Human services and social services workers need to remain aware of their personal assumptions, biases, and value systems when working with clients to achieve the high ethical standards established by professional organizations like the National Organization for Human Services. Social service professionals ultimately aim to fulfill fundamental values such as respect for the dignity and welfare of all individuals, promoting empowerment, autonomy and self-determination, honoring, respecting, and valuing diversity, and advocating for social justice (National Organization for Human Services, 2017). Biases and assumptions can occasionally compromise the fundamental values of human services, by clouding judgment, leading to miscommunication, or even behaviors that are impediments to reaching human service goals.
As Barsky (2010) points out, biases and assumptions are both faulty cognitive patterns. A bias can be defined as a cognitive preference for one belief system, group of people, worldview, or point of view over others. Alternatively, a bias can mean a negative judgment of certain groups of people or worldviews. Biases are usually linked to assumptions about groups or ideologies. Both biases and assumptions can impact the evolution of a social service worker’s value systems, leading to clouded judgment and an inability to remain...
References
Barsky, A. E. (2010). Ethics and values in social work: an integrated approach for a comprehensive curriculum. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
National Organization for Human Services (2017). Ethical standards for human services professionals. Retrieved online: http://www.nationalhumanservices.org/ethical-standards-for-hs-professionals
Toporek, R.L. & Worthington, R.L. (2014). Integrating service learning and difficult dialogues pedagogy to advance social justice training. The Counseling Psychologist 42(7): 919-945.
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