Reflection

When thinking about ethics I have grown in understanding over my college years.  I began by thinking of them as our personal values, but then realized that we all act in similar ways on certain matters.  This is how I make sense of ethics.  Values and morals are what we each personally believe and our society clearly defines what is appropriate.  Whereas ethics are the actions that we do to either abide my those values and morals or to go against them causing problems.

I am a feeler, and so this may be more true for me than for people that are not feelers, but I believe you can sense or feel when something is ethically questionable.  I know that for my internship I have been able to work alongside some social workers and while they have very clear and defined ethical codes there are still times when they have said it just does not feel right.  That is when they begin to question the next steps they need to take in a situation and begin to talk about it with others.  The agency that I work with is very open about all of the cases they are a part of because we are all held to confidentiality it does not leave the office, but there are regular meetings with the Supervisor Social Worker.

When it comes to Ethics I do not think we can be to careful or take too many precautions.  I love working with children and hope to all of my life.  For all of the jobs/camps I have worked at I have been involved in many training and had many background checks done.  Safety is first and for most important because until someone feels safe they can not focus on anything else.  I love being a part of helping kids grow and make memories, but doing it in a safe non threatening way and environment must first be addressed.

In a professional situation ethical decisions may seem obvious but when you are in them it can be less black and white.  Therefore we must first identify the obvious decisions we need to make to keep everyone safe and then talk with others about those gray situations.  Paperwork is also another vital instrument in ethical decisions, everything must be documented.  This is not the fun, exciting part of the job, but once followed the fun and exciting part can happen.