Exercise your decision-making skills by working through real-life ethical dilemmas.

Social workers and mental health professionals must develop skills to balance their roles as human service workers and actors in the legal system. Yet until they experience real-world situations, few have an opportunity to apply legal and ethical reasoning to the kinds of dilemmas faced in daily practice. Without legal training, it can be difficult to understand one's legal roles and obligations.

Managing Ethical and Legal Dilemmas examines specific problem areas involving children, families, agencies, legislation, and policy-making brought to life by case studies and vignettes. You’ll develop the skills to apply ethical and legal decision-making to the kinds of situations you’ll encounter while practising.

Some important topics covered in this text are

• The use of self
• Defining the self
• The institutional self
• The sociopolitical self
• The intersection of law and social work
• Similarities between the professions
• Unique functions of social workers in the legal system — Representing clients before tribunals, forensic social work, mitigation specialists, collaborating with police officers, the benefits of collaboration, a criminal justice example
• Practice issues and case vignettes
• Child welfare
• Custody and access
• Youth criminal justice
• Implications of social media and technology
• Suicidal ideation