Global ethics for social work? A case-based approach

Abstract

Chapter 1Global ethics for social work?A case-based approach Sarah BanksEthics in social work, and indeed in public life more generally, is a topic of growing importance.There has been a rapid growth in books and articles on this theme in the last decade (for an overview, see Banks 2008).There are many reasons for this socalled 'ethics boom'.The growing awareness of the impact of humans on the world environment and the potential for life changing bio-medical technologies are contributing to a heightened awareness of questions about the kind of world in which we want to live in and the kinds of lives we should lead.The persistence of inequality, poverty and war, along with the phenomenon of global terrorism, the rise of neo-liberalism in politics, a retrenchment of traditionally strong welfare states, cutbacks in social services and a questioning of the expertise and trustworthiness of professionals bring ethical questions very much into the arena of social work.Social workers have to respond to asylum seekers fleeing zones of conflict, cuts in welfare budgets, privatising of welfare services and demands from employers that they act as gatekeepers, controllers or managers of care packages.The political and economic challenges confronting social workers vary across different parts of the world.However, there is no doubt that wherever in the world social workers practise, they face ethical challenges about how to treat and respond to people respectfully, how to ration resources fairly and whether and how to resist, ameliorate or tolerate the social injustices they see on a daily basis.Despite the rapidly growth of textbooks on social work ethics, there are relatively few that primarily comprise real life social work ethics cases (Rothman (2005) and Reamer ( 2009) are examples from the USA) or that address the international dimensions of social work ethics in any detail.Specialist textbooks on social work

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