Celtic Knot - I' ve just read your full blog post. I'm pleased that you have prodcued such a full and thoughtful response, and grateful. I also think you're wrong in just about every way. I sort of suspect we're both the type of person who will find the minutae of this debate interesting, so here goes. I hope you don't mind if I cut and paste your comment in full and, hope it takes some readers over to you blog!
My responses are in bold for clarity. Cut and paste starts below
"There is a fascinating thread on CareSpace, discussing letters sent to survivors of domestic violence following police referral.
While it started as a discussion of the appropriateness of such
letters, there is a signifcant debate about the ethics of lying to a
man who picks up the phone when you wanted to speak to the woman
survivor, about who you are.
The argument goes: the man may be
the perpetrator; the woman may receive a beating at his hands, simply
because of the fact of an unknown caller, or the fact of a caller from
social services. To avoid this, lie about who you are - the actual
example under discussion being a social worker saying they are a
telesales person.
From a utilitarian starting point, it has been suggested, we seek to
avoid harm and the harm caused by the lie is less than the potential
harm caused by the truth.
Utilitarianism has its points - see my earlier posts indeed, but as a statutory worker I work closely within agency guidelines in a closely regulated system which puts children's welfare over and above the rights of adults. Classical utiliatarianism isn't really qualified by the age of the parties; social care law is. Therefore I'm guilty of misconduct if I choose to adopt my own personal value system; be it utilitarianism, revolutionary socialism, political Islam or neoliberalism over that of my employing agency.
Certainly, the avoidance of harm seems a sound ethical starting point. But here are some of my doubts about it:
Firstly, we surely should not arrogate to ourselves responsibility for
the harm caused by others. If the perpetrator is going to inflict harm,
the perpetrator is responsible for that harm. Our responsibility is to
seek to protect from harm. If we genuinely believe there is a risk of
significant harm, a phonecall is never going to discharge our
responsibility to protect from harm. If, however, our informed
professional judgement is that significant harm is unlikely, but it
nonetheless results, it will at least not be us who caused the harm.
Nonsene! Obviously if I made a mistake as a social worker which indirectly was responsible for harm coming to a servie user then I am only guiltly of what I have done, and not of the direct harm; but I still have a significant level of responsibilty. A foolish social worker who divulged the address of a former partner to an estranged and morbidly jealous individual who attended the address and murdered them isn't guilty of murder; but they are guiltly of misconduct, and should know of the serious consequences of it. The reality of social work is that we MUST plan around the reality of our family's lives.
Many of our service users - much as we wish otherwise - live in environments where they are exposed to violence on a daily basis. Therefore it's obvious that one responds to them taking that reality into account. That's not concluding with the violence, far from it, but it is avoiding the intervention to them causing further harm. Many serious case reviews - and the Laming Inquiry- rightly point out that it was the parents / murderer whoever was was responsible for the death of the child. However, as social work practiotioners we are rightly accountable if we don't intervene appropraitely with the risk to the child "in mind" so to speak.
I'm not sure - to my surprise - that you understand the purpose or process behind the phone call. It's not about discharging anyone's responsibility really. It's about beginning to make an evaluation of someone's situation to see if social work intervention. It's result might be closing the case, or it might be the prelude to a significant and lengthy piece of work.
Second,
we must take responsibility for means as well as ends. Good ends do not
justify bad means. Lying may not be intrinsically harmful, but the
breakdown of trust in relationships when people do not know whether
others are lying is a wider harm. In the present context, it is hard to
pinpoint the harm of the particular lie, but if it became generally
known that state officials entrusted with the protection of children
sometimes masqueraded as telesales callers, this could undermine
confidence in social work generally - a few steps down the line, and
our service users would be wondering whether the man who says he is
there to read the meter is really there to remove the children...
Given the confidentiality surrounding our work, I'm not convinced by the "wider harm" argument, although of course families themselves can discuss their relations with social workers with whoever they like, so news does spread so to speak.
The Children Act doesn't acknowledge "wider harm" and nor should it. It's interested in the harm which might, or has, happened to a particular child or children.
For example, there is arguably a "wider harm" in insisting that people who wish to become foster carers have a spare bedroom at home - this rules out the majority of people who don't - and can't afford to live in a property with a spare bedroom. Effectively that discriminates - formally and significantly - against the less well off, by denying them the wonderful opportunity of becoming a foster carer. As a social worker, that pains me greatly.
But the policy is quite correct. Individual children would suffered if placed in foster care in a over-crowded or cramped home. Therefore reducing individual harm to a child quite rightly wins out against your spurious claim of wider harm - to the less-well off - each and every time.
I think the manreading the meter point is a bit daft and I won't respond . More to the point "state officials trusted with the care of children" quite often *** up rather spectacularly, and their actions and inactions can and have indirectly led to serious harm being caused to those children. I do rather think that's the more salient point.
Thirdly,
surely there must be a test of necessity? Certainly a "white lie"
cannot lie at the more serious end of moral misdemeanours, and if it is
the only way of avoiding harm, it may become morally justifiable. But
necessity implies the lack of any alternative. If the full truth is
harmful, surely the alternative to fiction is something true but
innocuous: "Oh, sorry, my mistake!" and hang up?
Reread the scenario. "My mistake" doesn't work as I'd already asked for the person by name. And anyway why is saying "wrong number" any more or less "dishonest" than saying you work in telesales. I would know full well it wasn't a wrong number. So, that too would be a lie!
"There are alternatives to the "white lie". See my response to Grinch above. But they all could cause direct harm to the child. No one has - or to be honest could - explain why terminating a call on "telesales" grounds could or would harm the child in that family situation - the family unit who are the starting point of ALL that we do.
Enough of me! Night all.....
Celtic Knot, would be really pleased to hear back
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