Download
1 / 44
440 likes | 765 Views
Title Layout. The Odd Couple of Ethics and CQI. Training Outline. Part 1 – Ethics Part 1½ – Continuous Quality Improvement Part 2 – Putting them together. Introductions.
E N D
Title Layout The Odd Couple of Ethics and CQI
Training Outline • Part 1 – Ethics • Part 1½ – Continuous Quality Improvement • Part 2 – Putting them together
Introductions • Let’s take a moment to introduce ourselves. Very briefly, give your name, your agency, and, if you have a professional license, what it’s in.
Human Behavior – Why We Do What We Do. • What drives human behavior?
Human Behavior – Why We Do What We Do. • According to Maslow, our basic needs motivate us. Food, water, shelter, procreation. • After those basic needs are met, we move on to safety, social needs, esteem, and finally self-actualization. • We are also driven by the “Pleasure Principle”, the idea that humans, as most creatures, seek pleasure and avoid pain as a survival tool. • We learn how to meet our needs from family, community, and culture, but also from trial and error. • From meeting these needs (or not) we seek other experiences to either continue doing what we’re doing or to change.
So what’s that have to do with me? • Each person then develops their own moral code about what’s right and wrong, good or bad, depending on their own personal experiences from getting along in life. The problem is, what one person thinks is just fine, another person may not feel is quite right. • If it feels good, do it!
But why can’t I just do what I want? • We each use our own beliefs as the moral compass that guides our behavior. For yourself in your own home, that’s just fine. • But when we are responsible for others or to others, we can’t just do what we want. • The saying is, “When you enjoy what you do, you never have to work a day in your life”, not, “When you never work a day in your life, you enjoy what you do”.
Ethics: Background and Importance • The term ethics comes from the Greek ethos meaning “moral character, nature, disposition, habit, custom” as defined by the British Dictionary • Ethics function as a social, religious, or civil code of behavior considered correct, especially that of a particular group, profession, or individual. • Ethics describe the morals of an organization which are: of, relating to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong; ethical: moral attitudes. • “Reading about ethics is about as likely to improve one's behavior as reading about sports is to make one into an athlete.” Mason Cooley
Competing Ethics – A Moral Dilemma • How do we determine what (or who) is right? • Why is it important to have a consistent understanding of this?
Competing Ethics – A Moral Dilemma • Obviously, not everyone is going to agree about everything. But unless we want anarchy, we have to have a system to determine what point of view is largely accepted by the group. People want to know what is expected of them and want to understand the structure of the system they are in. This helps us all get along.
Legislating Morality • Back in the day, the Pharaoh, king, priest, or other ruling body would decide what was right and wrong, creating laws or codes to govern the people. • In our democratic government, the people decide, through representatives, what laws will rule the land. This comes in the form of the Constitution and its amendments, including the Bill of Rights, as well as other laws that are created. • These translate to and influence state and local laws.
Legislating Morality • On a business level, agencies have policies and procedures that act as laws or guidelines for employee behavior. These policies and procedures can also contain a code of ethics. • From a professional standpoint, most professions have codes of ethics that guide the behavior of its members.
Legislating Morality • On a business level, agencies have policies and procedures that act as laws or guidelines for employee behavior. These policies and procedures can also contain a code of ethics. • From a professional standpoint, most professions have codes of ethics that guide the behavior of its members.
An exercise in ethics • Please jot down (or make a mental note if you don’t have a pen and paper) your top 5 priorities as a professional.
The Social Work Code of ethics • 1.01 Commitment to Clients: Social workers' primary responsibility is to promote the well-being of clients. In general, clients' interests are primary. However, social workers' responsibility to the larger society or specific legal obligations may on limited occasions supersede the loyalty owed clients, and clients should be so advised. (Examples include when a social worker is required by law to report that a client has abused a child or has threatened to harm self or others.)
