4.4 Ethical Decision Making
Human services workers must make difficult decisions, sometimes quickly, and sometimes without support or resources. It is helpful to have a model of decision making that you practice many times so that you can feel more confident about making decisions on your own.
The ETHICS decision-making model includes the following steps:
E: Evaluate and define the problem. Examine relevant personal, societal, agency, client, and professional values. Gather information from all possible sources.
T: Think about which ethical standard applies, as well as relevant laws and agency rules. Brainstorm possible actions and decisions.
H: Hypothesize about the possible consequences of different actions.
I: Identify who will benefit and who will be harmed.
C: Consult with supervisor and colleagues about the most ethical choice.
S: Select an action. Implement the action. (Ling & Hauck, 2016)
After the action has been implemented, an important final step is to evaluate the action. Who has been harmed? Who has benefitted? Did you gain any additional information that you wish you had known earlier? All of these questions will help you to evaluate the decision and inform your practice for the next time that you face a dilemma.
Activity: Ethical Dilemmas
As a human services worker, you are likely to face an ethical dilemma, a situation where there is not a clear answer right away, or when you are forced to choose between two or more decisions. Each choice might bring undesirable outcomes for one or more persons (Dolgoff et al., 2009).
For each dilemma outlined below:
- Identify the standards that you would consider using to solve this dilemma.
- Select the primary standard(s) from that group that speak most directly to this dilemma.
- Make a note of all groups, both those you considered and those you ended up selecting.
- Follow the steps of ETHICS and describe what you would do at each step and why.
- What questions do you still have about the ethical dilemma?
- What systemic barriers impact the ethical dilemma? How would your intersectional identities in the world influence how you relate to the experience of the clients described in the dilemmas?
Dilemma One: Fundraising
You work for an agency that serves middle school- and high school-aged youth. About one-third of the youth identify somewhere in the LGBTQAI+ community, and the agency hosts a regular support group for these youth.
It’s time for the annual fundraiser, and your employer asks you to downplay any mention of the LGBTQAI+ support because some of the big funders are opposed to supporting people with this social identity. Another important factor is that you share an identity with the students you serve, so some of your own personal feelings are coming up as well.
Dilemma Two: Pediatric Surgery
You work as a peer support provider at a children’s hospital, and you are present to help parents during complicated medical decisions. A surgeon at the children’s hospital strongly recommends