Stay on the ethical path

Stay on the ethical path

BY ALEC STRATFORD, MSW, RSW

After graduating as a social worker from Saint Thomas University, I was fortunate and privileged enough to be recruited for a job in Newfoundland. Myself and a few classmates had the pleasure and challenge of starting our careers in the remote and isolated beauty of western Newfoundland. This area, like many here in Nova Scotia, was devastated by the closing of the cod fishery. Many of the families that we worked with had either moved from their villages into the cities as they sought out opportunities that never seemed to come or they stayed in their communities and tried to create a glimmer of hope for the future.

We arrived shortly after the province conducted a very tough child death review which blatantly blamed front-line workers for the child’s death, rather than examining the broader system as a whole. This report led to new training for its child protection workers. The training focused on policy around record keeping, assessments and other technocratic legal procedures.

Immediately after completing my core training, I had a caseload handed over to me. My manager explained that a family that was just transferred to my caseload had experienced a traumatic event the night before. Both the manager, the on-call social worker and the family’s previous social worker felt that removing the children was in their best interest. Our first interview took place in a jail cell where they had just spent the night. I began my relationship with this family in one of the darkest places in their journey.

A narrative continued to develop as I interviewed people who knew the family. Both parents had addiction issues. When they were using, they were often violent towards each other, and they coached their children to cover for this violent behaviour. As I reviewed the notes from the file, there it was time and time again. One child made a statement that contrasted the external evidence of the event, and the other child would verify what the first child said almost verbatim.

My co-workers and managers were convinced that the parents coached the child to cover for their behaviour. They were pressuring me to use this assumption as evidence of emotional abuse, on top of the violence that the children had witnessed.

The Code of Ethics asks us to uphold each person’s right to self-determination, consistent with that person’s capacity and with the rights of others. As an ethical principle, people in unequal situations have the right to be treated differently to create greater equality. Social workers also advocate for equal treatment and protection under the law and challenge injustices, especially injustices that affect the vulnerable and disadvantaged.

I was in an environment where I was pressured to make decisions based on the past experiences of coworkers, the sensitivity created by the child death review, the new legal procedures and the central believe held by many of those around me that the children were safer away from their parents. The Code of Ethics seemed irrelevant and far removed from the tasks at hand.

This pressure to ignore the Code of Ethics did not sit well with me and I needed to make a choice. I had a choice to resist the agency’s perception of the family and to put the values, principles and profession’s ethics in the driver’s seat. I knew I could not ethically make decisions without taking the time to get to know the family and the structures that they interacted with. Before I could make any decision, I needed to build trust and create meaning alongside the family.

As we worked together I gained the family’s trust by empathically listening and understanding their history and goals. Throughout this process, the relationship shifted as they began to talk candidly about their upbringing and struggles with addiction and violence. This open conversation allowed them to be more honest about seeking support. It also allowed me to ask honest and candid questions about the concerns that they were coaching their children to cover up for their addiction issues. The parents were adamant that this was not the case and explained that their children were always trying to protect them. This was a turning point in our relationship.

I had general knowledge of the behaviours that family members display while living with people with addictions. That protective behaviour statement resonated. I quickly researched and brought evidence to my managers that these protective behaviours better explained the actions of the children then the coaching narrative. When I raised these discoveries with the parents even more meaning was created. They made a greater connection to how their addictions were impacting their kids. They used this as motivation to seek support and get healthy. More importantly, the family’s work did eventually lead to them being reunited.

Ethical dilemmas were continuously thrown at me throughout this journey. From the dual relationship concerns that emerged from practicing social work in a small town, to the tensions created by confidentiality vs self-determination dilemmas. What grounded my work was the capacity to resist and question assumptions and to build a relationship with the family that was put at the center of all decision-making. A relationship that was rooted in empathy, driven by solidarity and worked towards liberation.

About Alec: Alec Stratford is the NSCSW’s Executive Director/ Registrar. He has worked as a child protection social worker, school support counselor, community organizer wand as a sessional instructor. Alec has a passion and dedication for community development and believes that engaged informed communities can lead to transformative change. Alec brings a wealth of knowledge on adult and experiential learning and its connection to social change.