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The Ethics of Self-Care in Social Work Practice

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1.  Which of the following is an example of “professional self-care”?
  1. Going to a movie for the pure fun of it.
  2. Eating a nutritious meal.
  3. Setting reasonable limits on the number of clients that a social worker sees each day.
  4. Going for a nice long run for cardio exercise.
2.  Which of the following is an example of “personal self-care”?
  1. Obtaining clinical consultation to assist with how to help a current client.
  2. Participating in a webinar on social work ethics.
  3. Buying a new computer for work purposes.
  4. Seeing a physician when sick.
3.  In terms of social workers’ ethical duties to clients, “self-care” is particularly important because it helps social workers:
  1. Have fun.
  2. Practice with integrity.
  3. Comply with the policies of their employer.
  4. Earn more money.
4.  Betty (a social worker) feels too tired to work today but does not want to cancel client appointments because they may need her help. This situation raises a conflict between the ethical principles of:
  1. Self-care and commitment to clients.
  2. Honesty and self-disclosure.
  3. Social justice and social injustice.
  4. None of the above
5.  A client asks a social worker to help her with something that conflicts with the social worker’s core values and ethical principles. Complying with the client request would cause a type of conflict called:
  1. Ethical distress.
  2. Absolute selfishness.
  3. The facts of life are all about you.
  4. Informed consent.
6.  Baloo (a social worker) is helping Jasmine, who is going through a challenging divorce process. Baloo is also going through a difficult divorce process. In this situation, Baloo should engage in self-care by:
  1. Focusing on Jasmine’s needs and ignoring his own.
  2. Being aware of and working through his own thoughts and feelings about his divorce so they do not negatively affect his work with Jasmine.
  3. Terminating work with Jasmine immediately because Baloo’s needs (as social worker) are more important than Jasmine’s needs.
  4. Reporting himself to his professional licensing board for a statutory violation.
7.  When social workers experience conflict between their own well being and a duty to serve clients, they should:
  1. Always prioritize the social worker’s own needs.
  2. Retire from practice immediately.
  3. Obtain assistance from a supervisor, consultant, or other appropriate sources of help.
  4. Ask the client to help them with their problems so that the client can enjoy providing the worker with reciprocal help.
8.  A social worker’s partner recently died. The funeral is today. The social worker should:
  1. Ignore his feelings and skip going to the funeral in order to serve clients.
  2. Have a colleague or support person from their office contact clients to let them know the worker is not available today and offer alternate services, as needed.
  3. Call clients to let them know that he is attending a spouse’s funeral and is too depressed to help clients today.
  4. Go to the funeral and avoid talking to clients or professional colleagues for at least three weeks.
9.  Kyla (a social worker) gets headaches when looking at a computer screen for too long. Her agency switched from in-person services to fully virtual services through videoconferencing. Kyla should:
  1. Refuse to provide online services regardless of agency policy or client needs.
  2. Provide all services through videoconferencing and focus only on the clients’ needs (not her own)
  3. Work with her agency to come up with a solution that meets everyone’s needs: the clients’, the agency’s, and hers.
  4. Provide in-person services to half of the clients to reduce her screen time, but do not inform the agency
10.  Rylie’s agency recently lost two of its social workers. To ensure that clients continue to receive services, the agency asks Rylie to work 10 extra hours per week. Rylie is concerned that doing this much overtime will lead to stress and burnout. Which of the following statements would be the most constructive way for Rylie to engage her agency in a discussion about the importance of self-care and ways to balance the interests of clients and workers?
  1. “You can’t require me to work overtime. You would be violating my professional code of ethics and could be punished.”
  2. “I love working overtime [said in a sarcastic tone]. Why just 10 hours of overtime? Why not 20 or 30?”
  3. “You don’t care about me or any of the other frontline social workers. All you care about is how much money that we are making for this organization. Until you start caring about us, you’re going to keep on losing social workers, clients, and the almighty profits that you cherish so much.”
  4. “I know we have a shortage of social workers and we want to make sure our clients’ needs are met. I’m also concerned that if we do too much overtime, we’ll burn out and won’t be able to serve clients effectively. I’m wondering what other options we could consider.”

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