How to Use These Standards

The Standards of Practice for Clinical Specialists serve multiple critical roles, from delineating professional responsibilities to ensuring public safety and fostering ongoing professional growth. These standards articulate the expected ethical behaviours, abilities, knowledge, skills, and practices necessary for clinical specialists to provide safe, competent care. They function as the benchmark for evaluating a clinical specialist’s performance, with key objectives including:

• Setting Professional Expectations: They provide a foundation for social workers to develop, manage, evaluate, and enhance their practice responsibly.
• Protecting the Public: By mandating competent practice, they safeguard the public and specifically those receiving social work services.
• Supporting Professional Development: They offer a framework for ongoing learning and professional growth within the social work field.
• Clarifying Social Work Practice: By embodying the profession’s values, ethics, knowledge, and skills, they support others—professionals, employees, service users, and the general public—to understand the objectives and methods of social work practice in Nova Scotia.
• Enhancing the Profession’s Value: They bolster the profession’s credibility and effectiveness in advocating for necessary social changes.

Ethical decision-making within this framework requires thoughtful consideration of various perspectives, including those of service users, the working environment, and societal narratives. This process involves introspection into one’s values, emotions, and positioning, as well as consultation to navigate ethical challenges and personal influences on decision-making.

NSCSW encourages its members to engage with the Standards of Practice for Clinical Specialists and accompanying guidelines for ethical considerations or dilemmas. Resources like the Ethical Decision-Making Tool on the NSCSW website, alongside seeking supervision and NSCSW consultation, are recommended to support members in resolving ethical concerns effectively.