Monday, March 11, 2013

Social Work Ethics: Interview with Allan Barsky, JD, MSW, PhD

[Episode 78]  Today's episode is on social work ethics. Every social worker knows that our profession has, at its foundation, a Code of Ethics (NASW, 1996/2008) that informs our decisions. Most social workers know what is right and wrong. The greatest ethical challenges arise when there is no clear answer – in other words, there may be no clear right or wrong, or the worker may have to choose between the lesser of two evils. In other words, it’s an ethical dilemma.

To get some clarity on how social workers should go about managing ethical dilemmas, I spoke with Allan Barsky. You might remember Allan from Episodes 76, when I we discussed Social Workers in the Court. You might also recognize him from his ethics column in The New Social Worker online or you might have even heard him talk about Ethical Issues in End of Life Care in that other social work podcast from the University of Buffalo, The inSocialWork Podcast. (It's a fabulous podcast, so I would recommend that you check it out). Finally, you might know Allan from his books, Clinicians in Court or the book that we are going to be talking about today, Ethics and Values in Social Work.

Clearly, Allan is kind of ubiquitous when it comes to ethics, so I figured he's a good person to talk to. In today's interview, we discussed Allan's relational 6-stage model of managing ethical issues. We also talked about dual relationships, role-played an ethical situation, and analyzed the role play. We ended our conversation with a discussion of additional ethics resources for social workers.

If you want to find additional references and resources, as well as a transcript of my conversation with Allan, please go to the Social Work Podcast website at socialworkpodcast.com. If you want to join the conversation about clinicians in court, go to our Facebook page at Facebook.com/swpodcast. If you’re on Twitter, you can follow the podcast at twitter.com/socworkpodcast. And now, without further ado, on to Episode 78 of the Social Work Podcast: Social Work Ethics: Interview with Allan Barsky.