programme of direct social work ethics

7/29/2019 Programme of Direct Social Work Ethics

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PROGRAMME OF DIRECT SOCIAL

WORK ETHICS


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Advocacy in action

Direct social work takes always the side of thepowerless.

It enhances the power of the people and takes

care that they are heard. It does not do the workinstead of the people but with the. It empowersthem to take control of their lives.

Direct social work rejects the role of an

intermediary and the task that are prescribed bythe system of exclusion, marginalisation anddisablement. Advocacy instead.


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Ethics of the active resistance

The task of social work is to denounce the injustice,oppression, discrimination; to put on fight againstthem and for social justice, empowerment and equalcooperation of the people.

Direct social work is actively struggling against allmodes of closing and compulsion. It resists alldegradation, devaluation and stigmatisation of people.It never concedes to the logic of exclusion.

It does not only care for mending the wrongs but isactively and directly preventing them to arise.


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Ethics of non-reductionism (against

depersonalisation, reduction to a problem)

Social work accepts the whole humanpersonality and does not concede to thereductions to a label.

Direct social work declines treating people likethings. A man or a woman has always his orher will, desire, word and deed.

We avoid reducing human distress to onestate social work traverses many plateauxsimultaneously.


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Testimony on suffering

Direct social work intercepts the stories that wouldotherwise be unheard. It gives legitimacy to humandistress and takes it as a platform for further action.

Social work does not leave people alone.

In the stories about peoples suffering it tries to findthe sources of power and helps to create new lifestories.

Priorities of direct social work are: witnessing social,economic and personal distress, direct linking ofpeople for action and organising the response todistress.


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Ethics of action

Witnessing, which is an important function ofsocial work anyway, gets an activist charge of themovement. Things need to be changed. Socialwork goes from being a silent witness of human

misery onto becoming an amplifier of the voice ofthe oppressed.

Talking to people should not be an end in itself; ithas to become a starting point of direct action.

Direct social work supports and develops talkingand deciding that enhance power of commonaction.


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Community ethics

Direct social work enters communities, to beclose to the people in their environment.

Personal distress is social. Human distress is not

matter of an individual but it is seen as areflection of the social situation of the person.

Social work is bound to the ethics of connectingpeople, groups, themes and different levels of

existence; it is not limited to material,experiential, legal or social dimension of theissue.


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Opposing confidentiality as silence

Direct social work is committed to safeguard

personal stories but confidentiality in social

work must not mean silence but trust not to

be abandoned.

The injustice must be made public.


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Direct responsibility.

Social worker is in the first place responsibleto a person and not subjected to the rules ofthe system. Social work is operating on the

basis of users mandate. Mandate, missionand responsibility are given by peoplethemselves and not by state, charity or evencapital. Social work must not concede to

imposed value systems and notions of thehuman nature, it has to stem from people,their social reality and their dreams.


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Courage and naivety

Social worker has to have courage to fight for

a fellow human being. Has to dare the limits

to improve human condition.

Has to believe what people say, that is fair and

right (not only nave)

Being nave is believing in a different world

even the odds may be against it. It about

personal engagement and commitment to it.


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Knowledge

Social worker never ceases to learn. To learn frompeople and to give own knowledge to common use inconstruction of solutions. He or she learns fromexperience and from experts of experience.

Theory is a tool or a weapon re-created by the use.Social work needs knowledge of doing (praxis) and notknowledge of ruling.

Direct social work uses the knowledge of people,

hidden, secret and ignored knowledge to subvertdominant notions which oppress peoples desires.


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Independence and linking

Direct social work links with all social movements thatare fighting for empowerment of the powerless, fornew ways of living, working and creating together.

Social worker has to have a critical understanding ofthe areas and disciplines that can be used forimprovement of peoples situations. Simultaneously itresists any direct or indirect appropriation of the socialwork by other disciplines (psychologisation,

medicalization, manageralisation or jurisation) andconsequent alienation of human everyday existence.


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Autonomy

Direct social work does not use the rules as an excuse andapology for unethical action basic guide in doing is ethics.It accepts only those formal deeds that empower people; itdoes not restrict its action by the rules.

It declines to be exploited to mend mistake of the othersand to be a prolongation of repressive organs andinstitutions.

It resists also bagatelisation and exploitation of voluntarywork for austerity and social cuts, for the reasons ofcreating income and substitution of the professional workwith cheap and dubious work of others.

It resists expropriation of people who work socially for theirown good and expropriation of social work as such.


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Being relaxed and having fun

Social work forms egalitarian and equal relationshipswith people, approaches them as a person to a person,not an expert, a professional from the power position.

It uses a language that people understand and with

humour and honesty comes close to the people. Heavysituations and moments are lit and discharged byhumour.

Direct social work is against setting boundariesbetween the people also between the users and

workers. The issue of distance and closeness isresolved continuously and by the way, as it is doneamong the people in their interactions.


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User perspective

Social worker must derive his work from usersperspective, from his concrete life situation andattitude to it. Solutions cannot be given in advance andjust offered to choose, the have to arise from common

work. Only in this way human dignity will be preserved. Social work has to enable and empower good practices

of survival, human perseverance and courage. It has tounearth forgotten, hidden sources of power,strengthen tem and add to their value and legitimacy.

It respects the heroic stance of the people thatconfront the distress and reminds them that they arecapable of doing it and that they can overcome.

programme of direct social work ethics

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