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Respect for the Dignity and Uniqueness of the Individual: This value or principle has also been called individualization, which means viewing and treating each person as unique and worthwhile. The social work profession firmly believes that everyone has inherent dignity, which is to be respected. Every human being is unique in a variety of ways-value system, personality, goals in life, financial resources, emotional and physical strengths, personal concerns, past experiences, peer pressures, emotional reactions, self-identity, family relationships, and behavioral patterns. In working with a client, a social worker needs to perceive and respect the uniqueness of the client's situation. Individualization is relatively easy for a social worker to achieve when clients have values, goals, behavioral patterns, and personal characteristics that are similar to those of the worker. It is harder to achieve when clients have values or behavioral patterns that the worker views as unpleasant.
Clients' Right to Self-Determination: This principle asserts that clients have the right to hold and express their own opinions and to act on them, as long as doing so does not infringe on the rights of others. This principle is in sharp contrast to the layperson's perception that social workers seek to remold clients into a pattern chosen by the workers. Rather, the efforts of social workers are geared to enhancing the capability of clients to help themselves. Client self-determination derives logically from the belief in the inherent dignity of each person. If people have dignity, then it follows that they should be permitted to determine their own lifestyles as far as possible.
Confidentiality: Confidentiality is the implicit or explicit agreement between a professional and a client to maintain the privacy of information about the client. An absolute implementation of this principle means that disclosures made to the professional are not shared with anyone else, except when authorized by the client in writing or required by law. Because of the principle of confidentiality, professionals can be sued if they disclose unauthorized information that has a damaging effect on the client. Confidentiality is important because clients are not likely to share their hidden secrets, personal concerns, and asocial thoughts and actions with a professional who might reveal that information to others. A basic principle of counseling is that clients must feel comfortable in fully revealing themselves to the professional, without fear that their revelations will be used against them.
Advocacy and Social Action for the Oppressed: Social work recognizes an obligation to advocate for the powerless, oppressed, and the dispossessed. Social work believes that society has a responsibility to all of its members to provide security, acceptance, and satisfaction of basic cultural, social, and biological needs. Only when our basic needs are met can we develop our maximum potentials. Because social work believes in the value of the individual, it has a special responsibility to protect and secure civil rights for all oppressed people and groups. Social workers have a moral responsibility to work toward eradicating discrimination. The civil rights of clients need to be protected to preserve human dignity and self-respect.
Accountability: Increasingly, federal and state governmental units and private funding sources are requiring that the effectiveness of service programs be measured. Programs found to be ineffective are being phased out. Although some social workers view accountability with trepidation and claim that the paperwork involved interferes with serving clients, social work has an obligation to funding sources to provide the highest-quality services. Accountability studies have yielded some valuable information.
Social workers need to become skilled at evaluating their effectiveness in providing services. A wide variety of evaluation techniques are now available to assess effectiveness of current services and to identify unmet needs and service gaps. One of the most useful approaches is management by objectives (MBO). This technique involves identifying the objectives of each program, specifying in measurable terms how and when these objectives are met, and then periodically measuring the extent to which the objectives are met.
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