Reducing Gender Inequality and Child Abuse

The assignment content highlights the importance of incorporating ethics, values, and dilemmas in social care practices to ensure the safety and well-being of children. It emphasizes that domestic violence can be reduced by providing equal opportunities for women and promoting learning among them to avoid unethical practices. Furthermore, collaborative working assists in managing health and social care services to address user issues effectively. The report concludes that social care practices must consider ethics, values, and dilemmas to ensure a safe society.

CRITICAL SOCIAL WORK:
ETHICS, VALUES AND
DILEMMAS IN SOCIAL WORK
PRACTICE
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INTRODUCTION
Ethics, values and dilemmas at work practices are the foremost aspects which are taken
into account by care workers or health care setting. The areas of practice selected in the present
report is of Children and Families. Here, domestic violence is also the part of Children and
Families. In UK number of children and families are suffering from domestic violence and thus it
has negative effective of living standard of poor people. Domestic violence refers to a set pattern
of behavior wherein one person is abused by another in a domestic setting. It can be in cases like
marriage or cohabitation. The domestic violence take place in several forms such as physical,
verbal, economic and emotional.
Critical Exploration of ethics, values and ethical dilemma
Domestic violence generally refers to as violent or aggressive behaviour by a spouse or
partner which involves violent abuse within a home. It is now days a common practice in UK
where every week 2 women are killed by their current or former partner. It is not necessary that
person may be married, they can be married, of any gender that is heterosexual, gay or lesbian,
they might be living together, separated or dating. Domestic violence can be done in many ways
such as sexual assault, intimidation, stalking, threatening, killing, etc. Although emotional,
psychological abuse are not criminal behaviors but they are forms of abuse which can lead to
criminal violence. According to the Crime Survey facts, 1 woman is killed in every 3 days, out of
4 , 1 women will experience domestic violence and 8% will suffer domestic violence in any
given year. British Crime Survey reported that on an estimation 635,000 are the cases of
domestic violence in England and Wales out of which 81% are women and 19% are men. On an
average prior to its first call in police, a woman is assaulted 35 times. The report of Department
of Health was that 30% of domestic violence occur during pregnancy time. The report of
NSPCC, 2011 stated that 25% of children are exposed to domestic violence in a home and 62%
of children get harmed due to this violence happening in their house (Refuge.org, 2015). These
increasing incidents put a negative impact on the whole society because women and children stay
in the fear. Further, social workers need to focus on these dilemmas and work upon towards the
welfare of the society. They should create awareness about these issues and also they influence
the women who are victim of this domestic violence to come with their complaints.
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This abusement is highly actionable in the eyes of law and there are many social work
practitioner who help out the victims of such incidents. For this purpose social worker provide
services like counseling, support through shelter programs, court advocacy by country victim
agency and social justice community (Mcauliffe and Sudbery, 2005). As professional committed
for the social justice then domestic violence becomes a social justice issue. There are various
forms of social work practitioner that is direct service providers which include women's
advocate, shelter program; community education coordinator.
The work of social worker is quite difficult as they have to provide mental and emotional
support to the victim for which they should posses patience. In contemporary social work praise,
a worker should take care about the ethical considerations such as guidelines publishes by WHO
for addressing Ethical and Safety Recommendations for domestic violence against women.
Research for abuse is not like other areas of investigations. Topic's nature is that issue of safety,
confidentiality and interviewer skills and training are more important than any other forms of
research. The emotions and sentiments should not be undermined while doing research on the
victims that is why WHO has published such guidelines.
As in present scenario, the identity of social work has been characterized as ambiguous;
the role of social work in the promotion of social justice have been questioned and there are less
evidence for its effectiveness. At the same time Mcbeath and Webb (2002) have argued that
social work itself is a victim of an inhuman political and economical system which structures the
society so as to undermine the rights of human. In addition to this, usually people of social work
service are belong to those society which are most vulnerable that is why they must be sensitive
in the way they provide services. The decisions of social workers have long lasting impact on
people's lives. Therefore, social work practice must be trained by transparent, understandable and
ethical principles which include respect for persons, soliciting participation and accurate
reporting, confidentiality and privacy should be maintained, reports should mandated as per the
statute guidelines, social justice should be given to them.
