Description
Resolving Ethical Dilemmas
Human interactions in personal, professional, and community settings can be demanding when questions of ethical expression are required. What do we mean by
ethical expression
? We mean conscious and unconscious verbal, physical, and emotional responses to social, cultural, intellectual, and physical behaviors that are vocalized, demonstrated physically, and even evidenced by an emotional response.
When there are several ethical or moral choices that are to be made involving persons from rural or urban settings or from different cultural groups, the human services professional is often required to make a decision about how to express an ethical response. Whether the requirement is of a supervisor guiding a subordinate or a service provider engaged in a relationship with a client, a decision must be made.
The decision that a professional weighs requires understanding one’s personal ethics and boundaries, community ethics, cultural ethics, and other diverse conditions that may be defined by the workplace (whether a government agency, for-profit, or nonprofit organization) or by government-established laws and regulations.
The human services professional may need to rely on colleagues with whom to consult, a supervisor or organizational authority, and sometimes the legal and regulatory rules established by the town, city, county, state, and central government.
Based on your readings, discuss the approach you would take to decide whom you would seek to consult to resolve the question of the appropriate
ethical expression
when considering how you most appropriately direct or inform a subordinate service provider. Suppose the service provider wishes to act more independently with her clients and to set aside the organizational code of ethics, and even city and state laws, since, as she will say, “I know my clients, and they require different needs that are not considered by the organization or the government.” Justify your approach as a supervisor.
Your initial post must:
Be at least 250 words in length.
Contain a minimum of two references with citations in APA style.
Follow APA style guidelines.
Response Guidelines
Respond to the post of at least one of your peers. Consider sharing your experience regarding decisions you had to make that included ethics with diverse conditions or government laws or regulations. Ask questions that will help you better understand the post and contribute to expanding the discussion. Make substantive suggestions that will provide food for thought.
Learning Components
This activity will help you achieve the following learning components:
Explain the basis for a chosen supervisory decision, using ethical standards and sources.
Communicate using original work with writing that is articulate and professional, using current APA formatting
