Students‘ perceptions of professional social work ethics and the need for the development of competence-based ethics standards in undergraduate training program in Vietnam

ABSTRACT

As a newly recognized profession in Vietnam over the last two decades social work has undergone significant development, both in training and practice. However, there are many challenges in its professionalization, in which ethics plays a key role. This article presents the key findings of a study about students‘ perceptions of ethics and developing competence-based ethical standards in social work programs. It first analyses the students‘ attitudes and understanding of professional ethics. Second, it clarifies the situation of ethics education in training institutions. Finally, it provides suggestions for the implementation of social work competence-based ethical standards for Vietnam and beyond.

KEY WORDS:

• Social work ethics
• students‘ perception
• competence-based standards
• Vietnam

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University Hanoi .

Notes on contributors

Thi Thai Lan Nguyen

Thi Thai Lan Nguyen, lecturer, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Hanoi, Vietnam, started her social work career while she was working as national United Nation volunteer  in the late 1990s. She went further in social work education with a bridging program introduced by the University of Newfoundland, Canada and got her MSW at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada in 2004. After a few years coming back and continued her work as a social work educators and practitioners, she came back to school at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia and finished her PhD in 2014. Her main interests are in  child protection,  indigenization and authentization, social work research and social welfare.