MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
Reaffirming the Value of Social Work Values!
Carmen Ortiz Hendricks, DSW, ACSW, President, NYC Chapter of NASW The 1998 centennial of social work will be seen as an opportunity to promote the value of social
work as contributing to the well-being of society as a whole. But when we look at what
distinguishes one profession from another, it is social work values more than knowledge or skill
which sets social work apart. A profession founded on values may never be as important as in
today's managed care environment which values low costs and fast services, values which may at
times conflict with quality patient care. If managed care is here to stay, social workers need to
figure out how to survive in this new environment, and how to become allies of managed care
companies while upholding social work values.
At a recent NASW New York State Chapter conference, Dr. Arthur Kaplan, Director of the Center
for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, articulated the need for a moral vision of what
health care should be about with a clear, simple "values message" about what is quality health care.
The values package that Dr. Kaplan proposed included the establishment of trust as crucial to health
care, along with continuity and advocacy which engender patient trust. In addition, Dr. Kaplan
spoke to the paramount importance of guaranteeing privacy and confidentiality, accountability and
professional integrity, and putting the health care needs of the most vulnerable members of society
first as essential ingredients for a health care system.
Listening to a physician expound on what are in essence social work values reinforced the
appropriateness of social workers voicing the profession's values message at every opportunity, for
example, (a) every social worker needs to fight against further erosion of confidentiality,
advocating to uphold the right to privacy as the highest value for social work professionals and
consumers; (b) social workers will need to advocate for client self-determination and individual
worth when a client's best interests come in conflict with the collective interests of the managed care
group; (c) supporting a consumer's bill of rights includes supporting the rights of consumers to see
the same doctor, nurse or social worker more than once or twice to discuss important quality of life
choices, i.e., options for acute or chronic care, preventive care, elder care, end of life decisions,
genetic testing, etc.; and (d) social workers need to be represented on agency boards, especially
managed care boards, and can also seek to ensure representation by consumers on boards that make
decisions affecting the health care system. And to truly be successful in these endeavors, social
workers need access to and the support of supervisors, consultants, administrators, and professional
organizations that can reinforce accountability and confidentiality as essential to social work
practice.
The market-driven, competitive, managed care environment further underscores the need for social
work to clearly define its role and function. The profession is as much if not more defined by what
we believe in and the values we uphold in daily practice as by the tasks we perform or where we
perform those tasks. Defining social work's scope of practice and securing understanding and
acceptance of this definition by the media, legislators and the public has been an elusive if not major
preoccupation for the profession. Working on licensing for social workers really brings this issue
to the forefront. Few non-social workers recognize that professional integrity based on a values
framework protects the public and is at the very core of why we should be a licensed profession.
We hope to celebrate 1998 as the year of the passage of New York State Licensing for social
workers and the end to 30 years of certification. Licensing is inevitable and essential for the
survival of the profession into the next century. Licensing will further clarify the distinct
contribution of social workers since only graduates of accredited baccalaureate or masters programs
in social work who pass an examination will be able to practice social work or call themselves social
workers. Licensing will provide social workers with a powerful new tool to forge distinct roles and
asseert what social workers do best. But the most defining aspect of our profession is contained
within the profession's value base and further explicated in the 1997 NASW Code of Ethics. To
reaffirm the value of social work, to ourselves and others, we need to point to the values which
make social work distinctly social work.
(November/December 1997)