Developing a Code of Ethics amongst Social Workers in Supported Employment: Exploring the Socio-ecological Model

Abstract

This study reveals the ethical dilemmas encountered by social workers who mentor workers with intellectual and developmental disabilities that work in the free labour market through supported employment frameworks. The aim of the study is to examine the social workers' ethical dilemmas, while extracting rules of conduct and ethical codes that are unique to supported employment frameworks, through team simulation training. The study included forty-eight social workers who attended nine sessions in the course of one year. The findings, which were analysed using a qualitative methodology, revealed that the dilemmas, rules of ethical conduct and the derived ethical codes ranged from flexible solutions to setting firm boundaries. It emerged that the ethical dilemmas were associated with interactions that take place on all layers of the socio-ecological model. The contribution of the study is in developing an ecological approach to coping with the multidimensional dilemmas that arise in the context of supported employment. The findings will help develop a systemic approach amongst social workers towards coping with the ethical challenges involved in this type of employment.

Proposing a new model for long-term learning among mid-level school leaders: toward enhancing organizational learning via simulation training

“…In continuation to previous studies focusing on the socioecological model in the context of team-based simulations (TBS) in a variety of organizations, including educational systems (Shapira-Lishchinsky et al, 2016Ben-Amram, 2016), the proposed model goes beyond Bronfenbrenner's original model, with the emergence of additional dimensions (e.g. technology and economics) as contributing to long-term learning of mid-level leaders in the social-ethical context (Shapira-Lishchinsky, 2013;Shapira-Lishchinsky, 2014;Shapira-Lishchinsky et al, 2016;Zavelevsky and Shapira-Lishchinsky, 2019;Shapira-Lishchinsky and Ben-Amram, 2020).…”