How does the teaching of ethics appear in the education of social work and is this enough? I would like to answer to these questions in this article. In my thesis I tried to approach the topic from several aspects. On the one hand, I prepared questionnaires for bachelor students participating in various social work trainings. On the other hand I interviewed students, entrants and tutors. Finally, I reviewed the curriculums of these trainings, searching for subjects, which name refers that the subject includes aspects of social work ethics.
Why is this topic so important? That is because social work is a profession of human rights, which not only aims to get people to respect rights but to guarantee their implementation and realization. Indeed, the task is to develop and protect these fundamental human rights, too. However, this is only possible if the social workers are aware of the Code of Ethics and the professional values, as essential parts of professional competences.
The research concluded that the ethics education in universities and colleges is not structured and focused enough and still there are some social work students and professionals who do not know the Code of Ethics, did not hear about the Association of Social Work Ethics. Consequently, they may have difficulties to solve pivotal problems, and recognize dilemmas in the field of ethics.
Nincs szociális munka szakmai etika nélkül. Ebben valószínűleg mindannyian egyetértünk, ahogy a szakirodalomban is olvasható „…a szociális munkában minden döntés tartalmaz etikai aspektusokat” (Loewenberg, Dolgoff 1988a: 181). Mégis, annak ellenére, hogy a szociális munkának szerves része a szakmai etika – vagy annak kellene lennie –, igen kevés tanulmány található ebben a témában a hazai szakirodalomban. Hogyan lehetséges az, hogy úgy kell kutatni, vadászni a kapcsolódó olvasmányokat? Pedig szükség lenne szakirodalomra, hiszen a „hatékony gyakorlat feltétele a dilemmákhoz való tudatos viszonyulás” (Andok, Tímár 2002: 88). Hogyan jelenik meg az etika oktatása a képzésben és ez mennyire elegendő? Erre a kérdésfeltevésre épül ez az írás.