About us

Society values each child's natural right to have basic needs, for survival and development met and each child's natural right to live with his/her family. Society also values each parent's natural right to rear his/her child, but through its child welfare laws, defines certain situations in which the parent's rights can be limited so that the child can be protected. Society delegates to the child & family welfare field and to those who become members of the field the authority to intervene in the lives of families with the goals of ensuring the safety of abused and neglected children, assisting parents in meeting minimum parenting standards, and planning alternative permanent care when parents are incapable of or unwilling to meet those standards.

The child welfare professional is a person who functions in a societal sanctioned decision-making capacity for neglect and/or abused children and their families. When individuals accept the role of child welfare professional and the delegated authority inherent in that role, they publicly acknowledge having the professional responsibilities, which accompany that authority. Society and agency clients, therefore, have legitimate expectations about the nature of professional intervention as it occurs in one-on-one professional/client interactions, in the management and administration of those providing intervention, and in policy decision-making. A Child & Family Protection Practitioner also has responsibilities for families as a basic unit structure of our society.

Because of their special knowledge and authority, all professionals are in a position of power in inherently unequal relationships with their clients. The power of child & family protection professionals is particularly daunting because of their delegated state authority and the mandated nature of their relationships. Their clients and society must be able to trust that child & family protection practitioners are working with their clients' interests in mind with no element of disrespect, punishment, or personal bias. Child & Family Protection Practitioners must behave in such a manner as to ensure not only that their delegated authority is exercised appropriately, but also that their clients and society perceive their use of authority as appropriate.

Child & Family Protection Practitioners responsibilities to clients are grounded in a fiduciary relationship with its promise of trustworthy intervention in the lives of those less powerful. This type of relationship entails certain responsibilities based on the values of respect for persons, client self-determination individualised intervention, competence, loyally, diligence, honesty, promise-keeping and confidentiality. Child welfare professionals' responsibilities to colleagues, supervisees, foster carers, the court, employees, the child welfare field, and society also find their roots in many of the same values respect for persons, honesty, promise keeping and loyalty as well as in the values of accepting the responsibility for one's actions and their consequences and holding professional behaviour to a standard higher than self-interest.

Our code of ethics sets forth ethical principles which should be considered by Child & Family Protection Practitioners whenever ethical judgment must be exercised in specific situations and which should become habitual guides to daily conduct. It sets standards of behaviour to be adhered to in relationships between professionals and their clients, colleagues, supervisees, foster carers, the courts employees, the child welfare field, and society. Its purpose is to assist in identifying the many and often competing values and responsibilities present in practice issues so that appropriate consideration is given to each value and responsibility in the decision-making process.

Individuals who bring their personal values, culture, and experiences to the decision- making process understand, by making public the values and ethical standards shared by child welfare professionals, this code will assist in making ethical decisions more consistent and objective. The code will reinforce child welfare professionals' accountability to society and to those individuals with whom they have professional relationships.