Introduction
The nature of the job which being undertook by social workers contains the confrontation of such ethical dilemmas which comes in a routine. The education which are being provided to those people who joins the field as a social worker in a way that the perspective of all the practices and programs comes under that educational program. The council which was built with the aim to prepare the social worker have specifically added the point which deals with ethical dilemmas and provide guidance. The decision making is always hard to handle when the situation comes in which ethics comes under consideration. The professional who are working as a social worker knows the guidance and they have the ambiguity to tolerate while resolving conflicts specifically from the ethics point of view. Ethics, values and code of ethics are the guiding principles which helps in leading the life. The values refer to beliefs which are being provided by the culture in terms of ethics and the code of ethics are defined formally which had provided the guidance. However, as a social worker intern in the senor resource center the dilemmas of ethics have been came by to deal with and the decision which being undertook according to the ethics is further discussed.
Discussion
The case of ethical dilemma was occurred during the time of intern in one of the senor resource center while taking care of meals program which were being assigned. The nature of the job as the social worker is to provide the daily meals to those early age people who are above 60 years and the meal was prepared by the senior resource center with the help of local catering organization. If specifically mentioning the ethical dilemma which was being faced to analyze and decide to one person who was receiving the meal since several years? The required condition deals with the rule that after every six months it’s the duty to check that whether those who are receiving the meal still comes the criteria and eligible for the services(Congress, 2017).
The specific incident was one which had been the only quite a big enough which comes under the ethical dilemma when one day during the delivery of food as assessment of eligibility. That day we went to the house of that person and smelled the marijuana is being smoked in the house. After knowing the door a young 18 years male answered the door who was clearly looking high due to the use of marijuana with red eyes and disoriented. The man who was receiving the meal was taking a nap and couldn’t come to answer as informed by that boy. Now it raises the question that providing services to the house in which marijuana is being consumed which will effect badly the heath of that elderly man. The ethical dilemma was that whether it comes under my duty to report this which I had witnessed or not?
After going through the code of ethics as described by the National Association set up especially for social workers that the well-being of the client is the duty of social worker. There are other laws and rules which also emphasized all the social workers even the common citizen to always look for the wellbeing of the people around especially the senior citizen. If considering all these point and clauses provided by reports and laws I was motivated enough to do something. But when working in the organization the decision taken by the workers effect not just the specific person to whom decision is being directed but also the whole organization comes under the stake of it. In this particular case the stakeholder which comes first and likely to be effected by the decision directly is the client who was the senior citizen receiving the services. The decision also involves the young man living in that house because the dilemma raised due to his course of action. The other stakeholders will be our group who was working on that particular task when the dilemma was raised. In the end, the organization, social services department and police department are the groups which will also get involved as the stakeholder.
Identification and the analysis of all the course of actions and considering the stakeholders who are involved in the decision, the results and the risks of those results will also come under the consideration. The decision which are in nature comes under the ethical dilemmas are always the hardest one by the experience that situation. While considering every prospective of the decisions there are going to be three course of actions which can be taken as decided by then. The first course of action was to do nothing which means to let the things happen as it is and not to confront the grandson regarding the issue. The document which were needed to be made will be created normal and the investigation stop right there through the continuity of the service. This action will provide the client the meal services, the grandson will continue doing what he was doing and if any bad thing happened they will use 911 for that. But the worst thing about this decision is maybe the grandson was abusive in result of marijuana and it leaves negative effect to the health of client (Ferguson, 2017).
The second decision was the opposite of first and that is to report about what we suspected and seen during out visit. In this decision the involvement of stakeholders will be client, the young boy and the police department along with our organization. The positive side of this decision is the police will force the young man to stop using marijuana which is bad for the health of senior citizen client. But the worst side of this decision is the client displeased with what we did and report to our organization because it is not our duty to report the police as described by the job. The organization response was unknown and client stopped using the services due to this course of action. Now comes the third course of action for dealing with this ethical dilemma. That was to confront the client and inform him about the situation. The positive side of this action is that the client take the notice of our information provided to him and remove the marijuana usage in his house but the worst part of this action that client may have taken this as offense that why we are not doing our job as asked and stop taking interest in the personal life of client. It will make the loss of this client by the agency and our team will held accountable for it (Avby, Nilsen & Ellström, 2017).
