2- Ethical Dilemma in social work

Ethical Dilemma in social work

1. Description of a specific practice case for an individual social worker, team or organisation.
The case should explain the nature of the social work issue, the possible options for intervention as well as the background context, various actors and different levels shaping the situation (approximately 500-600 words).
2. Critical commentary on the case study (approximately 900-1000 words). This should incorporate: • Discussion of concepts that can help to analyse professional ethics, including consideration of how global variation in local contexts may affect the nature of the ethical issue.
Relevant conceptual frames could include: human rights and possible tensions between them; outcomes for different actors in the case; universalism and relativism in international social work; risk versus autonomy; relational approaches to ethics (care, ubuntu); duties versus consequences (including conformity to legal obligations or agency policy) and the balance between individual and group/community/state interests.
• References to instruments and frameworks for social work ethics (e.g. national codes of conduct, 2018 Global Social Work Statement of Ethical Principles, international human rights conventions).
3. 3-4 learning points for your own practice (approximately 150 words)
4. Two concluding recommendations to other practitioners about how to approach the ethical issues in the case study questions (approximately 50-100 words)

Please write the description and commentary in the third person (no “I” or “we”) until you arrive at the learning points for your own practice.
The critical commentary must contain in-text references to at least four different academic sources in order to support the analysis of professional ethics (journal articles or textbooks). Assessment criteria
1. Produce a case study on professional ethics that reflects the multiple levels, perspectives and actors involved in a social work intervention
2. Identify key ethical issues in the case study of a practice intervention
3. Critically apply principles of social justice, ethics and human rights to analyse ethical issues
4. Draw upon international instruments underpinning human rights and social work ethics in the analysis of professional ethics