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Rock Dove Code of Ethics

The language and content of this code is drawn primarily from the Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers. While our service providers represent a far broader range of skill, approach, expertise, and profession that just "social work," and while our anti-capitalist views lead us to question certain aspects of the code, on the whole we find these guidelines to be extremely useful, appropriate, and grounding for our work. (Areas of substantial divergence include: sexual & physical contact, payment for services, as well as omissions that reflect the inapplicability of social work principles to certain types of service providers.) What follows is an outline of key principles we as a collective adopt to help us navigate the ethical waters of service provision. You may also wish to read our Mission Statement.

  1. Mission
    The primary mission of our practitioners is to enhance human well-being and help meet the basic human needs of all people, with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty. We emphasize a focus on individual well-being in a social context and the well-being of society. We attend to the environmental forces that create, contribute to, and address problems in living.

    Practitioners promote social justice and social change with and on behalf of clients. "Clients" is used inclusively to refer to individuals, families, groups, organizations, and communities. Practitioners are sensitive to cultural and ethnic diversity and strive to end discrimination, oppression, poverty, and other forms of social injustice. These activities may be in the form of direct practice, community organizing, supervision, consultation, administration, advocacy, social and political action, policy development and implementation, education, and research and evaluation. Practitioners seek to enhance the capacity of people to address their own needs. Practitioners also seek to promote the responsiveness of organizations, communities, and other social institutions to individuals' needs and social problems.

  2. Core Values
    We adhere to the following set of core values:
    • • service
    • • social justice
    • • dignity and worth of the person
    • • importance of human relationships
    • • integrity
    • • competence

  3. Purpose of the Code
    The Code offers a set of values, principles, and standards to guide decision making and conduct when ethical issues arise. It does not provide a set of rules that prescribe how practitioners should act in all situations. Specific applications of the Code must take into account the context in which it is being considered and the possibility of conflicts among the Code's values, principles, and standards. Ethical responsibilities flow from all human relationships, from the personal and familial to the social and professional.

    A code of ethics cannot guarantee ethical behavior. Moreover, a code of ethics cannot resolve all ethical issues or disputes or capture the richness and complexity involved in striving to make responsible choices within a moral community. Rather, a code of ethics sets forth values, ethical principles, and ethical standards to which practitioners aspire and by which their actions can be guided. Practitioners' ethical behavior should result from their personal commitment to engage in ethical practice.


  4. Ethical Principles
    The following broad ethical principles are based on practitioners' core values of service, social justice, dignity and worth of the person, importance of human relationships, integrity, and competence.
    • • Service: Practitioners' primary goal is to help people in need and to address social problems.
    • • Social Justice: Practitioners challenge social injustice.
    • • Dignity and Worth of the Person: Practitioners respect the inherent dignity and worth of the person.
    • • Importance of Human Relationships: Practitioners recognize the central importance of human relationships.
    • • Integrity: Practitioners behave in a trustworthy manner.
    • • Competence: Practitioners practice within their areas of competence and develop and enhance their professional expertise.

  5. Ethical Standards
    • • Commitment to Clients
      Practitioners' primary responsibility is to promote the well-being of clients. In general, clients' interests are primary. However, practitioners' responsibility to the larger society or specific legal obligations may on limited occasions supersede the loyalty owed clients, and clients should be so advised. (Examples include when a social worker is required by law to report that a client has abused a child or has threatened to harm self or others.)

    • • Self-Determination
      Practitioners respect and promote the right of clients to self-determination and assist clients in their efforts to identify and clarify their goals. Practitioners may limit clients' right to self-determination when, in the practitioner's judgment, clients' actions or potential actions pose a serious, foreseeable, and imminent risk to themselves or others. See our Policy on Mandatory Reporting.

    • • Informed Consent
      Practitioners should use clear and understandable language to inform clients of the purpose of the services, risks related to the services, limits to services because of the requirements of a third-party payer, relevant costs, reasonable alternatives, clients' right to refuse or withdraw consent, and the time frame covered by the consent. Practitioners should provide clients with an opportunity to ask questions.

      These conversations should be conducted in a language the client understands, and translation/interpretation should be used when necessary.

    • • Competence
      Practitioners should provide services and represent themselves as competent only within the boundaries of their abilities.

    • • Cultural Competence and Social Diversity
      Practitioners should understand culture and its function in human behavior and society, recognizing and respecting the strengths that exist in all cultures.

      Practitioners should have a knowledge base of their clients' cultures and be able to demonstrate competence in the provision of services that are sensitive to clients' cultures and to differences among people and cultural groups.

      Practitioners should obtain education about and seek to understand the nature of social diversity and oppression with respect to race, ethnicity, national origin, color, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, political belief, religion, and mental or physical disability.

