Social Work, Public and Private, and Ethics
I am a social worker. I have a degree and years of study, and now I’m building up my practice experience. My identity is not totally wrapped up in being a social worker, but it’s so much of who I am that I’ve adopted the personal motto, “I’m here to help.” I can’t seperate my professional knowledge and reasoning from my personal life. I can, however follow the NASW’s Code of Ethics and good common sense by leaving my professional, therapist persona at work, and being just me outside of the work place. I have come to realize that the difference can be difficult to discern when I pull out my professional expertise in a non-professional setting. If I see someone exhibiting dangerous behavior, or if I’m concerned about someone and I’m picking up some warning signs that in my professional life, signal trouble, I will say something. The difference, though, is that outside of the work place, my job is not to be someone’s therapist. Ethically, I cannot be the therapist of just any random person I choose, especially people I know. I’m just a concerned person w/ a bunch of knowledge that other people outside of my profession might not have. So that means that I don’t always say things therapeutically, or approach things in the “professional way.” This is because I hold myself to a different standard outside of work. It’s almost like a costume that I take off and put on again. Unlike a priest or a pastor, that is expected to live their profession 24/7, my profession is 8:00-4:30, M-F, except for holidays. I’m allowed to be a fallible human being, contrary to what some might think, in my off-hours. That means I’ll wear sexy clothing, use curse words and occasionally say-the-non-therapeutic thing.
One thing that I’ve learned in recent years is that you can’t be 100% true to yourself, all the time. The American lifestyle seems to require a public and private self. I think that many people are misled to believe that we are supposed to be true to ourselves 100% of the time, hence the disillusionment when a conservative pastor turns out to be gay, a priest turns out to be an alcoholic who embezzled money or a politician turns out to be a womanizer. Automatically, any persons value in their workplace is denounced because of their private lives and private problems that go outside of the “decency” that is expected. To be 100% true-to-self, you’re required to make sacrifices, including the esteem of your colleagues and the jobs available to you. Personally, I think it would be much harder to force yourself into consistency so your pious vocation is evident in your personal space, including your sexuality. (I consider this to be the problem with Catholic priests’ abstinence.) We have to change our hats at the end of the day. It’s a means of human survival, and living on the border between our best hopes and what is actually humanly possible. It’s a compromise, and those people in the human service profession have to make it. In my field, as we are taught to be understanding, generous and hopeful towards people w/ severe mental illness, we’re not even supposed to whisper loudly that time we went to a counselor, or how many times said doctor has had to be in substance abuse treatment. I hear it every day, we hold our patients in higher esteem than our colleagues when it comes to their mental health problems.
I think, sometimes, that the more professional training you have, the greater the distinctions between your public and private self, and the more advantage you have when looking at issues from your “high horse.” Take for instance the concept of being a mandatory reporter. A mandatory reporter is usually someone who works in a human service field, that is legally charged by his/her state of residence to report any suspicion of abuse or neglect of children, elders or vulnerable populations w/in a specific period of time (24-48 hrs after becoming aware of the incident.) In facilities such as hospitals, schools, nursing homes, this can mean reporting co-workers and even superiors if abuse is suspected. The legal requirement of being a mandatory reporter, in my opinion, stands in where some individual’s personal ethics fail. When faced with the knowledge that someone you know may have abused someone vulnerable, and that person may very well lose their job if reported on (causing all sorts of backlash to the reporter), I think that many people might quickly lose their convictions in the hopes that it won’t happen again, or that someone else will report it. It can be especially hard with the acknowledgement that not all people at a given facility have the financial security and political savvy to put all of that on the line to make a report. The threat of the law is just one incentive, and even that is not enough to convince some to DO THE RIGHT THING.
It’s a difficult situation, and the past couple weeks have shown me how hard it can be to stick to the story, and stick to my ethics. I don’t want to see anyone lose their job, or lose their ability to provide for themselves or their family. In one way, I’m grateful that the Union at my facility protects the workers and at least insures that people who are under suspicion of abusing vulnerable populations are given a job at the facility that are not in direct line w/ patient care. (In some cases, this means a person is promoted!)
It’s not a perfect system. I have to endure flak, and who knows what else as time goes on. People are angry, and I am too. I didn’t have to have the threat of legal action convince me to be a reporter of alleged abuse, all I needed was my personal convictions. In retrospect, though, I’m glad I have that legal charge. It strengthens my ability to know that at least legally, I did the right thing.
Tags: social work