Self-Care A-Z: National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code of Ethics (CoE) 2021 Updates Include Self-Care—Celebrations and Crucial Caveats
by Erlene Grise-Owens, EdD, LCSW, MSW, MRE, and Justin “Jay” Miller, PhD, MSW, CSW
Celebrating progress, expressing gratitude, thinking critically, and advocating continually are aspects of self-care. This post includes all these.
Yes! to Progress
For many years, we’ve avidly promoted that the profession of social work must prioritize practitioner well-being and take self-care seriously. Along with myriad efforts to support individualized attention, we’ve promoted larger system accountability and contributed resources for organizational wellness. We’ve called on social work entities to substantively promote self-care as a professional commitment.
In 2008, NASW’s Social Work Speaks issued an important policy statement on self-care. Previously, we assessed that the recommendations from this document were not being implemented adequately. As one specific action, we’ve advocated NASW, the largest membership organization, incorporate self-care into the Code of Ethics (CoE). As the first sentence of the overview states, the CoE is “a guide to the everyday professional conduct of social workers.” This document directs individual social workers to enact core principles and follow foundational standards. Yet, even with multiple updates, this “everyday” guide has not previously included self-care.
Effective June 1, 2021, for the first time ever, the NASW CoE includes explicit attention to self-care. These changes bring an important legitimacy to self-care within the profession. The explicit attention to self-care gives practitioners in varied capacities motivational impetus and useful leverage for promoting and practicing self-care as a core ethical practice. These updates include a statement encouraging macro-systems to “promote policies, practices, and materials to support social workers’ self-care.”
Allan Barsky provides a succinct overview of these changes, as well as the changes related to cultural competence, with commentary. For convenience, we include the self-care changes at the end of this article.*
And…Yet…
In summary, new language pertaining to self-care was added in three places to the Purpose and Principles sections of the CoE. Notably, no new standards were added nor any changes made to current standards. In comparison, the changes regarding cultural competence and other significant changes in the past, such as technology, did involve explicit, substantive changes to standards. Importantly, NASW Standards are consistently and emphatically framed as directives—e.g., as “should” and even, in the case of the new competence standard’s language, as “must.”
However, as Barsky emphasizes, NASW intends the self-care language as “supportive and aspirational, rather than mandatory.” Whilst the new language says that self-care is important, this aspirational tone dilutes that message. It conveys: Self-care is important—but, in a pinch, other obligations take precedence. Regrettably, this mixed message about self-care is a common minimization.
Likewise, crucially, the CoE changes regarding self-care are still framed as doing self-care for the exclusive purpose of social workers fulfilling their professional obligations. This framing subtly conveys that self-care is done only in order to serve the profession, not, also, as a core commitment to one’s own well-being. Explicitly, the CoE six standards elucidate the social worker’s commitment to (1) clients, (2) colleagues, (3) practice settings, (4) as professionals, (5) profession, and (6) broader society. Standard 4 addresses impairment affecting professional performance.
To be clear: No parallel commitment to Self, i.e., practitioner wellness and self-care, is contained in the standards.
We must critically ask ourselves: Why are our responsibilities to all these other commitments framed as definitive; but, our responsibilities to our selves framed as aspirational? In an “everyday guide” for practice, our own self-care should be standard practice.
Next Steps
Again, we celebrate progress! Our first efforts advocating for self-care were often dismissed. So, we certainly appreciate the significance of the explicit recognition of self-care as a core professional consideration meriting attention in the NASW CoE. Yes! We celebrate.
And, yet, this progress is a significant milestone, not the end of the journey. It should serve as a clear guidepost for the serious and substantive steps yet to be taken. Other professional organizations must follow suit and incorporate self-care into their standards. The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) must incorporate self-care into accreditation standards. Employers must get serious about their role in promoting organizational wellness. Individual practitioners must give consistent attention to their self-care, which requires intentional, integrated, and individualized development. Substantive resources for a sustainable lifestyle of wholistic self-care are essential.
Building on progress, self-care must be more than aspirational. It should be standard practice.
*The first change is a phrase added in the Purpose section, indicated below in bold:
5. The Code socializes practitioners new to the field to social work’s mission, values, ethical principles, and ethical standards, and encourages all social workers to engage in self-care, ongoing education, and other activities to ensure their commitment to those same core features of the profession.
The second change is a new paragraph added to the Purpose section:
Professional self-care is paramount for competent and ethical social work practice. Professional demands, challenging workplace climates, and exposure to trauma warrant that social workers maintain personal and professional health, safety, and integrity. Social work organizations, agencies, and educational institutions are encouraged to promote organizational policies, practices, and materials to support social workers’ self-care.
The third change is in the Ethical Principles section. A sentence is added to the paragraph describing the value of integrity and its related ethical principle, being trustworthy, indicated below in bold.
Ethical Principle: Social workers behave in a trustworthy manner.
Social workers are continually aware of the profession’s mission, values, ethical principles, and ethical standards and practice in a manner consistent with them. Social workers should take measures to care for themselves professionally and personally. Social workers act honestly and responsibly and promote ethical practices on the part of the organizations with which they are affiliated.
Dr. Erlene Grise-Owens, EdD, LCSW, MSW, MRE, is a Partner in The Wellness Group, ETC. This LLC provides evaluation, training, and consultation for organizational wellness and practitioner well-being. Dr. Grise-Owens is lead editor of The A-to-Z Self-Care Handbook for Social Workers and Other Helping Professionals. As a former faculty member and graduate program director, she and a small (but mighty!) group of colleagues implemented an initiative to promote self-care as part of the social work education curriculum. Previously, she served in clinical and administrative roles.
Dr. J. Jay Miller, PhD, MSW, CSW, is the Dean, Dorothy A. Miller Research Professor in Social Work Education, and Director of the Self-Care Lab in the College of Social Work at the University of Kentucky. You can follow his work via Twitter @DrJayMiller1.