Enhancing Simulation-Based Social Work Ethics Training for Duty-Warn-Scenarios

Overview: Social workers are frequently on the front lines of complicated decision-making involving duty-to-warn and imminent risk of harm to self or others. Ethical decision-making between professionals can be fraught with legal and inter-professional challenges. This presentation explores evidence-based approaches for enhancing ethical decision-making in high-stakes scenarios for social work students.Proposal text: As social workers are increasingly involved in high-stakes decision making, social work educators can play a role in bolstering education and training for students preparing for careers where they will apply these essential skills. Social work education trends indicate a shift toward developing innovative ways to prioritize workplace skills over traditional teaching methods (Dodds et al., 2018). Drawing on the approaches of simulations, virtual learning environments, and immersive exercises often used in healthcare (Ferguson & Driver, 2018), social work education can enrich student experiences in the classroom to supplement the rich signature pedagogy of field education.
Social work students are frequently exposed to high-stakes decision making in their field placements and as they move into their professional careers. Students that interface with systems such as child welfare, healthcare, mental health, criminal justice system, co-responder teams and schools, to name a few, routinely navigate ethical challenges related to imminent risk and duty-to-warn considerations. Social work education has an opportunity to enhance training on ethical decision making through simulation-based training.
Research indicates that social work students involved in simulation training show significant improvement in professional competence, confidence, and readiness (Hitchcock et al. 2019; Sacco et al., 2017). These simulations may involve virtual technology, reality-based actors, and other tools and strategies that support students’ growth by practicing techniques, conceptual applications, and interpersonal challenges in a learning environment (Lateef, 2010; Schnurr & MacLeod, 2021; Sollars et al. 2021).
This presentation explores the development of simulation-based ethics training for BSW and MSW students at a midsize university This program developed a simulation-based ethics training, using professional actors, in an interdisciplinary collaboration with the College of Business, as part of an initiative to enhance ethics training across campus. Participants will have opportunities for guided small group exercises to explore opportunities to enhance ethics training at their institutions and agencies.