The framework for ethical decision making involves the training to deal with ethical dilemmas and issues. There are methods which can be practiced while making the decision. The earlier provided three course of actions needs to be analyzed and consider which should be taken so that ethical decision making comes under the framework of it. The ethical decision making is not an easy task to be done when it is a rare case but the one who is experienced can take it with efficiently and effectively. Sometimes the decisions can be taken by the moral intuition which comes first in the mind when thinking about it. But it is also advised by the experienced people that what comes in the mind first is not always the good option. The decisions which deals with ethics needs very strong and deep consideration. To solve the problem the researchers have designed three types of ethical framework of decision making so that the one who is taking decision can understand the consequences both ways, the duty involves according to ethics and the virtue of taking decision or not taking the decision (Bogo, 2015).
- The consequential framework of making the decision is the first one comes in the framework which helps in inuring out the possible results in the future after taking the decision. After the action which is done gives the best and possible favored result or the action have the possibility of giving the worst consequences.
- The second framework type for the decision making is the duty framework. This framework provides the guidance to each and every human being that what is their moral and ethical duty or obligation when they face the ethical dilemma. The actions which are being under the consideration comes under the duty or not is the question which needs to be asked in order to find out what this ethical framework provides as the guidance or not.
- The third type of framework which comes under the ethical decision making is virtue framework. This framework helps in understanding the perceived reaction by seeing the situation and the reaction is positive or negative. Every action which is being undertaken by human being comes from the emotions whether negative or positive even though if they think it’s morally right or wrong. Our course of action defines the type of person we are and what we should do in the situation which involves the ethical dilemma.
After going through all the types of ethical framework for decision making, the decision making is being done using all the three types. Applying all the three while provide the best possible help because the ethical decision making is not the easy task to do. First of all the recognition is being done of the ethical issue which is the use of marijuana in the house of an elderly person who will be effected by that and it will damage the health. Considering parties involved is also being undertaken earlier, the client, the boy, the police department, our group and the organization for whom we are working with (Arthur, 2015).
The decision which I have considered to take is to discuss the matter with the client so that he will know what is going on and tell the assessment requirement is to stop giving the services. But this decision is guiding me to talk to the senior citizen because ethically seeing the situation he will not be aware and can take possible action against that young boy. In the meantime, giving the warning is also comes under my duty when working as a social worker. It is my duty to decide in the report under the suitable terms whether to stop the services of not to top it. Our group deiced to give the warning by explaining organization’s terms and conditions.
Conclusions
In conclusion, it is the conflict of moral principle when the ethical dilemma raises during different stages of live. Working as the social worker, the nature of the job as the social worker is to provide the daily meals to those early age people who are above 60 years and the meal was prepared by the senior resource center with the help of local catering organization. The specific incident was one which had been the only quite a big enough which comes under the ethical dilemma when one day during the delivery of food as assessment of eligibility. After going through the code of ethics as described by the National Association set up especially for social workers that the well-being of the client is the duty of social worker. There are other laws and rules which also emphasized all the social workers even the common citizen to always look for the wellbeing of the people around especially the senior citizen. Furthermore, the decision could have been taken with more consideration and can be the other two which may be suitable for the situation.
References
Arthur, D. P. (2015). Social work practice with LGBT elders at end of life: Developing practice evaluation and clinical skills through a cultural perspective. Journal of social work in end-of-life & palliative care, 11(2), 178-201.
Avby, G., Nilsen, P., & Ellström, P. E. (2017). Knowledge use and learning in everyday social work practice: a study in child investigation work. Child & Family Social Work, 22(S4), 51-61.
Bogo, M. (2015). Field education for clinical social work practice: Best practices and contemporary challenges. Clinical Social Work Journal, 43(3), 317-324.
Congress, E. P. (2017). What social workers should know about ethics: Understanding and resolving practice dilemmas. Social Work Ethics, 1909.
Ferguson, H. (2017). How children become invisible in child protection work: Findings from research into day-to-day social work practice. The British Journal of Social Work, 47(4), 1007-1023.
