Ethics and Bias

What are human service workers? 

  • All hms workers try to assess and meet human needs for growth 

    • Can be met through

      • Educational 

      • Prevention 

      • Intervention 

      • Maintenance 

      • Advocacy and policy change

Why learn professional helping skills  

  • Prevent legal and ethical troubles

  • Improve qualifications for employment 

  • Each hms profession has different 

    • Education and training 

    • Credentialing 

    • Boards or professional associations 

What is theory? 

  • Everyone has theories that (thoughts and beliefs) influence their thinking 

  • Influences : 

    • Social groups 

    • Culture/religion 

    • Authority or expertise 

    • Direct observation 


Theory helps us avoid 

  • Oversimplification = belief that issues have a single or primary cause 

  • Victim blaming = blaming a person or some aspect of their identity solely for their situation with no consideration of the social forces that contribute to the problem



Zone of proximal development  

  • Meeting people where they are at 

  • If a kid needed to learn to tie his shoes you would teach slowly and very simplified so that he can understand because it's in his zone. Once he can tie his shoes he can now complete a task out of reach because you taught it in his zone


Deficit vs strength based 

  • Deficit : 

    • Focuses on abnormalities 

    • Seeks to cure from an ‘expert’

  • Strengths based

    • Seeks to identify competencies and abilities 

    • Emphasizes client well being



Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory 

  • Everything in our environment affects us 

  • Microsystem = individual interactions, immediate environment 

    • How individual interacts with family 

  • Mesosystem = connections between microsystems

    • Child's academic progress depends on classroom and reinforcement at home  

  • Exosystem = settings that indirectly impact an individual 

    • Parents work schedule impacts how they show up for their child 

  • Macrosystem = culture in which individual lives 

    • High cultural standards of healthcare impact child's health 

  • Chronosystem = changes over time

    • Evolution of gender roles 


Piaget's stages of cognitive development 

  • 4 chronological and universal stages of development; this how children construct knowledge and ideas ]

  • Sensorimotor stage , 0-2

    • Trial and error experimentation with environment

    • Reflexes turns into intentional behavior 

    • Object permanence : objects exist even if you don’t see them 

  • Preoperational stage, 2-7

    • Ego-centric perspective (don’t understand others POV)

    • develop language, symbolic thinking (schemas)

    • Has not yet developed logic 

  • Concrete operational stage, 7-12

    • Understanding others POV

    • Limited reasoning skills 

    • Masters conservation

  • Formal operational 12-adulthood 

    • Ability to think about abstract hypothetical ideas

    • Thinks about future and moral issues 


Erikson's stages of psychosocial development 

  • Views each stage of life as experiencing a conflict in which one must resolve, personality development 

  • Trust vs mistrust, 0-1

    • Infants learn to trust their caregivers to meet their basic needs or not

  • Autonomy vs shame and doubt, 1-3

    • Toddlers learns to develop a sense of control and independence 

  • Initiative vs guilt, 3-6 

    • Children assert control through directing play and social interactions 

  • Industry vs inferiority, 6-12

    • Children develop a sense of pride in accomplishments and abilities 

  • Identity vs role confusion, 12-18 

    • Teens explore personal interests and sense of self 

  • Intimacy vs isolation, 18-40

    • (Young) adults form intimate, loving relationships with others 

  • Generativity vs stagnation, 40-65

    • Adults create or nurture things that will outlast them, contributing to society 

  • Integrity vs despair, 65+

    • Seniors reflect on life and either feel a sense of fulfillment or regret 



  • HMS workers assess and meet human needs for growth, wellbeing, resilience, and agency 

    • Education

    • Prevention

    • Intervention 

    • Maintenance 

    • Advocacy 



Maslow's hierarchy of needs 

  • Maslow never presented them in a pyramid or linear pattern but it is usually presented as a pyramid 

External barriers 

  • Overall economy 

  • Cost

  • Availability 

  • Transportation 

  • Language 

    • Can apply to english - southern accents can sometimes lead to bias about intelligence 

  • culture/identity 

    • Different cultures have different attitudes about mental health 

    • Predominantly white areas can be an area for people, this can be a barrier for POC who feel their HMS worker won't fully understand their struggles 

  • Immigration status 

Internal barriers 

  • Fear being judged/punished 

  • Shame for not being able to solve your own problems 

  • Fear of unknown 

  • Distrust of HMS workers 

Issues with the legacy of human services 

  • Tuskegee Study : 

    • Recruited 600 black men that they were being treated for ‘bad blood’ and promised them free medical treatment

    • They actually gave them syphilis and studied what syphilis would do when untreated 

Clients rights 

  • Ethical and human treatment 

    • Competent service and best practices 

    • Trust and honesty 

    • Privacy/confidentiality 

    • Respect and dignity 

  • The right to self determination 

    • Informed consent 

    • Right to receive or refuse services 

    • Right to choose free of coercion 


Conflicts can be caused by bureaucratic demands 

  • Most human service workers are employed by bureaucracies 

  • Bureaucracy is supposed to make service more efficient, appropriate, and accessible, but that is not always the case 

    • Organizational needs vs needs of workers vs needs of clients 


Elements of the professional helping relationship 

  • Attitudes and values, knowledge, skills 

    • Attitude and values are the foundations of how be build skill and knowledge and interact with other people 

Bias 

  • Bias : thoughts and beliefs - prejudice in favor against one thing, person, or group 

  • Biases can be harmful because they erode empathy 

  • Human service professionals have an ethical responsibility to recognize and address personal biases that can harm others 

    • Biases can be hard because they are implicit 

  • Discrimination : actions, behaviors, rules/policies, disparate access and outcomes; may not be linked to explicit bias 

  • Everyone has bias; it's how our brain works - we are always making judgements about our environment 

  • Our biases do not have to impact behavior (discrimination), but they often do, especially when we're not aware of our biases (implicit) 

    • Important to accept, acknowledge, and address 

In groups, out groups,and empathy

  • Starting in early childhood we may have developed aversions toward people different from us, or out groups

  • We have affinities towards people similar to us, in groups

  • It's okay to have preferences for who wants to spend time with in your personal life, not in your professional life

  • Regardless of personal preferences - we must be aware of whether we have access to empathy for people who are different from us 

Consequence of bias 

  • Deficits based approach 

    • Focuses on disorders and abnormalities 

    • Seeks to provide cure from an ‘expert’

    • Focuses on fixed characteristics and behaviors without regards to clients focus aspirations 

  • Strengths based approach 

    • Seeks to identify competencies and abilities 

    • Emphasizes clients well being 

    • Validates clients past experiences but focuses on clients future and positive steps in the present 

    • Believes that positive change is always possible when it aligns with a clients goals

What is empathy?

  • Perspective talking

  • Staying out of judgement 

  • Recognizing emotion in other people 

  • Communicating recognition of that emotion

Developing empathy 

  • Engage in : self awareness and self exploration 

    • Mindfulness 

    • Using intersectionality as a tool : Recognize the complexity of othersidentities and experiences 

  • Examine : biases and reject stereotypes 

    • Develop cross-group relationships 

    • Using intersectionality as a tool : Recognize the complexity of others identities and experiences 

  • Believe in 

    • Clients strengths and possibility for change 

  • Strengthen capacity to tolerate ambiguity and complexity 

    • Embrace the reality of both/and not either/or

    • Mindfulness

    • Selfcare 

  • Exercise patience (its a process) 

  • Privilege : Access to resources that are only readily available to some people because of their social group membership; an advantage or immunity granted to or enjoyed by one group, above and beyond the common advantage of other groups