    • • Conflicts of Interest
      Practitioners should be alert to and avoid conflicts of interest that interfere with the exercise of professional discretion and impartial judgment. Practitioners should inform clients when a real or potential conflict of interest arises and take reasonable steps to resolve the issue in a manner that makes the clients' interests primary and protects clients' interests to the greatest extent possible. In some cases, protecting clients' interests may require termination of the professional relationship with proper referral of the client.

    • • Privacy and Confidentiality
      Practitioners should respect clients' right to privacy. Practitioners should not solicit private information from clients unless it is essential to providing services or conducting social work evaluation or research. Once private information is shared, standards of confidentiality apply.

      Practitioners should protect the confidentiality of all information obtained in the course of service, except for compelling reasons. The general expectation that practitioners will keep information confidential does not apply when disclosure is necessary to prevent serious, foreseeable, and imminent harm to a client or other identifiable person. In all instances, practitioners should disclose the least amount of confidential information necessary to achieve the desired purpose; only information that is directly relevant to the purpose for which the disclosure is made should be revealed, and clients should be informed to the greatest extent possible of any disclosures.

      Practitioners should protect the confidentiality of clients to the greatest extent possible.

    • • Sexual Relationships
      Practitioners should not engage in sexual activities or sexual contact with clients, clients' relatives or other individuals with whom clients maintain a close personal relationship when there is a risk of exploitation or potential harm to the client.

    • • Physical Contact
      Practitioners should not engage in physical contact with clients when there is a serious possibility of psychological harm to the client as a result of the contact. Practitioners who engage in appropriate physical contact with clients are responsible for setting clear, appropriate, and culturally sensitive boundaries that govern such physical contact.

    • • Sexual Harassment
      Practitioners should not sexually harass clients. Sexual harassment includes sexual advances, sexual solicitation, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual

    • • Derogatory Language
      Practitioners should not use derogatory language in their written or verbal communications to or about clients. Practitioners should use accurate and respectful language in all communications to and about clients.

    • • Payment for Services
      Pracitioners should be clear and direct about what payment they expect in return for their services, and should notify clients of any changes in the agreement. Note: this is one area in which the Rock Dove Collective differs substantially from the Social Workers Code of Ethics, which discourages bartering or other inventive exchanges for services. Such agreements of exchange and mutual aid are, in fact, among our guiding principles.

    • • Practitioners should collaborate respectfully with their colleagues in the field in the interest of the clients, and should support their colleagues' adherence to the code of ethics.

    • • Relationships to Employers
      Practitioners should not allow an employing organization's policies, procedures, regulations, or administrative orders to interfere with their ethical practice of their work. Practitioners should act to prevent and eliminate discrimination in the employing organization's work assignments and in its employment policies and practices.

    • • Anti-Discrimination
      Practitioners should not practice, condone, facilitate, or collaborate with any form of discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, color, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, political belief, religion, or mental or physical disability.

    • • Social Welfare
      Practitioners should promote the general welfare of society, from local to global levels, and the development of people, their communities, and their environments. Practitioners should advocate for living conditions conducive to the fulfillment of basic human needs and should promote social, economic, political, and cultural values and institutions that are compatible with the realization of social justice.

    • • Public Participation
      Practitioners should facilitate informed participation by the public in shaping (or, Rock Dove would suggest, resisting, transforming, or dismantling) social policies and institutions.

    • • Social and Political Action
      Practitioners should engage in social and political action that seeks to ensure that all people have equal access to the resources, employment, services, and opportunities they require to meet their basic human needs and to develop fully.

      Practitioners should act to expand choice and opportunity for all people, with special regard for vulnerable, disadvantaged, oppressed, and exploited people and groups.

      Practitioners should promote conditions that encourage respect for cultural and social diversity within the United States and globally. Practitioners should promote policies and practices that demonstrate respect for difference, support the expansion of cultural knowledge and resources, advocate for programs and institutions that demonstrate cultural competence, and promote policies that safeguard the rights of and confirm equity and social justice for all people.

      Practitioners should act to prevent and eliminate domination of, exploitation of, and discrimination against any person, group, or class on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, color, sex, sexual orientation, age, marital status, political belief, religion, or mental or physical disability.

  6. The Rock Dove Collective & Mandatory Reporting
    While we understand and in part support the mandatory reporting of abuse, particularly the abuse of children, we in the Rock Dove Collective are not mandatory reporters. Any and all information shared with the collective will be kept in strict confidence and used only to advocate for the person seeking aid. The only exceptions are cases in which an individual approaches us with plans to injure another or with information about child abuse. In such cases we will exercise discretion and care for all parties and may inform emergency and/or government services if we have reason to believe the threat is imminent and no preferable option is available.

    The Rock Dove Collective aims to serve in an advisory capacity to the best of our ability in supporting the work of service providers within our network, both for those who are mandatory reporters and for those who are not. However, we will leave it to the service providers themselves to make a final decision about reporting any issues brought directly to their attention.

    As a future aspect of the Rock Dove Project, we hope to build a directory of resources and information for children and families about alternatives to entering the government system in situations of abuse.