‘Ethics Are Messy’: Supervision as a Tool to Help Social Workers Manage Ethical Challenges

ABSTRACT

Supervision is a critical component of professional socialisation for social workers that helps them develop skills to practice in complex private and public organisations whose values may be at odds with social work ethics. Research on the relationship between supervision and how social workers navigate ethical challenges is limited and has typically focused on managing the resultant stress. This qualitative study reports on the perspectives of 23 social workers representing diverse work contexts and experience levels who were asked broadly about their experiences managing ethical challenges in practice. After researchers engaged in an iterative process of open and axial coding of interview transcripts, six subthemes were identified within the primary theme of supervision: the importance of quality supervision, early supervisory experiences, components of supervision, interprofessional aspects of supervision, power dynamics, and the function and impact of supervision. Implications of the results for research and practice are described, including the need for supervisor training and support, exploration of supervision power dynamics, and how to balance creating a safe supervisory environment with need for accountability.

KEYWORDS:

• Supervision
• ethics
• social work practice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributors

Lauren P. McCarthy, MSW, LCSW is a doctoral student at the University of Maryland. Her research interests lie in ensuring equitable access to quality mental health care for all children and their families. Lauren is currently working with a community agency in Baltimore to research interventions to reduce child abuse and maltreatment, as well as research with administrative data focused on child welfare outcomes.

Rachel Imboden, MSW, LSW is currently a PhD Student and Graduate Research Assistant in the PhD Program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, School of Social Work. Prior to beginning her studies, Rachel worked in various human service positions within state government, non-profit, and for-profit agencies. Much of her employment experience has been in direct service, specifically in workforce development. Rachel's research interests include ethics in social work practice and education; specifically, how human service professionals identify and engage with moral challenges. She is also curious about the relationship between social work practice and political and economic theory.

Corey Shdaimah, LL.M., PhD, is the Daniel Thursz Distinguished Professor of Social Justice at the University of Maryland, School of Social Work and the Academic Coordinator of the MSW/JD and MSW/MPP Dual Degree Program. Dr. Shdaimah's research and writing focuses on how people respond, adapt to, and try to improve policies as they are implemented on the ground across a number of substantive areas, including dependency court reform, child care policy, and court-affiliated prostitution diversion programme. She employs primarily qualitative methods to elicit the insights that people have about their own experiences and the changes that they would like to see.

Patrice Forrester, MSW, LCSW-C is a doctoral student at University of MD-Baltimore, School of Social Work where she has worked on quantitative and qualitative research projects exploring the subjective well-being of children and adolescents and the coping strategies of social service workers. Her research interests are in positive youth development, including youth programme workers and activities that support the positive development of adolescents from under-resourced communities and families.