TY - JOUR
T1 - Social Work Is a Human Rights Profession
AU - Mapp, Susan
AU - McPherson, Jane
AU - Androff, David
AU - Gatenio Gabel, Shirley
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 National Association of Social Workers.
PY - 2019/7/2
Y1 - 2019/7/2
N2 - As defined by the International Federation of Social Workers, social work is a human rights profession. This is explicitly stated in the professional codes of ethics in many nations. However, the most recent version of the Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers continues to exclude any mention of human rights, fitting in with the history of U.S. exceptionalism on this subject. Social workers around the world have a long history of working for the achievement of human rights, including an explicit grounding of practice in human rights principles: Human dignity, nondiscrimination, participation, transparency, and accountability. Utilizing these principles, U.S. social workers can move from the deficit model of the needs-based approach to competently contextualizing individual issues in their larger human rights framework. In this way, social work can address larger social problems and make way for the concurrent achievement of human rights. This article explains these principles and provides a case example of how to apply them in practice.
AB - As defined by the International Federation of Social Workers, social work is a human rights profession. This is explicitly stated in the professional codes of ethics in many nations. However, the most recent version of the Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers continues to exclude any mention of human rights, fitting in with the history of U.S. exceptionalism on this subject. Social workers around the world have a long history of working for the achievement of human rights, including an explicit grounding of practice in human rights principles: Human dignity, nondiscrimination, participation, transparency, and accountability. Utilizing these principles, U.S. social workers can move from the deficit model of the needs-based approach to competently contextualizing individual issues in their larger human rights framework. In this way, social work can address larger social problems and make way for the concurrent achievement of human rights. This article explains these principles and provides a case example of how to apply them in practice.
KW - Code of Ethics
KW - human rights
KW - social work practice
KW - social work profession
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85069330358&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85069330358&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1093/sw/swz023
DO - 10.1093/sw/swz023
M3 - Article
C2 - 31190070
AN - SCOPUS:85069330358
SN - 0037-8046
VL - 64
SP - 259
EP - 269
JO - Social Work (United States)
JF - Social Work (United States)
IS - 3
ER -