Case study 4 Alice works in a women’s refuge. She has strong religious beliefs a
ID: 127973 • Letter: C
Question
Case study 4
Alice works in a women’s refuge. She has strong religious beliefs and is a supporter of the right to life movement. Imogen has been living at the refuge and is 10 weeks pregnant. She has decided that she wants a termination. Alice has been asked by her manager to accompany Imogen to an appointment at a women’s health centre to discuss her options. The refuge has a policy that supports self-determination and empowerment, and uses person-centred approaches to service provision. Alice’s job role description requires her to provide emotional and practical support and to encourage people to make decisions and take control of their own lives. Alice plans to take Imogen to a pregnancy counselling service which is run by an anti-abortion organisation before taking her to the women’s health centre. Imogen has told Jasmine, one of the other refuge support workers, that Alice is going to take her to the anti-abortion pregnancy counselling service. She says that she is worried they will persuade her to change her mind about having a termination. She also says Alice has been leaving anti-abortion literature in her room and has also asked her to attend a religious service with her. Alice has also suggested referring Imogen for counselling. As there is a long waiting list for subsidised counselling services, Alice has offered to refer Imogen to her cousin, who is in private practice as a psychologist.
Provide one action that indicates that Alice is behaving unethically and one way that Jasmine could respond to Alice’s unethical conduct
Describe the conflict of interest in this situation and provide one way that Alice should manage it.
Explanation / Answer
As a support worker, Alice should respect the unique values and thoughts of Imogen. The primary responsibility of a support worker is to promote the well-being of the client. The ethical standards say the support worker promotes a person's rights to self-determination. Alice feels that promoting Alice's self-determination will result in not protecting her well-being. So she left the anti-abortion literature in her room and called her for religious service.In this way, that Alice has behaved unethically. Jasmine responds to Alice's unethical conduct by pointing out the code of ethics that have not followed in her work. Support workers always obligated to client's right in decision making. Alice failed to follow that. So Jasmine can report to the supervisor of Alice's unethical conduct.
Alice has a conflict between the patient's rights and well-being. But the Imogen has rights to the self-determination of decision making. Alice is in a situation of personal Vs Professional dilemma. Alice personal values are opposed to that of professional values. In this situation, Alice should give precedence to Professional Values, as the personal bias should not affect the framework of ethical principles. Personal opposition value should be kept outside the client-worker relationship and should serve the Imogen with ethical professionalism.