Similarly, values play an important role in a work of contemporary social work practice.
Value is basically a general beliefs about desirable actions and goals. Values generally influence
and justify types of positive and negative attitudes which an individual holds in accordance with
possible events and outcomes. Values of practitioner are commonly expressed by a specified
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ethical code. However Manetta and Wells, (2001) stated that values are important for
understanding the profession as they reflect the ways which social practitioner presently think
and practice with critical problems. According to the study of Lyons (2006) social values are
integrated into codes of ethics and it binds social workers under a common professional identity
and present its intentions.
The social workers faces ethical dilemma in contemporary social work practice. Laws
have been clearly defined when it comes to domestic violence. Social worker are divided on the
issue of mandatory reporting of such incidents but the laws are two folded. One, the law needs
reporting of certain incidents which are debatable and two, reporting can be mandatory without
the consent of victim. This mandated reporting system is not in the interest of victim which may
lead to more violence and reluctant by the victim. This create ethical dilemma for the social
workers. Social worker faces dilemma on a daily basis as Morley (2007) illustrates that ethical
dilemma arise when the social worker faces a choice between two equally unfavorable
alternatives which may include a conflict of moral values and practitioner are not clear which
choice will be the right one.
Healy (2007) implies that social worker are often involved in an issue like personal and
even painful circumstances and ethical judgments which are mainly related with the human
welfare. This act as a big challenge for practitioner as any single decision may change the life of
service users. In the study of Osmond and Darlington (2005) facts of a case solely cannot
determine which decision to be taken, the complete decision is based on a values which social
worker holds. Thus, it is necessary for a social worker to have strong value base, however,
personal values and professional values often contradict and hence the conflict of moral values
occur which leads to ethical dilemma. Certain times multiple ethical barriers and obligations
create dilemmas for social work practice. Ethical dilemma reflect the complex nature of social
work profession in terms of several factors that is the purpose and loyalties of social workers.
The type of dilemma which social worker faces are that social worker do the function of helpers
and controllers; conflicts between the duty of social workers for protecting the interests of the
victims or service users and societal demands for efficiency and utility; the loyalty of social
workers usually in the middle of conflicting interest and lastly resources in the society are
limited. These factors often lead to ethical dilemma.
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Theory of culture of violence
It is the most imperative theory which shed light of domestic violence. Under this, social
permit the physical violence due to some subcultures and norms. This is the reason that physical
violence frequently occur in violent society because people tend to get affected from negative
environment. Here, pornography and violent images on TV aids to support culture of violent
against women. It creates insecurity for women because society become habitual of such kind of
negative attitude towards them (Hoyle, 2008). It reflects the complex inter relations of gender as
well as sexuality. Thus, peer relationship get support from society and adopt such kind of
unethical practices and values while dealing with any women at home or outside.
On the other hand, evolutionary theory depicts that societies are changing form the
relatively simple to more complex. This is because families are becoming more smaller and
nuclear. This is the reason social relations become the more structured. It depicts that parenting
style of people have been changed to a great extent. It facilitates to provide to more security and
restriction on children. However, physical violence do not take place just to secure the obedience
among children. Furthermore, such kind of changing styles of families help in maintaining
formal social encounters outside the home. It shows that societies play active role in the
promotion and well being of families and children.
According to Campbell (2007) Furthermore, most the domestic violence take place just
because of abuse against female partners. Here, system theory can be referred to under the
domestic violence among couples. Under this, family is like dynamic organization where
independent components interact with one another. It can be in term of aggressive action of man
towards his spouse take place just because of reaction of another family members. It has direct
impact on future behavior of family members. Dobash, Dobash, Cavanagh and Lewis (2001)
asserted that stabilization of system is necessary to manage the violence by roles, relation and
feedback mechanisms. On the other hand, couples with physical aggression and low level of
satisfaction among married people tend to have less communication among each other because
both of them do not support each other. Furthermore, this is the reason behind poor problem
solving skills and defensiveness. All these factors tend to have direct impact on children because
they are witness of violence among family members.
