Values and ethics are an important aspect of working within the human services profession. It is important for workers to have a good understanding of not only their own, but their organisational and professional values and ethics. Values and ethics play a major role in group work, whether it is obvious to participants or not. This essay will examine firstly the group development process, how the group was formed, some of the issues that we ran into and what ethical theories were used within the group. It will then move on to examine how group decisions were made before finally moving on to the role that values and ethics played in the whole process.
Our group development process got off to a rocky start, we had one member leave within the …show more content…
I believe that the reason most decisions about the dilemma in our scenario were solved without too much hassle can be attributed to shared values. The AASW Code of Ethics lists respect for persons, social justice and professional integrity as the core values of social work (AASW, 2010). These values were reflected by all members in our group interactions, this was evidently clear when there were issues with one member taking over conversation and cutting other members off mid-sentence, we were able to stop, talk about what was happening in a respectful way, and move on harmoniously with nobody feeling like they had been left out or picked on. I believe that my own personal instrumental and terminal values played a role in the way in which I responded to certain situations in the group. My instrumental values of equality and selflessness, as well as my terminal values of being respectful, compassionate and helpful, allowed me to make exceptions and be accommodating to others in the group, even if that mean coming in after doing a night shift, or letting other group members take over certain parts of the presentation that I would have preferred to do, or thought I would have done a better job at. As I also value humour, this is an aspect I tried to bring to every group meeting. With everyone being stressed out by this assignment, other assignments and life in general, I enjoyed being able to make people laugh and lighten the mood. This is a reason I opted to play two parts in the role play and use the chime sounds to set scenes. The AASW Code of Ethics also came into play with group processes, especially section 5.3 – Responsibilities to colleagues (AASW, 2010), which in a sense, we were during this assignment. This section of the code mentioned things such as working with “respect, integrity, and courtesy, and seeking to
Our group development process got off to a rocky start, we had one member leave within the …show more content…
I believe that the reason most decisions about the dilemma in our scenario were solved without too much hassle can be attributed to shared values. The AASW Code of Ethics lists respect for persons, social justice and professional integrity as the core values of social work (AASW, 2010). These values were reflected by all members in our group interactions, this was evidently clear when there were issues with one member taking over conversation and cutting other members off mid-sentence, we were able to stop, talk about what was happening in a respectful way, and move on harmoniously with nobody feeling like they had been left out or picked on. I believe that my own personal instrumental and terminal values played a role in the way in which I responded to certain situations in the group. My instrumental values of equality and selflessness, as well as my terminal values of being respectful, compassionate and helpful, allowed me to make exceptions and be accommodating to others in the group, even if that mean coming in after doing a night shift, or letting other group members take over certain parts of the presentation that I would have preferred to do, or thought I would have done a better job at. As I also value humour, this is an aspect I tried to bring to every group meeting. With everyone being stressed out by this assignment, other assignments and life in general, I enjoyed being able to make people laugh and lighten the mood. This is a reason I opted to play two parts in the role play and use the chime sounds to set scenes. The AASW Code of Ethics also came into play with group processes, especially section 5.3 – Responsibilities to colleagues (AASW, 2010), which in a sense, we were during this assignment. This section of the code mentioned things such as working with “respect, integrity, and courtesy, and seeking to