We often, in social work, or at least in my experience of social work, talk about professional values. They are evident in our professional standards and codes of ethics which are provided by various regulatory bodies and professional associations but sometimes, it feels — to me, at least — that we take for granted what these ‘values’ actually are, or that there is a commonality of understanding when we talk about what professional values are. Authenticity, Honesty, Advocacy — I’m listing a few as a thought experiment but there is nothing, and intentionally so, that lists what the values one works to, actually are. We are left flailing or interpreting to our hearts’ content.
We rarely ask to define or eluciadate our values and to check our values against those held by other people, including some of the professionals we work with, the people on whose lives we impose ourselves. Shouldn’t we talk more about what we mean when we talk about values in professional and personal spaces? Wouldn’t we do well, even if it is an individual exercise, to write down, think through, or discuss those ‘values’ that guide us.
I am not after definitions, after all, I can look that up, but thinking in terms of the intrinsic ways that I define what it is to work in a way that keeps in mind the centrality of putting the needs of those who receive my input at the heart. Don’t those people, coming to me in the times of their life when they are most reliant on external support, sometimes imposed by the state, need to have a sense of the values I am working towards. Would this create greater trust, greater understanding?
Values can look very different to different people though. I wanted to try and steer away from politics but it is hard to avoid when I see discussion of values in professional spaces. We talk about needing to speak up, for example, but does that follow that one can only be working within the values of one political agenda. One person’s ethical vote is another person’s selfish vote. One person’s ‘free speech’ is another person’s ‘hate speech’. One person’s having some opinions, especially when they entire the space of identity and minorities oppressions, can be disempowering and offensive to another person. I see that myself, as a Jewish woman who has spoken about the need to educate people about what Jewishness means, been challenged by those who feel I am using my identity to silence them. Am I doing this? Not intentionally, but if someone holds their values dearly and has this misunderstanding central to their world view, we become polarised. Bringing identity and history into the mix creates further toxicity and it leads to places where we have two ‘sides’, both believing themselves to be absolutely attached to their ‘values’ while not being prepared to listen to each other.
We may also have a limited understanding of our own value system. I see this played out large in some conversations on social media (and I include myself in this) where people are so convinced of their moral ‘rightness’ they become blind to the views of others, to the extent that the statements become disrespectful or brusque. I have no doubt people making strong moral judgements on specific issues, feel themselves so ‘right’ that any opposition must instrincally be interpreted as being ‘wrong’ but I worry about this, in so far as I make these statements, all too frequently mylself.
I believe in freer immigration policies and therefore anyone who does not agree with me is ‘wrong’. This can be dangerous thinking that I try to guard against, because these are my interpretations of values and I am also attributing causes to the other person in terms of their political views. The only way we can ever move on from intransigence is through conversation although it is increasingly hard to find places for some respectful conversation.
Values do not have to hold one distinct political line. Values don’t have to be ones we hold in common, because the interpretation of what a professional value might be can constantly shift.
If we think about ‘empowerment’ which seems like a concept we can all embrace in terms of groups within society that are ‘disempowered’ but is it possible to hold this value and declare it as an aim, while also holding the power that sits behind it. A feeling of benevolence in declaring that power is to be shared, indicates that it is my decision about when to share it, immediately a disempowering concept.
This is just one example among many, but we need to accept that unless we define values, and I don’t think we should, we have to be careful about declaring which ones have or don’t have worth.
My own values, deeply held, need to be flexible. We cannot have immutable values because society changes, individuals change, we progress and we have to be open to learning to better refine our values. It doesn’t mean there is a purely subjective interpretation. We can argue that dishonesty or deceit would run counter to professional values and yet we know people who are very experienced as professionals who might practice deceit. We need to be able to see our own moral and ethical failings as well as we see other people’s.
