Ethical Dilemma

Over the past few weeks, I have been working at the Public Defender’s office as an intake investigator. Although this agency is amazing, I have discovered that there are some downfalls. I wanted to discuss the ethical standards of human service professionals. There are different section, such as responsibility to clients, to community and society, to colleagues, to the profession, to self, and for educators. More specifically, I wanted to review discuss the responsibility to clients, as it is very important to my agency.

These guidelines apply to my agency, along with human service workers as a whole. The first statement in the ethical standards for human service workers is, “Human service professionals negotiate with clients the purpose, goals, and nature of the helping relationship prior to its onset as well as inform clients of the limitations of the proposed relationship.” This is very important to my agency, in the position I am in. More often than not, clients ask me for advice. I have to explain to them that I am only an intake investigator; I interview them and get their information to see if they qualify and pass that on to an attorney. Without discussing this, clients would propose their whole life story and plead their case like it is a court room. I advise them that I can’t give them legal advice. If I do, I may be subject for malpractice and cause more harm than good. Purpose and goals are important to human services professions because one should not mislead a client, but they should inform them of what their session or meeting entails. We must inform clients what services we provide, and what we do not.

The second statement, in the standards for human service workers is “Human service professionals’ respect the int...

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...and has the ability to look up cases on the database.

With all the feedback given and my findings at the agency, I would recommend they review the human service worker’s code of ethics and encourage ethical behaviors. According to James Lane, the public defender’s office is supposed to provide quality customer service, so I believe that some more oversight would be appropriate for the investigators. I believe they should have a “closed-door” policy and when possible they would have a neutral supervisor or witness for juvenile cases. I also, would suggest, removing the video conferences to a more private office or providing secure webcams in each office to do said conferences. In my opinion, I also think they should have a “please stand here for privacy” sign like a pharmacy at the counter. Being charged with crimes is serious, regardless of it being public record.