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Haggerman-White and et al., (2010) domestic violence take place in the form of violence
against women, parent child attachment and parenting styles. This is because parent child
attainment is highly affected due to negative relationship between couples. This kind of different
take place just because of cultural difference of people and society where they live. Harne,
(2009) aggression in the marriage system is directly related to specific parent child
communication pattern. It depicts that individual need to adopt identify mechanisms in order to
link family subsystems. For instance, physical aggression of man towards women take place due
to parenting style which reflect specific to gender. It shows that children adopt the behavior of
their parents and accordingly behave in the different situation. These specific reason give
justification regarding the domestic violence. Furthermore, these violence wake up the social
work practitioner to work towards the welfare of the society. They could laid down several
programs where they can generate awareness of domestic violence and in this they can also warn
the people who do such violence about the consequence they can face if they are caught. The
social worker needs to emphasize this issue in front of government so that new laws could be
introduced against the people who do the violence. This way up to some extent, social causes
could be reduced.
Hoyle (2008) asserted that counseling are the effective measure where man's behavior is
controlled whereby there are provided different ways to relies them-sales from any kind of
violence. It can be critically evaluated that women try their best to preserve their relationship
although in those situation when they are highly dissatisfied. This all happened just because of
critical approach of society towards such kind of people. In this regard, Physical Aggression
Couples Treatment (PACT) is formed to stop violence among families or between couples who
so ever want to preserve their relationship. At this juncture, individual assessment is done for
each partner who are in under domestic violence (Cuniggham, 1998). It lays emphasis on
improving relationship between couple by having clear communication among them and
reducing conflict among them. Furthermore relationship skills are increased so as to kill the
negative impact which exist among them.
Garcia-Moreno and Claudia (2009) asserted that clinical experience of system approach
reveals that social practices require to make efforts to improve the relationship between couples
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and determine the well being of all family members. It facilitates to reduce domestic violence
and create healthy environment among people of society. Voulgaris (2006) reported that PACT
can be adopted on group basis because individual attending the session will likely to influence
form others behavior. It facilitates to conduct the session for gender specific treatment and
develop good understanding among couples in order to reduce the impact of conflicts. However,
system approach failed to address the issues related to gender. Here, domestic violence of
women cannot be protected effectively and mind set of man prove to be tougher task for all
family members,. It is the reason behind enhancement of domestic violence to a great extent.
Woodcock and Dixon (2005) asserted that reason behind domestic violence is acceptance
of interpersonal violence which occurred because negative belief regarding one gender. Further,
such kind of negative beliefs take place just because of have in relationship with abusive friends.
This situation leads to invite the own level of violence in relationship of group of people or two
person. Thus, such kind of learning affect the human life to great extent. Furthermore, it can be
said that inter generational transmission may not occur if child is provided appropriate love and
favorable condition. It facilitates to develop good understanding among him/her in childhood
which facilitate to reduce the domestic aggression to a great extent.
According to Pandazakas and Mendis (2002) domestic violence is not limited to just man
and woman relation, it is done with young people and same sex people too. Young person is
characterized by their behaviour, casual explanation and pointing to the service level they
require. Mcauliffe and Sudbery (2005) explains that over the centuries young people have been
sexually exploited by others and due to which they have struggled with mental problems,
violence, suicide and criminal behaviour. On the other hand Mcbeath and Webb (2002) stated
that, young people with high-risk behaviour were often seen as risk to the public rather than risk
to themselves. This has impacted the society as they were imprisoned by the criminal justice.
After the invention of welfare institutions it was identified that reason of their high-risk
behaviour is due to challenging behaviour at home or school, substance abuse, aggression, sexual
offending, etc. in addition to these, young people require long term care and support for meeting
their needs for care and protection.
