Values and Ethics in Social Work

Chris Beckett, Andrew Maynard

SAGE, Nov 13, 2012 - Social Science - 200 pages

What are my values? What are the values of others around me? What are the values and ethics of the social work profession?

An awareness of our own ethical assumptions, and how these inform our practice, is crucial for the student social worker.

The second edition of this bestselling book is now split into two parts. Part 1 considers the foundations of every person's values and provides a background to moral philosophy. Part 2 examines key ethical issues and how they determine practice, such as using power, allocating resources, treating others with respect and celebrating diversity.

For the second edition, two new chapters have been added to the book, on:

- The political dimension in ethical decision making

- Realism as a guiding ethical principle.

Written in a uniquely straightforward style, everyday social work practice is the key focus throughout. Every chapter includes interactive exercises and case studies, challenging you to reflect on a range of practical dilemmas.

Visit the accompanying companion website for videos of the authors discussing the issues covered in each chapter of the book. These short clips will aid and enhance your understanding of the importance of values and ethics in each area of social work.

Chris Beckett and Andrew Maynard's book is essential reading for all undergraduate and postgraduate social work students.

Contents

• 1 WHAT ARE VALUES AND ETHICS?: 3
• 2 MORAL PHILOSOPHY: 22
• 3 VALUES AND RELIGION: 38
• 4 VALUES AND POLITICS: 51
• 5 REALISM AS AN ETHICAL PRINCIPLE: 67
• PART 2 VALUES AND ETHICS IN PRACTICE: 77
• 6 BEING PROFESSIONAL: 79
• 7 POWER AND CONTROL: 91
• 8 SELFDETERMINATION AND PRIVACY: 104
• 9 RESPECT VERSUS OPPRESSION: 119
• 10 ETHICS AND RESOURCES: 134
• 11 DIFFERENCE AND DIVERSITY: 147
• AFTERWORD: 165
• REFERENCES: 166
• INDEX: 173

About the author

Chris Beckett qualified as a social worker in the 1980s, and worked in the field for 18 years, first as a social worker and then as a manager, latterly as the manager of a children and families social work team. Like most social workers who qualified at that time, he started out as a ‘generic’ social worker, working with a range of service users including children and families, old people, and people with mental health problems and disabilities, but his predominant area of work was with children and families.He moved into academic social work in 2000, working first at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge and then at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. In addition to his social work text books, he has published academic articles on a variety of topics including the use of military language in social work, the importance of realism as an ethical principle, and statistics from Sweden about child abuse, following the legal ban there on corporal punishment. His main research area, however, has been decision-making in court proceedings about children, and decision-making about children more generally.Chris has a parallel career as a writer of literary science fiction. (More information about his fiction can be found at www.chris-beckett.com.) He won the Edge Hill Short Fiction prize for his story collection, The Turing Test, and the Arthur C. Clarke award for his novel Dark Eden. He is now a full-time writer. His view is that ‘academic’ and ‘creative’ writing have more in common than might at first sight appear: in both cases the author begins with a jumble of ideas that seem to him to be in some way linked together, and attempts, in large part by a combination of intuition and trial and error, to impose some shape and structure.Chris has three adult children, and lives in Cambridge with his wife Maggie and sundry animals.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Values and Ethics in Social Work
• Authors: Chris Beckett, Andrew Maynard
• Edition: 2
• Publisher: SAGE, 2012
• ISBN: 144627148X, 9781446271483
• Length: 200 pages
• Subjects: Social Science / Social Work