While professional codes of ethics are important, going through the ins and outs of those is not what this training is all about. If you hold a professional license, you’re required to review that before your license renewal anyways, so we’re gonna skip all that mumbo jumbo. If you feel like you’re getting gipped and have a burning desire to go through the code of ethics thoroughly, look them up tonight while you’re watching Golden Girls at: • cswmft.oh.gov • or for you chemical dependency people: ocdp.ohio.gov • If you’re part of another profession, you probably already have their website
Do the right thing! • An important part of ethics is doing the right thing, even when it is not popular or may cause someone to be angry with you. In some ways, it’s like raising children. While your child may not always like, or understand, decisions you are making, you as the parent usually have more knowledge and experience to help you to guide that child’s behavior.
Am I my brother’s keeper? • If you are bound by a code of ethics, this code also makes you responsible for the behavior of your co-workers and others who affect your clients. If there is wrong-doing going on, you have the responsibility to address this wrong-doing with the individual, and, if necessary, report it to their superior or to the board. This can be one of the toughest things we do as professionals, but if we don’t, we become just as guilty of the wrong-doing as the doer.
Complicity • In some cases, the wrong-doing is actually illegal. For our population, having a sexual relationship with a client, sharing confidential information, practicing without a license, and even failing to report certain crimes is itself a crime. Again, tough to do, but covering for your co-worker could cause you at best to lose your job and at worst to go to jail. • An individual is complicit in a crime if he is aware of its occurrence and has the ability to report the crime, but fails to do so. As such, the individual effectively allows criminals to carry out a crime despite potentially being able to stop it from happening, either directly or by contacting the authorities. The offender is a de facto accessory to the crime, rather than an innocent bystander. • Reference: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complicity
Ethics? We don’t need no stinkin’ ethics! • Even if you’re not a licensed person, ethics still affect you. If you are a public employee, you have specific laws that govern your behavior, even when you’re not at work. This is called Ohio’s Ethics Law.
Ohio’s Ethics Law • January 1, 1974 • Administered by the Ohio Ethics Commission • Education, Financial Disclosure, Advisory Opinions & Investigations • Supreme Court Board of Commissioners on Grievances & Discipline • Elected Officials & Employees & Citizens & Private Sector • For further information, go to www.ethics.ohio.gov/
Conflict of Interest Anytime a public official or employee’s ability to be an objective decision maker is impaired by his/her own personal interests, or the interests of a family member or business associate
Part 1 ½: Continuous Quality Improvement • Now that we understand how we make decisions using ethics, we’re going to shift gears into understanding how to improve the outcomes of these decisions in a structured, organized way.
It could be worse! • Yeah, but it could be a whole lot better, too. Quality improvement, as we’ll see, takes not only the worker, but management, as well. And when it’s done right, the whole system will participate in the change process.
Verb (used with object), integrated, integrating. 1. to bring together or incorporate (parts) into a whole. 2. to make up, combine, or complete to produce a whole or a larger unit, as parts do. 3. to unite or combine. 4. to give or cause to give equal opportunity and consideration to (a racial, religious, or ethnic group or a member of such a group): to integrate minority groups in the school system. 5. to combine (previously segregated educational facilities, classes, and the like) into one unified system; desegregate. 6. to give or cause to give members of all racial, religious, and ethnic groups an equal opportunity to belong to, be employed by, be customers of, or vote in (an organization, place of business, city, state, etc.): to integrate a restaurant; to integrate a country club. 7. Mathematics. to find the value of the integral of (a function). Integrate
Integrity – Matching Morals with Behavior • We have guidelines to help us make good decisions. • It’s human nature to want to do what we want to do. Everyone is like that. The best of us sometimes slip up and make a mistake. Most of us work to learn from these mistakes and not make them again. • The hope is that we get to the point where can make these decisions independently without being told, not just because we don’t want to get caught, but because it’s the right thing to do. • Integrity is what you do when no one is watching.