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Findings of British Crime Survey describes that 1 out of 4 women and 1 out of 7 men
have experienced domestic violence, which states that 4 are more domestically abused than man
by their partners or ex-partners. Also 54% of rapes experienced by women were perpetrated by
partners or ex-partners, 37% of all stalking incidents involving violence. These findings will
never underestimate the victimization of women. However, when research was done in smaller
scope in the UK, it was found that rates of domestic violence is higher than those survey which
were conducted by government (Manetta and Wells 2001). Thus, it shows that governments are
not willing to conduct appropriate surveys and do not interpret proper results which may be
problematic for social workers to practice their work.
As per the community survey, it was found that gays and lesbian are often assaulted by
the same sex partner. 22% woman and 29% men reported that they had been assaulted
physically, mentally and emotionally from a regular same-sex partner. All theses findings
interpret a negative impact on a society and social worker has to build up a strong value and
ethical consideration so that they do can provide better mental and emotional support to the
victims (Barnish, 2004).
Issue of inequality and discrimination
Apart from this, feminist theory lay emphasis on general inequality. It consists of several
facets like woman's social roles, interests, chores and experience as well as feminist politics in
range areas like education, literature and communication. It also consists of areas like
anthropology, philosophy and sociology. However, this theory is based on number of following
principles. It also depicts that social different exist among men and women which affect the life
of human being to a great extent (Feminist Theory, 2015). The first difference is related to
gender which shows that how a woman is different from men with respect to experience, social
situation and location in. For instance feminists culture look at the difference that how a woman
and man experience the social world in different perspective.
Further, woman serve as the object and opportunity related to self realization are denied
by them. Also they are not provided chance to express their willing and practices with regards
sexuality. Furthermore, they need to perform their responsibility after getting married and even
they have to work more without any kind of mutual consent. Further, it depicts that married
woman generally face high level of stress than those of unmarried own and married men. On the
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other hand, gender oppression also take place among men and women. This aspect is followed
by two main theories such as radical and psychoanalytic (Solas, 2008). The first one show that
woman are positive but they are not aware of their oppression in society. The former theory
show that power is the most important aspect whereby a woman is considered different from
others.
Structural oppression shows that woman oppression take place due to several factors such
as capitalism, racism and patriarchy. Here, discrimination take place in term of white and black
women. These are major factors thereby their work practices get affected and generate negative
attitude among them. Further, inequality related to gender, class, race and ethnicity also take
place. These are the another form of domestic violence (Campbell, 2007).
The gender inequality and discrimination exist due to structural power imbalance among
women and men. Generally women suffer due to lack of power and control as well as social
norms. These some factors create barriers in growth and development of women at workplace.
Similarly, several factors such as social, economical, cultural and political rights are restriction
for women and imposes barriers in their freedom. Such kind of inequalities affect the freedom
full life of women. For instance, economic dependency, different low related to child custody
and divorce makes life of women exploited. This is not only the factor of domestic aggression
among women but low status of the same in society is also the crucial factor (Domestic
Violence: Theories of Causation, 2001).
The ecological model is used to assess the risk factors which depicts the inequity and
discrimination against the women. This model reflects the situation of individual at different
level such as individual, family, community and society which in turn women and girls are
facing the phase of domestic aggression. Further, at individual level women generally experience
the abuse due to denial of partner for having child. On the other hand, relationship level marital
conflict take place. This is because male generally try to control over the family wealth and try to
take key decision at his own end (Dobash, Dobash, Cavanagh and Lewis, 2001). Here, age and
education dissimilarities also affect the relation of two people to extreme level due to their
different level of understanding. On the other hand, lack of economic opportunity for men tend
to create negative atmosphere in the family,. It is happened due to historical power distribution
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among people. This model shows that difference mentioned factors increases the risk for men's
to commit the violence and in the same chances are increased for women to experience the same.
Apart from this, social norms granting or tolerating male control also affect the
environment of family. It is because female accept the intolerable behavior of male due to
resolve the likely occur violence (Haggerman-White and et al., 2010). Furthermore, concept of
masculinity is directly linked to dominance or aggression. Here, rigid gender role is also the
barriers. It depicts that women and girls should be provided opportunities regarding the vocation
skills, economic resources and other related factors in order to promote gender equality. It will
helps women to enhance their life style and ensure their own protection in family, at workplace
and among their friends.
