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CHAPTER 4
HUMAN SERVICES AND ETHICAL PRACTICE
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, students will be able to:
4-1 List the six principles that underlie ethical practice.
4-2 Illustrate how each principle promotes professional behavior and client welfare.
4-3 State the purpose and limitations of codes of ethics.
4-4 Summarize the influence of law, diversity, and technology on codes of ethics.
4-5 Write vignettes to illustrate the concerns of competence, responsibility,
4-6 List the steps in the ethical decision-making model.
4-7 Apply the ethical decision-making model to an ethical dilemma.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
1. Autonomy—respect for client’s rights to help define problems, choose
2. Nonmaleficence—do client no harm
3. Beneficence—act in client’s best interest
4. Justice—promote equality and fairness
5. Fidelity—respect client’s trust
6. Veracity—be honest with clients
B. Federal and state legislation, like HIPAA, addresses professional behavior.
1. Establish guidelines for professional behavior
2. Protect client welfare
3. Provide criteria for evaluating the ethics of a professional’s practice
4. Serve as a benchmark in the enforcement of ethical standards
5. Ethical codes do not cover every situation and may conflict with other
codes or legislations.
B. Ethics and the profession
1. Binding only on members of adoptive organization
2. Based on premise that a profession polices itself
1. Supportive of, or neutral toward, ethical standards
2. Intervenes and overrides to protect public health, safety, and welfare
3. Vary from state to state
D. Ethics and diversity
1. Basic tenets of codes may not apply to all cultures
2. Codes emphasize cultural competence: awareness, understanding, skill
E. Ethics and technology
1. Concerns include access to personal information, online instruction,
electronic transmission of records, Internet use, Web counseling, and
2. Helpers stay within own scope of expertise
1. Competence can be defined by identifying standards for practice within
the profession.
2. Responsibility concerns obligations to others.
1. Helper’s assurance that information is not shared
2. Laws may require a breach of confidentiality.
3. Privileged communication is a legal term that grants the right
not to release information.
4. Relative confidentiality is the informal sharing of information
5. Technology-based communication adds layer of complexity.
V. Clients’ rights
1. Right to privacy—clients can share whatever information they wish
2. Informed consent—client’s agreement that information about the
helper, the agency, and recommendations for treatment have been received
3. Client resistance can be reframed as client insistence.
4. Professional disclosure statements—provide worker’s credentials
5. Clients can expect protection from harm.
VI. Ethical standards of human service professionals
A. Preamble introduces the profession’s goals.
B. The standards divide responsibilities into six areas: clients, community and
1. Moral responsibility—internal attitude that assumes a morally correct
choice exists
2. Client must be involved
3. Steps common to most decision-making models are as follows:
a. Identify the problem
b. Review ethical standards
1. Model provides purposeful way of thinking about dilemmas unique to
specific contexts like corrections
2. Box 4.3 provides a classroom opportunity to apply and discuss the
model.
CHAPTER SUMMARY
This chapter introduces the ethical considerations and dilemmas that are part of
every human service professional’s work. At the foundation of ethical behavior are the
shared principles of autonomy, nonmaleficence, beneficence, justice, fidelity, and
© 2019 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in
Ethical concerns in a diverse society occur at both the individual level and the
cultural or societal level. Cultural competence in awareness, understanding, and skill is
one response to ethical concerns and diversity. Ethical concerns also surround the use of
technology and the profession encourages helpers to stay within the scope of their
expertise.
Before involvement with clients, helpers must concern themselves with their
competence as professionals and their responsibility to others. Confidentiality, whether
1. To present codes of ethics and ethical standards and their implications for human
2. To explore the ethical dilemmas encountered in human service delivery
3. To introduce a model for ethical decision making in human services
1. Ask students to write a description of a time when they had to make a difficult
decision. They should include the following information:
1) A description of the dilemma
2) Who was involved
3) Explanation of why the decision was difficult
4) The decision and how it was reached
2. Ask students to write a description of each of the following situations:
1) A time when it might be difficult to keep a client’s confidence
2) A helping situation in which you believe you lack the needed expertise
3) A time when the goals of your agency conflict with the goals of the client
4) A time when a client prefers a computer-based interaction and you prefer a
5) A time when technology and confidentiality are in conflict
3. Interview three human service workers about ethics. The following questions should
1) What is the most common ethical dilemma you face?
2) Provide an example.
3) Do you have a written code of ethics? Who is the author?
4) How do you use it?
5) Do you discuss ethical dilemmas with others? With whom?
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Identify some of the professional values emphasized in human service education
2. Briefly define “code of ethics” and discuss some of its purposes and limitations.
3. Explain the concepts of competence and responsibility.
4. Discuss the types of confidentiality and provide examples of each.
5. Describe the concept of privileged communication. When is it important for the
human service worker?
6. Explain the importance of informed consent.
7. Explain the steps involved in the ethical decision-making model.
8. Explain the ethical dilemmas that a professional may encounter in daily human
service delivery.
MINDTAP VIDEO IN-CLASS DISCUSSION
Working with people is often fraught with ethical dilemmas. Human service professionals
1. Identify the ethical dilemma for each human service professional.
2. Using the decision-making model, what alternatives can you identify
and what are the consequences of each?
3. Are there any legal considerations that you should think about?
4. Who would you consult about a course of action?
5. In the end, what would you do about each situation?
You can follow-up your work with the video related to ethical dilemmas that human
© 2019 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in
Informed consent: The client’s right to know about the helper and the helping process.
1. What has increased the public’s awareness of ethical concerns for professionals?
2. What is a code of ethics? Summarize its strengths and limitations.
3. Provide an example of a conflict between standards.
4. Who is bound by a code of ethics?
5. What is the relationship between the law and a code of ethics?
6. What is the significance of Tarasoff vs Regents of the University of California?
7. Define competence.
© 2019 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in
8. Define professional responsibility.
9. List four types of dilemmas a human service professional may face in the area of
10. Define confidentiality.
11. Distinguish between privileged communication and relative confidentiality.
12. Define the right to privacy and informed consent.
13. What is a professional disclosure statement?
14. Explain the obligation of protection.
15. List the types of dilemmas human service professionals may encounter that
involve the issue of clients’ rights.
16. Define ethical dilemma.
17. What is moral responsibility?
18. Explain the ethical decision-making model.
19. List the areas of standards identified by the Ethical Standards of Human Service
Professionals.
1. What are codes of ethics? What is their purpose? What are their limitations?
2. Why are competence and responsibility ethical issues? How will each influence a
human service professional’s relationship with a client?
3. Describe the components of the Ethical Standards of Human Service
4. What is difficult about the practice of confidentiality? Why is it important?
5. What rights do clients have?
© 2019 Cengage. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible website, in
6. How do professionals make ethical decisions?
7. How might a human service professional use the model for ethical decision
making?
The following exercise allows students to apply what they have learned from the
Ethical Considerations
4-1
4-2
3, 4, 10, 12,
15
15, 19
1
Purposes and Limitations
4-3
4, 10, 12
19
1
Codes of Ethics and the Law;
Ethics and Diversity;
4-4
3, 4, 9, 10, 11,
12, 14, 17, 19
1
