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Abstract
Social work professionals face moral dilemmas. Evidence-based guidelines only partly help them to deal with these dilemmas. Recently, moral case deliberation (MCD) as a bottom-up aid has been successfully introduced into Dutch health care to help strengthen professional moral competence. This research investigates whether MCD can help future professionals caring for children and young people to deal with their dilemmas. Research questions are: (1) How do students evaluate two series of four MCD sessions related to moral dilemmas in cases they experienced in practice? and (2) Does MCD contribute to students’ ability to justify their decisions? Applying a mixed-method evaluation study, we found that students consider MCD highly important. They feel supported in their ability to justify decisions ethically. Most students value the challenge of thinking critically in MCD. However, some do not appreciate the uncertainties which come with this. One-third of the students prove able to justify their decisions ethically after attending MCD sessions. Robust conclusions about MCD as the cause of these results cannot be drawn on the basis of the study design. Suggestions are made for future research regarding the contribution of MCD to the development of competence in dealing better with moral dilemmas.
Notes
1. Youth Care Act of 2005 (revised in 2015) prescribes client-centred care, in which empowerment of clients is the key value.
2. ‘Ethical’ and ‘moral’ are seen as concepts that, although not synonymous, both refer to expressions on or reflections upon the good life. In the following section, both terms will be used, depending on the reflective (ethical) or practical (moral) issues at stake.
3. Dutch form of collegial peer consultation meant for discussing work issues.