Running head: VALUES PAPER

Zoe Scholes
SW 3010
Chad Allee
Values Paper

Values

VALUES PAPER

In just a few months in the Social Work program, I have found a world of change in what
direction I would like to take with my career. I find few barriers to succeed in my field by my
personal beliefs and values. I have already found myself to be an advocate for womens rights,
marriage equality, and income equality in our suffering economy. I do not find it fair that some
people have to struggle while working forty or more hours a week. I try my best to keep an open
mind versus other peoples values and beliefs. Having a conversation the other day with someone
who did not believe in the health care reform for people who could not afford it. These people
did not choose to be poor, life just happens that way, is what I had told them. Some people who
have never had to struggle to succeed do not understand the difficult barriers people in poverty
face trying to get out. This includes, lack of health care as well as lack of access to healthy food
in their area. Although I might see it as easy, there will be times where I struggle to help
someone who needs it, when his or her problems are something I do not see fit for my help. The
group I imagine in particular is a man who might have committed a crime such as rape or
murder, and although he did something wrong, he deserves resources to fight for his own justice
in court and a right to trial. In our practice methods class, we have learned to meet someone
where they are at, regardless if it is something we do not agree with. In this paper, I will discuss
my issues with helping those who do not want help and are ordered to get it, as well as those who
have done something I find unethical, although they need resources and to be served justice as
much as any human being. I will also be discussing my own values and how they will help me
succeed in my social work career, and the challenges I may face along the way.
I pride myself on my ability to stay objective and understand where other people are
coming from when they disagree with my political opinions and values. It may anger me at times
that people do not believe in health care reform, pro choice, or marriage equality, but I know I

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cannot change everyones minds. However, I can educate them on why I am for these things, and
I now plan to do that on a bigger level. I choose to speak up when someone disagrees because
they might not have ever heard the other side of the argument. Many people are highly
uneducated on political standpoints. So when someone tells me they dont believe in health care
reform, I explain to them the chances of a person being born in poverty and their chances of
getting out of it. They do not have the ability to excel in school, go to college, or get a good job.
Being a kid who grew up in poverty, myself has caused me to want to fight for justice of these
people.
Upon that, there are many other factors that have built my values and beliefs over time.
Firstly, it was my parents divorce when I was just eight years old. My mother knew she would
be poor, but wanted the best for herself and her children. Her strength as a single mother and
woman was inspiring, while she stayed in the Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A.) program, to others
and myself. She was on the verge of being homeless with two helpless children, and in an
economy where women do not earn equal pay as men; it was a struggle for her to raise us. In my
teenage years, when I was faced with peer pressure and drug use, my mother made me go to
therapy and group counseling for drug abuse, I wanted nothing to do with it. Looking back now,
I was stubborn and I see that being a difficult group for myself to work with. Someone else I
have seen do this was my father. He knew he needed help, and he would go get it because he
would have to, but he would manipulate the system, and not help himself to get where he needed
to be. Seeing that was so frustrating for me, that I think other people who did not care to help
themselves would frustrate me as well. I was there and I had seen it first hand, and I know how it
is to be stubborn and not think I needed any help, but with the integrity and understanding of
those therapists, they were able to get through to me and help me get away from drugs.

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Obviously dragging me into these programs also showed my mothers strength, even though she
was busy trying to make a living and stay out of poverty for my brother and I.
My whole life, my mother taught us to keep an open mind, and she modeled this through
her own life experiences. In A.A. she kept hold of some spiritual beliefs, such as higher power,
but being raised Catholic and deviating from her family, she did not raise us with any specific
religion. She told us to believe what we wanted. Being confused about what to believe, I went in
search of spirituality; ending up having beliefs in different things and a greater understanding of
all religions. Though I do not believe in or follow any specific religion, I keep an open mind to
each persons right to believe in his or her own. In Catholicism specifically, they are against sex
before marriage, divorce, and gay marriage, so when my mother had a divorce in her first
marriage, became pregnant before marrying her second husband, and after another divorce, her
brothers and sisters were never very supportive through out her hardships. To make matters
worse, she later started dating a woman, and chose to never tell her family anyway. We were
already the black sheep family, and why take more criticism. I took all of this into consideration,
and made my own decision to never treat someone I cared about with the same lack of respect.
Sure, my mother was still their sister after not conforming to Catholic beliefs, but they still
looked down on her for her choices. I now find myself finding a better understanding for people
who do not have the same beliefs as me.
I have identified with several values in the National Association of Social Workers code
of ethics. First being the ethical responsibilities to broader society (6.01-6.04), where I find the
need to help others that I might not necessarily relate to. Living a little more comfortable as an
adult than some others are living, I still take responsibility for the economic equality of all
people. As well that, I may not have ever been a victim of racism, but I know it is not fair to let

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this issue continue for others. This also leads to respect, 2.01 in the code of ethics. Where I find a
deep respect for all people no matter their race, economic status, or hardships. They deserve the
same rights to a healthier and livable lifestyle as any American does. What I am afraid I might
find challenging is, commitment to clients, in that I will have to work with some people who
make me uncomfortable, or if they are not willing to help themselves as I try to provide them
with the resources to do so. I imagine that impairment (4.05), might help me overcome this
challenge. I will not allow my personal problems, or own stressors interfere with professional
judgment or performance, nor would I jeopardize the best interests of my clients, and if my
values or do start to impair the client, I would refer them and find a way to stop myself from
taking it personally or into my own hands. (NASW, 2016)
While holding these values and beliefs, the population I might find most difficult to work
with, is specifically those who have raped, murdered, or are sex offenders. This is an overlap of
another way I would find difficult, which is people who were forced to come see a social worker.
Not only do they not want to be in my office because they were ordered to go, but they also did
something that in some way disgusts me and makes me not want to help them. If someone who
has committed one of these crimes came to me in my office, I would immediately have to find a
way to hide my emotions and anger. I would also find it difficult to want to advocate and help
this person get justice. After knowing a few women who were raped, and being sexually
molested when I was young myself, I find it hard wanting justice for these individuals. However,
they have the rights to a fair trial, as well as resources to get them help to stop doing these things
if they still had urges. I would also feel unsafe around these people, especially if it were a man
with sadistic fantasies of rape, or someone who spied on women in order to arouse himself. In
this case specifically, I would find myself referring him to someone else, possibly a male social

VALUES PAPER
worker. Especially if they were court ordered to come to a social worker, and I found myself
unable to break through their unwilling to be there, I would find someone who might have a
different approach for finding help for these individuals.
I also hope that I myself might have an approach that gets through to many people who
are unwilling to be helped. Hopefully I can get there with lots of practice. This course and this
assignment has shown me that I want more out of my social work career than I thought I did
before. I would like to help individuals, but I would also like to work on the macro level
advocating for larger groups, whether it is for women, homeless, substance abuse, or families in
poverty. This is something I did not realize I would have wanted to do before, nor did I find it
possible. Now I would really like to educate those groups as well as advocate for them. I mostly
would like to educate my fear of group, before they became the group I did not want to work
with. Further more, specifically I would like to educate young children why they should not do
this, and how they can stop themselves and peers from doing those things. This could also
involve anti bullying campaigns. Finally, after hating my policy class for the first half of the

semester because I was bored to death by the history, the more I learned about ways we as social
workers can advocate for the greater good and justice of the people, I realize that I could go out
and educate society and the government and help get policies and laws get passed to do better for
those who deserve it.

References

VALUES PAPER
National Association of Social Workers. (2008). Code of ethics. Retrieved March 19th,
2016, from http://www.socialworkers.org/pubs/code/default.asp