The goal of this assignment is to reflect on personal values you have that conflict with professional social work values.  This conflict is expected for most, if not all, social workers. The key is to be aware of the value conflict and develop insight into how you will maintain ethical standards in clinical social work. It is also important to mention that your personal values are valid and you can practice effective, ethical, and competent social work even when your personal values conflict with social work values.  It only becomes problematic if social workers project their personal values onto patients/clients.  

With that said, in this assignment, you will pick a social work topic (that conflicts with your personal values) and articulate your personal values related to the topic, discuss social work values related to the topic, and explore how you plan to bracket your personal values when practicing clinical social work. For example, you may identify as pro-life and a patient/client comes to you for counseling and she is considering an abortion.  For point 1, you will articulate your personal values related to being pro-life.  For point 2, you will discuss social work values related to abortion, unplanned pregnancy, choosing to parent or not parent, or other related topics.  For point 3, you will explore how you plan to provide ethical social work practice by not projecting your personal values onto patients/clients.

To assist you with this assignment, please read Chapter 3 from the Dolgoff and colleagues (2012) textbook. Also, you can pick any social work topic/value you want, but if you need assistance in identifying a topic/value, please see the below attachment.  The attachment highlights many social work policies/values, such as topics related to homelessness, immigration, LGBTQ, racism, and criminal justice reform.