Ethical Dilemma in Human Services Scenario

Direct services professionals often face many types of potential ethical dilemmas. The administrators of agencies that employ direct services professionals are responsible for guiding them in ethical decision making in addition to managing nonclinical staff in order to protect client rights.

Human services administrators have to be aware of the activities of the agency at every level as managers of employees who have access to confidential information about clients.

In this assignment, you will read a scenario and determine the best course of action to resolve the ethical dilemma presented.

Scenario:

You are the administrator of a human services agency that provides services to a local native American tribe. You discover that a member of the housekeeping staff is "counseling" multiple clients who happen to be members of the tribe where he is an elder.

You learn that he is accessing client records and using this information to provide advice that sometimes contradicts the advice that is given by the professionals at the agency.

You also learn that he has been warned to discontinue this practice but has refused to comply. Additionally, the agency has approached the clients to inform them that he is not qualified to provide this service, but the clients object to this restriction and threaten to leave if he is fired.

Tasks:

Analyze the situation and write a 6- to 8-page report in which you will outline and justify a course of action. In your report:

Identify the multiple ethical issues involved in this scenario.

Construct a decision tree of the various courses of action possible and their potential consequences.

Discuss how your personal beliefs and values may influence your decision.

Select and defend your decision and recommendation.

Include suggestions for managing the risks.

Use resources from professional literature in your research. Professional literature may include the Argosy University online library resources, relevant textbooks, peer-reviewed journal articles, and websites created by professional organizations, agencies, or institutions (.edu, .org, or .gov).