Social Work 8 Essay: Exploring Contemporary Issues in the Field

This essay delves into contemporary issues within the social work profession, examining the complexities of professional and personal boundaries, ethical and legal considerations, and the impact of these factors on practice. The essay focuses on challenges faced by social workers, such as skill utilization, employer-employee dynamics, and the importance of self-disclosure. It explores how issues like employee anxiety and lack of resources affect the profession. The essay also highlights the ethical and legal obligations of employers, including the Employment Equality Act and Equal Status Acts, emphasizing the need for a stress-free workplace and the importance of assessing employee mental health. Furthermore, the essay underscores the significance of psychological assessments and the need for social workers to empower candidates for self-disclosure, while also addressing the importance of ethical considerations and legal compliance in ensuring the well-being of both employees and the students they serve. The essay emphasizes the need to balance ethical practices with legal requirements.

CONTEMPORARY ISSUE IN SOCIAL WORK
STUDENT DETAILS

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The main focus of the essay here is on the social work profession and the manner in which
people are placed and the professional as well as the personal boundaries revolving around it.
Also other few aspects that are being discussed in the below essay are the legal as well as
ethical practices revolving around the social work profession and the professional identity it
beholds. It has been noticed that an individual faces various contemporary issues during
his/her placement, these contemporary issues happen from the side of the employer and from
the side of the employee. Moreover, a brief reflection of the implications for the specific
domain of practice will also be incorporated in this section. All the above points will be
explained to the base of self-disclosure, boundaries and professional identity. The purpose of
this essay is to encourage the participation of young people in learning and educating those
students who faces challenges in attending school because of their socio-economic
background, social anxieties, culture factual, and as such as. These ones help assist the people
working in this social work industry realise the ethical and legal aspects in depth so as to help
them deal with certain scenarios.
The major contemporary issues faced by the social workers in general while being placed
include: individuals being placed somewhere where the skills of these individuals are not put
to use, or even in areas where the talent or skills cannot be utilized by the individual as such.
Also there are cases where the individuals do not opt for working in certain company or
scenario as such due to either lack of goodwill or lack of finances or as such. Every candidate
wishes to work for a particular company that is quite well known or holds power in the
market. There is a very less number of individuals who directly apply to the small companies
or organizations as everyone wishes to work for the best in the industry in order to build
contacts or earn better. The mentality revolving around building their careers through their
work is something individuals are focused upon here and generate a regular income for
themselves. Some of these individuals have been in chronic depression or face anxiety on day

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to day basis. Working with these individuals and motivating them to work harder and better is
something that needs to be done. Another contemporary issue that is faced by these social
workers is to assist people struggling with lack of resources or lack of motivation with
positivity specifically in situations where people despite having access to a vast number of
job opportunities in the market by various companies including streams from various field are
still unable to fend for themselves (Chase, 2015).
These people have set themselves in a personal as well a certain professional boundaries,
which they do not wish to leave and as a result, jobs are abandoned. Through this example it
can be understood better about the challenging self-disclosure parameters. For example:
(from the perspective of Cork City learning support) Coke city learning support expects that
their selected volunteers should generate a self-disclosure in front of them about their own
anxiety and other social issues (Mackay and Zufferey, 2015). As, after selecting the volunteer
and allocating them their roles and responsibility to teach students between the age group of
12 to 18 years (who are dealing with anxiety and other social issues) it is noticed that the
volunteer itself is dealing with the stress and major anxiety issues. Thus, from an employer
perspective, it is very much important that volunteers themselves have enclosed all of their
social issues so that the employer itself can conduct an effective analysis of the capabilities of
the candidates (Higham, 2006).
Now, it is also important to see this analysis also from the perspective of the employee. As
when an employee decides to align with the social workers that provide with the best possible
options available, try to not discuss any mental issues or do not talk about the social issues for
the fear that it might in some or the other manner affect the connection with the social
workers. But, these social workers instead work for the better understanding so that there is
no social issue or mental issue for that matter revolving around the prospect employee as well
as the employer as well. However, in many cases, it is also noticed that sometimes even

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candidates are not aware that they are suffering from issues like depression and anxiety
(Reamer, 2015). In any such cases, the social workers since do not know much about the
issues faced by the workers or prospect employees are not able to work effectively. This
makes the image of the social workers at stake as they are unable to provide with the apt
information or at least help them out in the best way possible. Sometimes in order to gain
knowledge regarding the mental state of the individuals, the social workers also try to
conduct certain tests in order to make sure about the level of mental state of these individuals.
These also result in the increase of attrition rates which again pose as an issue for these social
workers. In this following this cycle starts and it is extremely important to understand the
perspective of the both (Curry, Mullins and Whitehouse, 2019).
Apart from this, the management of these social work organizations have the basic guideline
to select effective candidates that can teach students between the age of 12 to 18 years old
who faces difficulty in attending schools. These social workers help or at least promote the
behaviour where the candidates should themselves disclose all of their flaws, their working
boundaries and their actual experience in the professional world (Reamer, 2006). However,
on a practical basis, in every social work related organization they have concluded that
candidates are never so open or try to conduct a self-disclose process by themselves (Spano
and Koenig, 2007). Moreover, if someone asks them any questions concerning the working
boundaries and practical experience in the professional identity then it is the general sense
that candidates will say that they have great working ethics and they have gained many
practical aspects from the professional identity point of view (Reamer, 2014).
Lowering down the attrition rate is also very important here, so in short, it can summarize
that this suggested recommendation will help the association to analyses about the
candidate’s boundaries and professional identity and this will also help the association to
lower down the employee attrition rate effectively and efficiently Moreover, for the self-

