Applying Ethics in Practice

Applying Ethics in Practice

University of Phoenix

Kandyce McMillen

December 4, 2016

BSHS/335

Dr. Tracy Mallett

TRACY MALLETT

TRACY MALLETT

What are morals? What are standards and principals? Are they the outlining of who we are? I would say so. They are the make-up that gives us the notion to want to decide or to make a decision. A decision, one way or another, no matter what the circumstance, has to be made when one is faced with a problematic issue or just everyday interactions with those that we provide services to. Whether they are an officer of the law, a firefighter, teacher, social worker, health professional, parent, or child, they too have decisions to make. The same goes for those who stand work on behalf of our communities. Social workers, therapists, counselors and countless other professions must make the same type of decisions that are based on ethics and those decisions can be seen as fair or unfair, just or unjust. How we make our decisions is what becomes most important. What we decide to do as a professional can either make huge impacts in the right way or the wrong way.

In case management, you are suited or should be suited with the knowledge of understanding that you are in a profession that deals directly with people of all ages, gender, nationalities, all of which have needs in some shape or form. Ethically, it is the job of every case manager, whether they are in the hospital setting, school setting, or the welfare department, to maintain a working relationship with those individuals with a level of respect and the uttermost confidentiality. As a human service professional, my personal values as to how I feel a person should live his or her life, despite their challenges, could cause a huge discord between that person and their actual goal of becoming better. There have been times where I have found myself prejudging a situation based on the history that has been provided to me concerning a client, only on paper. Their psychiatric evaluations and other mental health diagnosis provide one side of the individual and sometimes, it causes a person to go into a situation without clean eyes or an open heart that is full of empathy, first.         

Our text suggests that ethics are a representation of aspirational goals or the maximum or ideal standards set by the profession, that are enforced by professional associations, national certification boards, and government boards that regulate professions (Corey,Corey & Callanan, 2011). According to Edwin Delattre, those who serve the public must hold to a higher standard of honesty and care for the public good than the general citizenry does. He further goes on to say that a higher standard is not a double standard. Persons accepting positions of public trust take on new obligations and are free not to accept them if they do not want to live up to the higher standard (Delattre, 2006).