Values, Discrimination and Difference

Value is defined as ‘principles or standards of behaviour; ones judgement of what is important in life’. Everyone has their own values which they have developed throughout their lives. This essay will explain how our own values are learnt and at what stages, in addition to this it will explain the importance of BASW within Social Work, finally it will look at Anti Discriminative Practice and Equal Opportunities.

Social Work Practitioners began exploring and writing about the professions core values, such as client dignity, self worth, self determination and confidentiality. These important discussions and analyses sought to explore the implications of Social Works central Values, especially when there were conflicts with the professions values and the social workers own values. This was turbulent in the 1960’s and early 1070’s. Social work authors wrote about complex connections between social work values and contemporary controversies with civil rights, women’s rights, welfare rights, discrimination, and abortion.
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Values are commonly developed with on our early years by our families teaching us, known as Primary Socialisation. This usually taking place from birth to 5 years during this time learning our parent’s views and beliefs is an essential part of growing up, in some cases if values were missing through abuse or separation from families and never cared for properly, could lead to there being no principle guiding them or helping them follow the correct path. Without Primary Socialisation Sociologist such as Parsons, believes that child may grow up with behaviour problems and thus not fitting in with social norms.
Secondary Socialisation comes when a child starts school at the age of 5, making new friends with children who can have very different values to their own. Parsons suggested that schools often bridge the gap between primary and secondary socialisation.
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Our own values and ethics are important in Social Services today, it helps us to empathise and show compassion when necessary with a service user. Not having our own values, could mean that we do not make fair judgement on situations such a abuse, although there must be a balance of our own ethics along with the ethics set out by BASW (British Association of Social Workers), if we do not follow BASW then we could as Social Workers be accused of prejudice or for not listening to the service user.
BASW has a code of ethics say that ‘Social Work grew out of humanitarian and democratic ideas, and its values are based on respect for equality, worth and dignity of all people [http;//cdn.basw.co.uk] this means that our values must not interfere with us treating all services users with respect and dignity they deserve and never discriminate them. BASW also states that as Social Workers we ‘address the barriers, inequalities that exist in society. It responds to crises and emergencies as well as to everyday personal and social problems’ [http;//cdn.basw.co.uk]. This shows the importance of Social Works and the varied roles in society they play and how it’s critical that they follow the correct code of ethics and know BASW completely.

The potential effects of discrimination can be different for different people, effects may be physical, emotional or both, for example a disabled child at school may not be given a chance to join in with certain activities as staff may think they are unable to do the activity. This will make the child feel left out and different from others. Social workers are humans, and as such are subject to and influenced by the same beliefs, attitudes and behaviours as the rest of society. Discrimination occurs as a result of a particular prejudice, whether this is conscious or unconscious. Being critically reflective and open to, and willing to, challenge is an essential element of being a professional social worker. Discrimination in the work place