PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND DEONTOLOGY IN THE PRACTICE OF SOCIAL WORK

Abstract

The article is focused on the characterization of the main obligations and responsibilities of the social worker, provided by the deontology of social assistance. The author mentions that nowadays each profession has its own deontology, an elaborated system of rules and norms that must be respected to ensure the professional success of any specialist. The deontology of social assistance represents a complex of norms, rules, prescriptions and provisions about professional duty and obligations, about all types of responsibilities of the social workers.  The author further exposes the social worker's responsibilities in various types of relationships (social worker - beneficiary; social worker - colleague; social worker - employing institution), with ethics in social work as the main support. In this sense, paying a special attention to ethical considerations is an important means in affirming the integrity of the profession, the desire and the decision to provide through social assistance a better knowledge, as well as an understanding the human life meaning, highlighting as the first "duty" the service as optimal as possible for the beneficiary, because the mission of the social worker is to help people who are temporarily in difficulty.