Chapter 7 Question 2
Involuntary Clients. Serafina runs an anger management group for clients mandated by criminal court to participate. What are her obligations in terms of voluntariness and informed consent under Standard 1.03(h)?
Serafina’s responsibilities regarding informed consent would include providing the clients with information about the nature and extents of services and the extent of client’s right to refuse service (National Association of Social Workers, 2008). It would be up to Serafina to decide on how she wants to approach this. She could either do it individually with each client or she could do it as a group. In this specific scenario the more likely option would to address informed consent to the group as a whole because they are all there for the same reason, which is for anger management and they were all mandated by court to attend. So they are all involuntary clients. Some of the information she would address during this process is her profession credentials, address of the credentialing body, her theoretical orientation, the roles and responsibilities of the group members and workers, policies for entering or leaving the group, policies about substance abuse and policies related to involuntary clients, confidentiality, documenting requirements, policies about out-of-group contact among group members, procedures for communication between group workers and members, time commitments and fees (Barsky 2010).
Barsky, A.E. (2010). Ethics and values in social work. New York: Oxford University Press.
National Association of Social Workers. (2008). NASW code of ethics. Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://ww.socialworkers.org/pubs/code/code.asp.
Involuntary Clients. Serafina runs an anger management group for clients mandated by criminal court to participate. What are her obligations in terms of voluntariness and informed consent under Standard 1.03(h)?
Serafina’s responsibilities regarding informed consent would include providing the clients with information about the nature and extents of services and the extent of client’s right to refuse service (National Association of Social Workers, 2008). It would be up to Serafina to decide on how she wants to approach this. She could either do it individually with each client or she could do it as a group. In this specific scenario the more likely option would to address informed consent to the group as a whole because they are all there for the same reason, which is for anger management and they were all mandated by court to attend. So they are all involuntary clients. Some of the information she would address during this process is her profession credentials, address of the credentialing body, her theoretical orientation, the roles and responsibilities of the group members and workers, policies for entering or leaving the group, policies about substance abuse and policies related to involuntary clients, confidentiality, documenting requirements, policies about out-of-group contact among group members, procedures for communication between group workers and members, time commitments and fees (Barsky 2010).
Barsky, A.E. (2010). Ethics and values in social work. New York: Oxford University Press.
National Association of Social Workers. (2008). NASW code of ethics. Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://ww.socialworkers.org/pubs/code/code.asp.