Disrupting social work ethics

Social work locates itself as a value-based profession. The profession would not hold such status without an ethical framework and code to practice social work purpose and functions. Without ethics, we could not apply the values and theories of social work at microthrough to macrolevels of practice. Indeed, ethics ensures our operational framework and accountability to the communities we serve. Social work has a broad array of roles and fields of practice that are largely brought together by a shared set of core values and ethical codes. On the surface, this all seems clear but social work ethics are a contested and dynamic area of scholarship and practice. The complexity of these issues has only increased in recent years both due to crises, as well as the rapid changes in factors such as digital and information technologies, climate change, health care, migration, displacement, and economic disparities. At the same time, critical thinkers and activists have challenged both structures and taken-for-granted positions that have been prefaced on the foundations of powerful constructs such as colonialism, patriarchy, racism, managerialism, homophobia, and other paradigms of overt and covert discrimination. This has disrupted established ethical practice. For example, the concepts of social justice as evidenced in theoretical, practice, and ethical frameworks has expanded in a broader understanding not currently fully operationalised in codes of ethics (Atteberry-Ash, 2023). Many contemporary questions that dynamically challenge taken-forgranted concepts contribute to the evolution of social work so that it can meet the challenges of a rapidly changing and diverse world. This brings challenges for international social work where local is global and vice versa. Social work ethics in the contemporary international contexts is complex and contextual. Healy (2007) has suggested that in the global context, social work should take a moderately universalist stance to ethics, where diversity and human rights are respected. Recent challenges stemming from the rapid development of digital and social media technologies, along with unexpected shocks such as the pandemic have required a re-think of how to apply social work ethics while ensuring the profession continues to deliver contemporary and effective practice. Adherence to our ethics is a fundamental expectation; it is also a lightning rod for social workers to debate and take positions that can be oppositional to structures and practices that breach our core values. This often confronts structural oppression and discrimination as well as asking fundamental questions regarding whose interests are being served and what are the implicit biases in ethical assertions. At the same time, social work must operate within some of these very structures it clashes with. How do we keep a delicate balance of not being complicit but collaborating enough with systems to enable change? Unavoidably, this places practitioners in grey areas. For example, dilemmas and concerns arise quickly where social work risks taking an imperialist stand by taking universalist standpoint without adequate attention to the impact of colonialism and a relativist context which can leave out Indigenous perspectives (Gray, 2005). This is why social work ethics are complex and contextual. 1170078 ISW0010.1177/00208728231170078International Social WorkEditorial editorial2023