Ethics in Social Work
Course Description
Target Audience: Social workers, counselor, and other mental health professionals.
Course Content Level: Advanced
Number of CE Hours: 3
Type of CE hours: Ethics
Delivery format: Reading based asynchronous distance learning.
Course completion requirements:
How to Obtain Continuing Education Credit
Please follow the steps below to obtain the necessary contact hours of home study continuing
education credit:
1. Read course objectives.
2. Study the course text:
3. The questions for the final examination are attached here. Answer these questions by marking
your Scantron card:
Write your name on every Scantron card in the space provided. Also write the exam title
in the space marked “Subject”.
True/false examination Mark the Scantron card as follows: Use A for true answers, B for
false answers. Disregard C, D and E.
Multiple-choice questions Choose the letter of the correct answer and mark the Scantron
card accordingly.
Marking the Scantron card Use No. 2 pencil only. Make dark marks. Erase completely to
change.
4. Complete the licensure information on the examination sheet.
5. Return the scantron card, examination sheet and student evaluation of the course.
You’ll need 70% correct score on the post-test for successful completion of the course.
6. Retain a copy of the answers for your record.
Homestead Schools, Inc. is solely responsible for the quality and content of this CE
program and for the selection of its instructor/author, and receives no outside financial
support in the preparation, presentation or implementation of its CE activities.
The sponsor has no affiliation with companies whose products or services are mentioned
in this course material; they are mentioned only for their educational and
informational value. The sponsor’s sole source of revenue is the tuition paid by
participants like you in its CE program.
Instructor Credentials: N/A
ACE Provider Approval Statement: Homestead Schools, Inc., 1070, is approved to offer social work continuing education by the Assoiciation of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses for continuing education credit.
ACE provider approval period: 4/2/2023-4/2/2026. Social workers completing this course receive 3 Ethics continuing education credits.
ADA Accomodations: Homestead Schools, Inc. ensures that its facilities accommodate and are accessible according to the standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Cancellation/Refund Policy: Should you need to cancel your order or if you are not satisfied with the quality of our course material, you can return the course (before a certificate is issued) within 90 days and receive a prompt and full refund (less shipping and handling.)
Course last updated: December, 2024
About Authors
Wade L. Robison, PhD
Wade L. Robison is the Ezra A. Hale Professor of Applied Ethics at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, with a minor in law. He directed a National Endowment for the Humanities Institute on David Hume at Dartmouth in 1990, has received several National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships, including a year-long fellowship in Political Science at the University of California at Santa Barbara. He was President of the International Hume Society for sixteen years and is active in Ethics Across the Curriculum at RIT and elsewhere. He has published extensively in philosophy of law, David Hume, and practical and professional ethics. His book Decisions in Doubt: The Environment and Public Policy (University Press of New England, 1994) won the Nelson A. Rockefeller Prize in Social Science and Public Policy. He has co-edited anthologies in medical ethics, business and professional ethics, and Hume, and his most recent book, with L. Reeser, is on Ethical Decision Making in Social Work (Allyn & Bacon, 2000).
Linda Reeser, B.A., M.S.W., PhD.
Education Ph.D., Bryn Mawr College
M.S.W., Temple University
B.A., Temple University
Dr. Reeser joined the School of Social Work faculty in 1981. She teaches courses in social policy, social welfare institutions, field education, and social change. She has published in the areas of professionalism, social activism, and social work ethics. Her interests include membership in professional and human service boards and community service. Her research interests are social work ethics, professionalism, activism, field education, and women’s issues.
Learning Objectives
After completing this course you’ll be able to:
- Distinguish between ethical and legal dilemmas.
- Devise a method for determining ethically what we ought to do if we have an ethical dilemma.
- Provide examples of prudent and imprudent acts.
- Explain why appealing to a code of ethics does not resolve an ethical dilemma.
- Give an example of a valid argument.
- Explain why it is a mistake to rely solely on ethical principles to resolve ethical problems.
- Outline three steps in the method of tracking harms.
- Identify conditions that must be satisfied if someone is to be autonomous.
- Apply the Code of Ethics to a client’s right to self-determination.
- Identify professional and personal relationships which may pose conflicts of interest.
- Explain a professional’s obligation to serve a client competently.
- Distinguish among the issues of self-determination, confidentiality, and harm to others in any situation.
- Describe the inherent dangers of dual relationships.
- Deal with issues of diversity among clients.
Course Contents
- Introduction
- Difficult ethical cases
- The method of tracking harms: working through a case
- Self-interest and other reasons
- Doing what is ethical
- Questions
- Introduction
- Intervention and self-determination
- Conflicts with self-determination
- Relations with clients
- Who is the client?
- Questions