The Social Worker in the Emerging Field of Home Care: Professional Activities and Ethical Concerns

Abstract

Although home care is one of the fastest growing segments of the health care delivery system, there is little empirical data on the professional functions or ethical concerns of social workers employed in home care. To provide this information 118 social workers in proprietary and nonprofit agencies in one midwestern and one southern state were surveyed. The results indicated that social workers performed a wider array of professional functions with a more diverse population of patients than had been documented previously. Workers experienced ethical concerns related to self-determination, barriers to access of services, implementing advance directives, and assessment of mental competence most often. Workers in proprietary agencies rated the ethical concern of barriers to access of services as occurring significantly more often than workers in nonprofit agencies.

Social Entrepreneurship: Changing the Way Social Workers Do Business

“…On the other hand, Egan and Kadushin (1999) and Kurzman (1976) rightly assert that social workers not only have the responsibility to serve clients who can pay for services, but also to accommodate those clients perhaps so marginalized that they may not have any health insurance coverage, let alone money, to pay for social work services. Further, as the NASW (1998) adeptly argues, social workers must never let the desire for increased compensation steer their judgment concerning which clients to serve.…”

Risks to home care workers: Professional perspectives

“…Home care workers are employees providing increasingly complex personal care while still perhaps having the image of doing shopping and light cleaning (cf. Egan and Kadushin 1999). The home care service operates with very vulnerable clients, in the relative autonomy of the client's home, in a complex arena of health and safety legislation, requiring 'professional' values such as confidentiality and respect, and with increasingly sophisticated 'hospital-at-home' tasks to perform.…”

Studies of the Cost-Effectiveness of Social Work Services in Aging: A Review of the Literature

“…A total of 40 articles that reported the results of 34 separate outcome studies of social work services in aging were reviewed (Anker-Unrever & Netting, 1995;Babins, Dillion, & Merovitz, 1988;Boult, Boult, Ebbitt, Luptak, & Kane, 1994;Burns, Nichols, Martindale-Adams, & Graney, 2000;Chase Goodman & Pynoos, 1990;Claiborne, 2003;Dhooper, Green, Huff, & AustinMurphy, 1993;Dziegielewski, 1991;Egan & Kadushin, 1999;Engelhardt et al, 1996;Epstein et al, 1998;Ferris, Steinberg, Shulman, Kahn, & Reisberg, 1987;GallagherThompson et al, 2000;Goodman, 1990;Haley, Brown, & Levine, 1987;Hussian & Lawrence, 1981;Lord & Pockett, 1998;McCallion, Toseland, & Freeman, 1999;McNeill, Nicholas, Szechy, & Lach, 1998;Mittelman et al, 1993;Montgomery & Borgotta, 1989;MorrowHowell & Becker-Kemppalssen, 1998;Naleppa & Reid, 1998;Oktay, Steinwachs, Mamon, Bone, & Fahey, 1992;Peak, Toseland, & Banks, 1995;Ponto & Berg, 1992;Rizzo, 2002;Rosen, Gilbert, & Lee, 1999;Rubin, Sizemore, Loftis, Adams-Huet, & Anderson, 1992;Rubin, Sizemore, Loftis, & Loret de Mola, 1993;Toseland, 1990;Toseland, Blanchard, & McCallion, 1995;Toseland, Labrecque, Goebel, & Whitney, 1992;Toseland et al, 2001...…”