Social Workers: High Level of Responsibility, Confidentiality & Respect - Essay Sample

Introduction

Social workers are expected to treat their clients in a respectable manner that upholds their dignity. Clients of social work require such a hefty level of confidentiality based on the fact that the help they seek touches on their personal lives. At the same time, social workers are expected to follow several ethical standards and statutory laws if they have to provide their statutory regulations inclusive of the regulatory, case, and constitutional laws. Based on the vast responsibility of confidentiality as well as respecting operational requirements, social workers face a huge ethical dilemma when dealing with children. Maintaining confidentiality with minors is a complex and intricate matter that social workers face. The issue is necessitated by the fact that minors need their parents' support to afford the services. Besides, some of the information they reveal during the sessions cannot be disclosed to their parents as they are quite intricate. In line with the legal code, social workers need to critically assess situations before revealing confidential information released to them by minors to their parents and guardians.

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Confidentiality Versus Wellbeing

Looking disturbed, Esther, a mother of four brings in her lastborn son, Julius at James’ office. James is an established social worker who has worked with several of his clients and helped them into full recovery. However, James does not have that great experience dealing with children. In this case, Julius who is 14 needs help. Of late, his mother has been noting a change of behavior. While Julius was calm and obedient before, has all of a sudden changed his behavior. In the last few months, he does not relate with his peers well. Recently, he hurt his sister and his mother reiterated by giving him a through beating. Even so, he has not changed his behavior and is even turning more aggressive.

Coming into the office, Esther reveals that Julius does not talk to her about any issues he could be going through. She reports that she has been spying on her son and he has befriended some known members of a gang in his locality. Esther is worried that Julius could finally find himself in the wrong arm of the law and could end up being apprehended and imprisoned. When Julius is brought to James, he states that he states that he will only provide true information if James promises not to tell his mother. James agrees and Julius reports that he has been abusing drugs and has joined the prospected gang. On the other hand, Esther wants to know the real issue with her son and coerces James to inform her about every detail that James releases. At stake, James understands is the confidentiality of Julius who is still a minor. However, the information he has shared shows that his wellbeing and that of his family in danger. James is thus confused whether to break confidentiality as he had promised for the wellbeing of the child or not to.

Literature Review

According to the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), a child is any human being who is below the age of 18 years. According to the organization, children are expected to enjoy essential services, which, among others, are parental care and a positive environment for their growth (Berman et al., 2016). Besides, children cannot take care of themselves and need the guidance of parents. Majorly, parents make most of the decisions for them, inclusive of where they will school, the institutions where they receive medical care, and even where they can be counseled. Social workers addressing the problem of children, therefore, must realize that children are under the ultimate care of their parents. The aspect of parental responsibility is, therefore, a significant consideration that a social worker must consider when dealing with a child.

The principle of confidentiality is highly regarded in social work, such as in the case discussed above. Things that are discussed between a social worker and their clients need to be kept confidential as they touch on very private aspects of the life of the individual. Whereas social workers do not have issues with safeguarding the privacy of older people, they seem to have an issue with adolescents and children. It could be that they consider children not to be independent individuals and that everything discussed with them needs to be relayed to the parent. All the same, teenagers are also human beings whose privacy needs to be respected. Therefore, the ethical dilemma of child confidentiality needs to be demystified for social workers to have a comprehensive understanding of how to ensure it and when to overlook it.

Ethical Responsibilities

Commitment to Clients

Despite recognizing that working with children requires parents' input, social workers are also constrained by other ethical responsibilities. National Association of Social Workers (NASW), states that commitment to clients is one of the social responsibilities that they must fulfill (McWhinney et al., 1991). The obligation requires them to primarily respect the interests of the clients and pledge loyalty to them with the exemption of a few cases where medical or legal intervention is needed. This specific responsibility would require social workers to deal with children to ensure that they pledge allegiance to the client carefully. If, for instance, a child only agrees to release information on the condition that the counselor does not release the information to the parents, it is the social worker's ethical responsibility to make sure that they fulfill the promise to the child.

