Legal and Ethical Compliance in Community and Welfare Work

This article discusses legal and ethical compliance in community and welfare work. It covers the obligations of staff members and organizations, key ethical obligations, compliance officer, consequences of non-compliance, and more. It also explains the importance of establishing an effective Compliance and Ethics Program and continuous improvement process. The article is relevant to students studying community and welfare work and professionals working in the field.

Running head: LEGAL AND ETHICAL COMPLIANCE
Legal and ethical compliance
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Answer 1
Legal obligations applicable to the staff members and the organization
There are certain legal obligations of staff members (Kadushin & Harkness, 2014). They are:
 The staff members have a legal obligation to abide by the Australian Community Work
practice Guidelines, which is a mandatory community work practice and is a benchmark
for all human service practitioners.
 The members are obliged to follow the Australian Community Workers Code of Ethics
in every aspect of their professional life.
 Must abide by the common law including laws of duty of care and negligence, national
statutory legislations, commonwealth legislations and other international standards.
There are certain legal obligations of the organization (Bryce, 2017). They are:
 Must abide by the rules under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
(CRPD.)
 Must abide by the Disability Discrimination Act, 1992 (Cth) (DDA).
 Must ensure that the provisions of the Fair Work Act, 2009 (Cth) is applicable in the
organization.
 All other related legislations must also be followed.
Answer 2
The key ethical obligations which may apply to the staff members and organizations are:
 Confidentiality.
 Accountability.

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 Management
 Respect.
 Loyalty.
 Maintaining professional boundaries
 Continuing with professional development
 Promoting the profession
Type of obligation applicable:
Community and welfare workers have different relationships with different people in the
lights of working profession. Therefore, here certain ethical responsibilities will apply, including
responsibility to colleagues, to employee and employing organizations, to profession and to
client and client group.
Answer 3
A compliance officer is needed, who is basically in charge of overseeing and supervising
matters inside the association and guarantees the working of the workers and the organizations
along with administrative necessities. For the purpose the following policies and procedures
must be filed:
 Written policies, standards and procedures of conduct
 Compliance committee
 Effective methods of communication
 Disciplinary guidelines and developing policies.
 Risk management and response plan
 Monitoring and auditing

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 Response to detected offenses, corrective actions and channels for reporting to the
government.
People filing these roles can stay up to date with the following issues by adhering to:
 Sarbanes-Oxley Act for every open organization
 HIPPA Act for medicinal services enterprises.
 SEC directions for maintaining electronic correspondence.
Answer 4
Legal advice may be needed by community service organizations in cases of issues
relating to:
 Corporate governance
 Contracts
 Tax exemption
 Copyright
 Fundraising
 Labor and employment
 Trademark
 Real estate
 Government relations
 Finance and accounting
 Municipal/Government policies, violations and permits.

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They require legal help in case of such issues because organizations working in fields like
healthcare, education and environment as various legal aspects are related to these fields.
Answer 5
Organizations should have policies and procedures in place in governing ethical issues to
regulate confidentiality and privacy of client information, so that the organizations can provide
effective and efficient professional services (Tricker & Tricker, 2015). These policies and
procedures must address areas like:
 Client information confidentiality.
 Networking with other agencies.
 Information sharing with other services and roles and responsibilities of each service.
 Preservation period of client information.
 Referral protocols.
Answer 6
The consequences of non-compliance with legal and ethical standards by workers and
organizations are highly severe. It may lead to a high amount of monetary fine, long term
imprisonment or both. The laws are strict regarding non-compliance and non-compliance by
workers can also result in their termination and criminal breach as well.
Answer 7

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It is necessary to establish an effective Compliance and Ethics Program to ensure
compliance of members with ethical and legal obligations. This program will help in detecting
and preventing ethical misconduct and will help in promoting ethical conduct among the workers
in the organizations. Thus, organizations, must take steps to establish similar programs for
implementing and regulating ethical conduct in an organization so that ethical standards are
maintained and the conduct of workers are regulated accordingly.
Answer 8
In case of breaches like privacy breach, organizations should take the following four
steps for dealing with it:
 Breach containment and preliminary assessment
 Evaluation of the related risk.
 Notification of the result of such evaluation, and
 Take necessary steps for its prevention.
Answer 9
In case a co-worker acts unethically, one can or should:
 Firstly, consult employee handbook to find out whether an act is unethical.
 Secondly, discuss the issue with the co-worker tactfully in private, by explaining the
reasons and consequences.
 Thirdly, not to help in such unethical work or be a part of it.
 Fourthly, alert the management when such unethical conduct crosses the line and can be a
danger to the company.

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Answer 10
Some of the key regulatory bodies are:
 Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission: It regulates the national charity.
 Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC): regulates and ensures
that business and individuals comply with fair trading and consumer laws and also
compliance with commonwealth competition.
 Australian Federal Police (AFP): It safeguards interests of the commonwealth and
investigates complex and serious crime against the Commonwealth.
Other than these, the AFSA, APRA. ASX, ATO and Chi-X are some of the other
regulatory bodies (Khan & Hashemi, 2017).
Answer 11
Organizations are required to be accredited because accreditation can assist an
organization to implement tools for improving quality, outcomes and performance and helps in
increasing capacity and makes the organization efficient (Barzansky et al., 2015). Also, it
reduces risk and provides consumers with confidence.
Accreditation can be achieved by the following ways:
 A consumer focus
 Effective leadership
 Continuous improvement
 Evidence by outcomes

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 Striving for the best practice
Answer 12
The ongoing cycle of review and evaluation of the procedures and processes in an
organization is called continuous improvement process (Hegade, Rajkumar & Murthy, 2017).
With the help of this process, the staff and volunteers can also contribute to the way a work goes
on. Organizations can make use of this process by implementing policies regarding this process,
which will help in refining the way a work is done, more effective and efficient.
References:

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Barzansky, B., Hunt, D., Moineau, G., Ahn, D., Lai, C. W., Humphrey, H., & Peterson, L.
(2015). Continuous quality improvement in an accreditation system for undergraduate
medical education: Benefits and challenges. Medical teacher, 37(11), 1032-1038.
Bryce, H. J. (2017). Financial and strategic management for nonprofit organizations. Walter de
Gruyter GmbH & Co KG.
Hegade, A., Rajkumar, S. G., & Murthy, S. (2017). Standardization of Continuous Improvement
Process.
Kadushin, A., & Harkness, D. (2014). Supervision in social work. Columbia University Press.
Khan, F., & Hashemi, S. J. (2017). Introduction. In Methods in Chemical Process Safety (Vol. 1,
pp. 1-36). Elsevier.
Tricker, R. B., & Tricker, R. I. (2015). Corporate governance: Principles, policies, and
practices. Oxford University Press, USA.