Treatments and recovery can take various forms, and the critical component of offering good services is envisioning the patient as a part of a broader system while providing personalized therapy. Because of the widespread social discrimination and misunderstandings around substance use disorders (SUDs), a patient’s professional qualifications, social position, and livelihood may be impacted by diagnosis and treatments. Substance abuse problems can also substantially affect a client’s family. Understanding the impacts of SUDs on parenting skills and the implications for the kids involved in such an essential component to address. Individual, family, and group therapy are all options for the treatments. Social workers are constantly taught to uncover and assess their clients’ interests beyond the confines of their presented problems. Clients are often embarrassed or discreet about their drug abuse, making it the most challenging issue to detect.
The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) practice standards are a collection of professional rules with specific goals for the various social workers. Unless the patient does report the problem themselves, social workers should conduct a thorough investigation of the patient, taking into account multiple factors. Substances and alcohol abuse disorders are prevalent; social workers should complement such goals in assessing clients for substance abuse concerns, both voluntary and involuntary. The role of education, timely interventions, and substance abuse treatment are emphasized throughout social work practices (NASW, 2005). Social workers must constantly be updated with changes throughout legislation provisions, regulatory standards, and public health insurance regulations to meet the needs of clients with substance misuse difficulties (NASW, 2013). Substance abuse disorders, co-occurring abnormalities, mental illness, and the use of many substances concurrently are prevalent.
Social workers can significantly enhance the treatment programs for patients and families by designing and implementing evidence-based approaches. Such strategies may include proven interventions and emerging techniques from new scientific studies (NASW, 2012). They should only offer services and embody themself as experts within the limits of their schooling, training, certification, licensure, consultancy, mentoring programs, or other appropriate professional expertise. Social workers should also be mindful of substance abuse-based tactics and habits, such as misuse, dependency, and recovery (NASW, 2012). According to the NASW’s objectives, social workers should learn to collaborate with patients to design successful treatment strategies that include current and emerging resources, such as scientific proof approaches. They should also have a helpful mentality consistent with the existing tenets of social work-based practices.
Generally, these standards shall encourage the creation of defined guidelines, aims, and objectives throughout social work-based practices, research, policy-making, and education connected to services related to the field. The explicit goals are to set standards for social work-based practices for patients who have substance abuse problems. They should also ensure that the “NASW Code of Ethics” is followed when working with clients with substance abuse disorders (Walters and Hurst, 2021). Moreover, another goal is to ensure that patients experiencing substance abuse problems and their families receive the best quality social work-based services possible. They should also aid in providing a basis for campaigning for patients’ interests to be handled with decency and consideration, to have their privacy respected, to have accessibility to supportive resources, and be appropriately included in decision-making.
Another goal is to provide a foundation for social worker-based preparations and continuous education resources and programs relating to social work-related services for substance abuse disorder patients. Finally, the last goal is to encourage social workers who work with patients with substance use problems to get involved in the formation and refining of public policies at the municipal, regional, and national levels needed to aid them in succeeding.
The “person-in-environment” strategy based on social work highlights the importance of understanding individuals and their behaviors concerning the settings where they operate and live. The NASW set of goals anticipates the social workers participating in critical-based self-reflection by recognizing and rectifying their own biases. The person-in-environment method also helps the social workers acknowledge consumers as external consultants, commit to continuous learning, and make institutions accountable for growing cultural competency. Additionally, the person-in-environment strategy helps understand culture’s importance in human-centered behaviors and society and the inherent strengths of all cultures. Moreover, social workers use this approach per the NASW set of rules to demonstrate culturally informed solutions that strengthen marginalized individuals and organizations. This is possible through demonstrating knowledge that improves interaction with patients of various cultures and capabilities. Lastly, it obligates the social workers to consider cultural, economic, environmental, mental, and physical abilities that could enhance the implementation or use of such services.
Indeed, these standards frameworks support the achievement of social, economic, and human rights justice through their practices and policy activity. The standards’ goal is to improve human health and fulfill the standard human requirements of all individuals, with a particular focus on the interests and empowering of vulnerable adults, the disadvantaged, and the poor. The policy proclaims social-based justice to become a fundamental tenet of the sector and highlights the ethical responsibility of dealing with social problems regarding human rights atrocities. Social justice is a basic idea that encourages change and fosters equity, implying that the area is devoted to various human rights. Human rights are universal, regardless of ethnicity, color, age, nationality, religion, economic or other beliefs, cultural or social heritage, ownership, citizenship, or other circumstances. Social, cultural, and economic rights and collective actions are interdependent, equal, and linked. Regarding these standards, clinical-based social workers should support and advocate the patients’ right toward self-determination while also helping them develop and articulate their goals.
As a newly graduated MSW transitioning to a social work practice setting intending to handle those patients’ mental disorders, one of the standards that will be my strengths includes values and ethics. While acknowledging the distinctive forms concerning social work practices with patients experiencing substance abuse disorders alongside the interests of their households, social workers should abide by the various social work-centered professional values and ethics. This will also entail the usage of the NASW ethical standards in guiding all the decision-making processes (Walters and Hurst, 2021). Based on values and ethics, some critical principles that social workers must exemplify will include social integrity, respect, understanding of the needs of others, recognition of the essentials of interpersonal relationships, and competency. Furthermore, social workers will follow the NASW Ethical standards, which outline their professional and ethical duties.
From the perspective of the moral and constitutional rights of grownups, adolescents, and their families, social workers will be aware of and adapt to local, national, and international mandates about explicit consent, confidentiality, and privacy. Whenever services are started, patients, their families, and professionals should be notified of the set confidentiality boundaries (NASW, 2013). Corporations and governments will be mindful of the responsibilities of social workers. They shall be encouraged to make decisions based on the NASW moral codes whenever competing goals collide.
Qualifications are one of the standards that I would like to strengthen when handling patients experiencing substance abuse disorder. Concerning professional practices with patients with substance abuse problems, social workers should meet the requirements set forth by the NASW and local and national laws and acquire experience and expertise fundamental to social work practices (NASW, 2013). Certification in the social work program, which is authorized, shall be required for all social work-based practices.
Working with patients who have substance abuse problems shall be a separate specialty and standard of practice within the field. This is because caring for patients with drug abuse disorders necessitates specialized awareness and expertise of mental and emotional aspects, physiological concerns, clinical diagnosis, legal implications, and the co-occurrence of mental well-being. This information shall entail an awareness of familial relationships and the impacts of SUDs on parenting capabilities (Waltz, 2021). Social workers should also be up to date on the most up-to-date evidence-based techniques and methodologies for providing services to patients with psychiatric disorders. As needed, social workers must actively attempt to keep up to date with advanced training. When necessary, state agencies for social work should certify and provide licenses to various social workers. The different social workers must keep changes in national, state, and municipal legislation, rules, and regulations up to date by the various social workers. Moreover, social workers must stay updated on HIPAA and third-party payment policies and guidelines.
References
National Association of Social Workers. (2005). NASW Standards for Clinical Social Work in Social Work Practice. National Association of Social Workers.
National Association of Social Workers. (2013). NASW Standards for Social Work Practice with Clients with Substance use Disorders. National Association of Social Workers.
Walters, W., & Hurst, D. J. (2021). Xenotransplantation and the NASW Code of Ethics. Journal of Evidence-Based Social Work, 18(5), 500-509. Web.
Waltz, T. J. (2021). Scope of Practice and Standards of Training Across the Clinical Professions. In Applications of Behavior Analysis in Healthcare and Beyond (pp. 13-42). Springer, Cham. Web.