Open Access
Ethical decision-making of social workers in Spain during COVID-19: cases and responses
(SAGE, 2021) Úriz Pemán, María Jesús; Viscarret Garro, Juan Jesús; Ballestero Izquierdo, Alberto; Sociología y Trabajo Social; Soziologia eta Gizarte Lana
In this article we address the ethical decision-making processes of social work professionals in Spain during the first wave of COVID-19. We present some of the findings from a broader international research project led by professor Sarah Banks and carried out in collaboration with the International Federation of Social Workers. The first wave of COVID-19 had a major impact in Spain, hitting harder the most vulnerable groups. In this unprecedented and unexpected context, social workers had to make difficult ethical decisions on fundamental issues such as respecting service-user’s autonomy, prioritizing wellbeing, maintaining confidentiality or deciding the fair distribution of the scarce resources. There were moments of uncertainty and difficult institutional responses. The broader international project was carried out using an online questionnaire addressed to social work professionals in several countries. In this article, through several specific cases, we examine the ethical decision-making processes of social work professionals in Spain, as well as the way to resolve that situations. We have used a qualitative content analysis with a deductive approach to analyze the responses and cases. Findings show many difficult situations concerning the prioritization of the wellbeing of users without limiting their autonomy, the invention of new organizational protocols to provide support and resources for vulnerable people… Social workers had to manage the bureaucracy and had to solve some emergency situations getting personally involved or developing other cooperation mechanisms. The pandemic forced them to look for new forms of social intervention. © The Author(s) 2021.
Open Access
Ethical dilemmas and areas of social work intervention in Spain
(Taylor & Francis, 2018) Viscarret Garro, Juan Jesús; Idareta Goldaracena, Francisco; Ballestero Izquierdo, Alberto; Úriz Pemán, María Jesús; Sociología y Trabajo Social; Soziologia eta Gizarte Lana
The purpose of this study is to identify the types of ethical dilemmas that Spanish social workers face in their respective areas of intervention. The intervention areas that have been studied are health, children, immigrants, women, family, marginalized persons, ethnic minorities, young people, prisoners, elderly people, refugees and asylum seekers, schools and social and employment-related integration, mental health, disability and drug addictions. A quantitative methodology was chosen using a version of the questionnaire prepared by Eileen J. Ain in a sample of 700 Spanish social workers. The statistical analysis shows the correlation between the different areas of intervention in Social Work and the most significant ethical dilemmas that such professionals have to solve. The most pertinent ethical dilemmas are found in the healthcare sector (confidentiality, disclosure of personal information and patient autonomy). The article is an important contribution for Social Work at the national level that emphasizes the importance of the ethics of Social Work in social interventions. It is proposed to deepen the investigation of each of the areas of intervention for future research, as well as to carry out comparative studies between different countries.
Open Access
Ethical challenges of social work in Spain during COVID-19
(NTNU, 2023) Úriz Pemán, María Jesús; Viscarret Garro, Juan Jesús; Ballestero Izquierdo, Alberto; Sociología y Trabajo Social; Soziologia eta Gizarte Lana
This article presents the main ethical challenges faced by social work professionals in Spain during the "first wave" of COVID-19 in 2020. The pandemic had a serious impact not only on the health sector, but also in the field of social work. During this time, social workers had to address serious ethical questions regarding issues such as confidentiality breaches, how to fairly distribute available resources, the lack of personal contact and emotional connection with the service users, the difficulties of working in isolation and online, doubts about the reliability of the information they were handling and the difficulty of making proper diagnoses. An international research group led by Dr.Sara Banks conducted a broader research project in collaboration with the International Federation of Social Workers,which collected information through an online questionnaire aimed at social workers from various countries. In this article we analyse the results related tothe main ethical challenges faced by social workersin Spain.The research group identified two types of ethical challenges that they haveseparated into two sections: the first sectionis related to direct interventionwith users, which includes topics such as the lack of emotional support, reliability, use of technology, the appropriate care, compliance with the highest professional standards,confidentiality, vulnerability, and the fair distributionof resources. The other sectionis related to the ethical challenges around the daily workwithin social entities, which involveddealing with issues such as the e-social work and coordination difficulties, the management of pressure in social bodies and changes in the intervention methodology.

Viscarret Garro, Juan Jesús

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