Moving forward, how will you apply what you have learned in Ethical and Legal Issues in Human Services? Are there things you can use in your personal life? Professional life? Future courses?

Central takeaways when considering ethical and legal issues in human services revolve around adhering to the fundamental values of the profession. A human services professional should always respect others and their dignity, work to make the lives of others better while also promoting autonomy and self-reliance, embrace diversity of cultures, and encourage equality and fairness. All of these things must be undertaken with integrity, honesty, and objectivity.
These tenets of the profession must play a role in decision-making for all human services workers. Furthermore, although they are central to working in human services, the principles of respecting the dignity of others, embracing diversity, and encouraging equality and fairness are positive behaviors and beliefs to apply in personal life as well. However, the emphasis hereunder will deal with adhering to ethical and legal standards while working in human services, which is paramount.
Human services professionals have to balance ethicality and legality alongside workplace policies, different cultures, and personal beliefs. Those working in human resources may play many different roles in dealing with their clients while working to identify the strengths of the clients and the community. Additionally, while working with clients, obtaining informed consent is of paramount importance, as is maintaining client’s privacy and confidentiality.
Confidentiality and privileged communication are both important parts of human services, especially for people who work in social work, counseling, and other sensitive careers. Someone who works in human services must know what parts of their client’s information must or can be released to third parties. In some cases, confidentiality restricts the information a human services professional can share with third parties without the client’s consent. Confidentiality is more of an ethical term, whereas privileged communication is a legal term. Privileged communication is a protection to both the human services worker and the client that allows the person working in human services to legally avoid divulging any information that is not necessary to a court, lawyer, or other agency. It is important to note that confidentiality also extends to all client records, which must be kept secure. When using technology, it is important to take special care to maintain confidentiality and comply with laws such as FERPA and HIPPA.
Both confidentiality and privileged communication are important to those working in the field and their clients. While working in human services, it is mandatory to be educated on both ethical and legal terms concerning client information. However, someone working in human services would also be considered a mandatory reporter, so there could be instances that would require the professional to break the confidentiality agreement if danger or harm could come to the client or others.
Finally, rules surrounding relationships with clients are an important takeaway when it comes to legal and ethical issues in human resources. While someone who works in human services may become a confidant or a comforter, they must never become is a sexual partner to their clients. There should not be any type of sexual or romantic relationship with a current client. Ethically, someone working in human services also should consider the ramifications of having any sexual or romantic relationship with any member of a current client’s family or their client’s romantic partners, as that could put the client at risk and impair the judgment of the human services worker.
Ultimately, the issues described here will be important to all human services workers as they move forward in the field, take more classes in human resources, and grow in their role personally and professionally as someone who serves the needs of others.