Inequality is done on the basis of gender and money power. In the case of domestic
violence gender based and dominating power based inequality is done. According to various
reports and findings, it was found that most of the time women are being assaulted by their
partners or ex-partners. The social worker has to inquire about such practices carried out in the
country so that they can help in removing such practices which leads to inequality.
Partnership and collaborative working
Dilemma which have been identified in former discussion that there are often conflict
between moral values of social worker while providing services to the victims of domestic
violence (Osmond and Darlington, 2005). As there are ethical dilemmas such as mandatory
reporting as stated by statute and present condition of a victim which often leads to confusion for
a social practitioner. On the other hand many opportunities are available in an environment for
partnership and collaborative working of carers and service users and also with other
professionals. This can benefit the people in reducing the domestic violence. The social workers,
the victims, courts and health care can do the collaborative working in order to provide support
to the victim who are abused emotionally, sexually and mentally. In case of violence between
partners, carers can do the partnership with them and provide shelter program and counseling
session in order to make them understand about the implications of domestic violence and its
impacts on children. An individual assessment is done so as to identify the factors which often
leads to domestic violence and partners are advice do avoid such situations (Lyons, 2006). Also
collaborations are done with health cares so that any victim of such incident can be admitted to
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the particular health centers and carers should provide mental and emotional support to them and
social practitioner would provide them them energy to face the world again. In case of child
abusement, child welfare system and law court can collaborate together to provide justice to the
child and also organize some events which address these issues (Pandazakas and Mendis, 2002).
Social practitioner can collaborate with government programs on these incidents and find out the
facts about the victim. Thus, by this they can take personal counseling session which aimed at
improving the condition of domestic violence.
For doing collaboration several challenges may be encountered by social workers. This
includes limited information sharing by victims in order to reduce the chance of getting abused
repeatedly (Morley, 2007). This create difficulties in knowing about the proper victim condition
and thus appropriate counseling cannot be provided to them. The dilemma of moral values of
social workers also leads to inappropriate collaborations. As it is known that, care service cannot
be provided to the whole society as it is not feasible which create negative aspect in the minds of
victims. Due to lack of resources in a society leads to a big challenge imposed on the social
worker for grabbing opportunities.
There are some methods through which social work practice can do effective
collaboration and partnership with service users and other professionals (Healy, 2007). Particular
strategies and approaches have to be implemented so as to achieve effectiveness that is inter-
agency forums, integrated teams of social practitioner plus other law practitioner plus health
carers. Also co-location strategy, secondment, joint protocols and link workers approaches can
be used. This will provide efficient guidelines and other important factors which can help to
reduce domestic violence (Mcauliffe and Sudbery, 2005). This is done in order to promote
effective collaboration between agencies, carers, social workers and service users.
The selected dilemmas facilitates to provide learning among care workers regarding
opportunities in relation to partnership and collaborative learning. This is because all parties like
service users, carers and professionals provide jointly put efforts to reduce the domestic violence
to a great extent. This is will have positive implication on social work practices because
practitioners will come to know the issues faced by victim (Harne, 2009). It assists them to
contribute towards development of society and reduce the gender inequality in nation by
providing appropriate report to government. It will also be helpful to reduce the impact of child
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abuse because parents will be able to provide safe environment for children. Furthermore care
workers come to know about the ethical aspect and their values of workplace in order to provide
good quality of services to number of services and determine their safety.
CONCLUSION
The aforementioned report concludes social care practices must incorporate ethics, values
and dilemmas. It assists care workers to determine the safety society by imposing effective rules
and regulation in the light of governmental support. It can also be said that, domestic violence
can be reduced by providing equal opportunities to women and providing learning among them
to avoid the unethical practices in society or social care setting. In addition to this, collaborative
working assists management of health and social care to address issues of services users and
provide them services accordingly.
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REFERENCES
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