Are Codes of Ethics Promoting Religious Literacy for Social Work Practice?

Abstract

As codes of ethics play at least a symbolic, if not educational, role in highlighting and informing professional priorities, 16 codes of ethics for social work practice were examined for references to religion and belief and analysed against the four domains of Dinham’s religious literacy framework. Although religion and belief are mentioned in all but two of the documents, approximately half the surveyed codes only mention religion and belief in respect of either knowledge or skills. Some recognise the need for social workers to be aware of their own biases, but few recognise the need to explain what is meant by religion and belief, despite these terms being in flux. While codes of ethics can contribute to the development of religious literacy among social workers, this requires social workers who already have some religious literacy to actively participate when codes of ethics are being revised.IMPLICATIONS It is an ethical imperative that social workers are able to engage with religion and belief.Social workers require religious literacy, including skills and knowledge of different religions, recognition of the fluidity of the concepts, “religion” and “belief”, and understanding one’s own attitudes towards religion.Codes of ethics can contribute to the development of religious literacy among social workers, but this potential is often not realised as fully as it might be.

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