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disclosure part, it is suggested to the group that they should translate their social motive in
front of the candidate and then they management should directly request from the candidate
to disclose their inner demons or if they are itself suffering from any such issue. The ethical
issue here still relies is, that is it fine to go ahead with hiring people who are not mentally
stable and hire them on the basis of their own skills? Though no one here is stopping
individuals to be hired, a disclosure regarding their mental and health related state in general
is a must as it provides assistance to the employers in order to decide whether they want
people with such kind of disability in their work place or not (Richards-Schuster, Ruffolo
and Nicoll, 2015).
As when talked regarding the ethical scenario revolving around it, the ethics at a workplace
clearly state that the employer has to know regarding the mental state or the challenges one is
facing while working there in order to help remove the issue or even try to help the
individuals recover from that in order to help them achieve better. But the practical scenario
says something else as employers are not very acceptable of the employees facing issues in
regards with the mental health as it affects the work. When talked about legal aspect,
according to the Employment Equality Act (EEA), the association has to take care of all the
nine grounds which are covered by EEA. All of these 9 grounds are related to the mental
health of the candidates. As per the applications of this law, the social workers have to make
sure that these individuals are taken care for well and the work they are supposed to do or are
being hired for do not face issues and the work does not pose as a hinderance to the growth of
individuals by creating depression and anxiety within them. If it is analyzed that the
employee is in adverse issues due to the surrounding of the workplace then it can put
management in serious legal consideration. Moreover, the Equal Status Acts 2000-2015
(ESA’s) also defines that employers should effectively judge the mental health condition of
their employees before offering them the job. On the other side, the duty of the employer

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does not end here because employers also have to offer a stress-free workplace environment
to the candidate and they have to take care of the well-being of their employer in an effective
and efficient way possible (Citizensinformation.ie, 2020).
With this legal consideration, the employers also have to fulfill other legal consideration such
as minimum wage act which is the National Minimum Wage Act, 2000, redundancy
compensation which is implied by the Redundancy Payments Act, 1967, minimum notice
period which is specified by Employments Act 1973, health and safety are being stated by the
Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005, maternity and paternity protection as talked
about in the Maternity Protection Acts 1994 and 2004 and as such. These are legal actions in
the country that regulated the functioning of an association in Ireland. Failure in following
any of these procedures can put the management in the serious legal problem which can
hamper the short- and long-term conditions of the company (Iclg.com, 2019).
The social workers need to also conduct a psychological test of the employee with the
certified psychologist (Lee, Park and Kang, 2017). Now, a candidate may feel offended when
the social workers talk about mental health regarding them conducting the mental health tests
or as such and then marking their capabilities. In order to avoid making feeling their
candidates offended the social workers should initially explain the nature of work to them. As
the nature of the work is to educate students between 12 to 18 years of age who face major
difficulties in attending schools due to social issues (Thompson, 2009). Thus, it is extremely
important that the social volunteers should be perfectly sound minded because it requires
patience and internal discipline to deal with such students and if the volunteer itself is not
perfectly sound at their psychology and physiology level then they will not be able to educate
students in effective and efficient way (Mik‐Meyer and Silverman, 2019).

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The people that are involved in the social work should follow effective parameters to
empower their candidates for self-disclosure because self-disclosure of the employee about
their phenomena of social parameters is extremely important as the roles and responsibilities
incorporate that the candidate has to provide education to the students who are suffering from
social pressure. Thus, it is required that candidates should be perfectly sound by the mind
because if the candidate is not perfect then on a practical basis it is not possible that they will
able to guide the students in an effective and efficient way. Apart from these, the employers
need to be made aware of the ethical and legal aspects as well so as to make things working
for them and to avoid any discrimination on any level.

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References
Chase, Y.E. (2015) Professional Ethics: Complex Issues for the Social work profession,
Journal of Human Behaviour in the social environment, 25(7), pp.766-773.
Citizensinformation.ie. (2020) Employer’s obligations in Ireland. Retrieved from:
https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/employment_rights_and_conditions/
employment_rights_and_duties/employer_obligations.html
Coru, (2011) Code of conduct and ethics of social workers. Retrieved from:
http://coru.ie/uploads/documents/typeset_Social_Worker_Code_Feb_2010.pdf
Higham, P. (2006) Social Work: Introducing Professional Practice. London: Sage.
Mackay, T. and Zufferey, C. (2015) A who doing a what?: Identity, practice and social work
education', Journal Of Social Work , 15, 6, pp. 644-661
Iclg.com. (2019) Ireland: Employment & Labour Law 2019. Retrieved from:
https://iclg.com/practice-areas/employment-and-labour-laws-and-regulations/ireland
Curry, OS., Mullins, DA. and Whitehouse, H. (2019) Is It Good to Cooperate? Testing the
Theory of Morality-as-Cooperation in 60 Societies, Current Anthropology, (60)1, np.
Reamer, F. (2015) Clinical social work in a digital environment: Ethical risk management
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Reamer, F. G. (2014) The Evolution of Social Work Ethics: Bearing Witness. Advances In
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Reamer, F.G. (2006) Social work values and ethics (3rd ed.), Columbia University Press,
New York.

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Richards-Schuster, K., Ruffolo, M. C., and Nicoll, K. L. (2015) Integrating Social Work Into
Undergraduate Education Through a Community Action and Social Change Multidisciplinary
Minor. Journal of Social Work Education, 51 (2), 329-342
Spano, R., and Koenig, T. (2007), What is sacred when personal and professional values
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Thompson, N. (2009) Understanding Social Work. Palgrave. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
Mik‐Meyer, N. and Silverman, D. (2019) Agency and clientship in public encounters: co‐
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of sociology, 70(5), pp.1640-1660.
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