation in a work setup in a workplace setting it is bound that there will be conflict between the management and the workers and the negotiation process has to be initiated and supervised and also to be monitored by the social workers without that the conflict may take a bigger turn therefore negotiation process has to be initiated by the social workers now coming to the social workers ethical responsibilities to the profession and society integrity to the profession that means there is there has to be honesty and principles need to be followed then there has to be evaluation research on the activities that is done there has to be public participation along with the groups or the communities that needs intervention and that needs to maybe fight for social justice and then social welfare if you are working for an organization or in an individual manner social welfare is an important target or objective of social work profession then social and political action the social workers ethical responsibility towards the broader society is that you fight for social justice and social action and political action wherever reform is important therefore these are the ethical responsibilities to the profession of social work and society at large by a social worker coming to the professional and social workers association in India and abroad so as we have discussed the national association social workers code of ethics these are associations which have certain guidelines and certain principles that need to be followed they have code of ethics and they are important for professional social work practice in India and abroad the first one is NASW as we discussed then secondly the international council for social welfare the international association for of schools of social work then association of schools of social work in India the Indian society of professional social work and the national association of professional social workers in India so I hope this class has been useful for you all to understand the importance of code of ethics and the different organizations in India and international level that guide our ethics of social work thank you