Although social workers are expected to remain silent about issues that the children may release, the responsibility of commitment to clients directs that they should ensure that they choose options that assure the best outcomes from the children. According to Abisheva and Assylbekova (2016), when social workers are dealing with children, they must make a deliberate decision to help them solve their issues regardless of the risks that may be needed to undertake. In the case of a child who is using drugs secretly, for example, it would be of utmost irresponsibility for a social worker to stay silent about it while understanding that the child is under vehement harm. Therefore, judging the vehemence of risk requires social workers to make candid decisions that would make them overlook confidentiality.

Self-Determination

Another aspect of ethical responsibility that makes working with children strenuous is self-determination. As a matter of practice, social workers are expected to respect and promote their clients' rights to determine their life choices (Akbar, 2011). Indeed, social work is not about making decisions for a client and offering them directives, which they should not question. In contrast, a social worker should clarify goals, offer the best choices of interventions with a determination of the foreseeable future. According to Akbar (2011), children have the right to self-determine how they should be counseled. He also argues that giving children the right to provide their input in the counseling process is social justice. It is wrong to make children only be passive in the process. Therefore, observing the author's view, the claim that children have the right to determine whether social workers should release or withhold information is evident.

The idea of self-determination for minors is, however, heavily contested. Without adequate scientific and empirical evidence to determine whether children can make profound decisions has caused some states to consider it a right for them. In contrast, other states that the parent or the guardian has the utmost responsibility to choose for a minor (Duffy, 2016). The conflicting views, therefore, place social workers at critical positions when thinking of whether they need to respect self-determination for children or not. Although, in most cases, social workers find it necessary to release crucial information to the parents as they need their input and guidance, such choices strain the relationships between children and social workers.

The Aspect of Parenting

Any counseling session that involves a child starts on some questionable basis of parental coercion. According to social work practice, however, every session should start with informed consent (Gelrald et al., 2017). It is debatable how children can agree or disagree with engaging in a session, especially when their parents direct them. Most of the time, counselors only consider that consent should only be obtained from the parent and not the child. Besides, when a child is unwilling to participate, the intervention may not even be successful (Gelrald et al., 2017). The fact that often parents assume control even before the sessions begin is reason enough to believe that confidentiality may also be infringed in the process of counseling. Thus, parents tend to approach the sessions with the view that they are adults and can influence a social worker from breaking the confidentiality established between them and the child.

One of the major hindrances to the counseling process is actually the parents. Even when they want the best for their children and want the best for them, parents tend to have an entitlement for their children. They would not just like their children to be helped but would also like to be part of the decision-making. Gerald et al. (2015) observe that parents tend to be keen, and other than following on how their children are being counseled, they would like their input to be put into context. This observation raises fundamental issues about how ethical a social worker would be in releasing the information released to them by the child, considering that sometimes, they would like to have the input of the parents.

Admittedly, parents want their children to feel as if they are part of the larger family, even when they are going through stressful situations. Geldard et al. (2017) stated that secrets kept by a counselor might impede individual and family work. As established family counselors, the two authors indicate that the information that children release is not always meant to be shared. Parents and their families at large can impede the process as they try to extract every piece of information that children may want to release to the counselor (Geldard et al., 2017). However, often before releasing the information to the counselor, children need the assurance from the counselor that the information they give will not be disclosed to their parents nor their family members. Based on the pressure that parents mount on counselors, the promise is sometimes broken. As indicated, such coercions pose a chance of halting the process of counseling, or the counselor compromises and offer to present the information they were to keep private to the parents (Geldard et al., 2017).

On another note, vested interests especially relating to retaining clients, may have an effect on the counselor not respecting child confidentiality. Counselors seek to be as competitive as possible and provide the best services to their clients in a bid to satisfy them. Often parents go beyond their control since they realize that they can compromise social workers by promising them allegiance. At the same time, parents tend to depict that they have implied consent on how their children are treated. Therefore, they could argue that the services offered are not quality, thereby demeaning the social worker's efforts. In such instances, most social workers have no other choice but to release critical and confidential information regarding the sessions to parents and family even when not necessary. However, most of these practices, even without being ethical, are not prosecuted as the children do not have the ability. Nonetheless, in many ca...