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Social Work Ethics, Values, and Advocacy Practice } 21

According to social worker and member of the Detroit city council Maryanne Mahaffey, “What the social worker brings [to the advocacy process] is a value system that, if implemented, along with the [proper] skills, makes the differ ence” (Haynes & Mickelson, 2009, p. 40). One of the best places to look at the values used to justify advocacy practice is in the Code of Ethics of the primary professional organization of social workers in the United States, the National Association of Social Workers (NASW, 2017). There are several sections of NASW’s Code of Ethics (last revised in 2017) that indicate that being involved in advocacy is one part of a professional social worker’s job description. Section 6.01 states this idea most clearly: Social workers should promote the general welfare of society, from local to global levels, and the development of people, their communities, and their environments. Social workers should advocate for living conditions conducive to the fulfillment of basic human needs and should promote social, economic, political, and cultural values and institutions that are compatible with the realization of social justice. The code further explains this responsibility in Section 6.04: through a different lens (Chuck, 2017). (An initial effort to use the phrase “me too” to highlight sexual assault was created in 2006 on the social media plat form MySpace by community activist Tarana Burke [Guerra, 2017].) It also led to efforts from universities (Associated Press, 2017) and Schools of Social Work (MacroSW, 2018) to ensure that students and faculty are better protected from these crimes. When sexual harassment or violence is alleged, the #MeToo movement insists that those alleging the abuse are presumed to be telling the truth, whether the location is a place of employment, a house of worship, an educational facility, or in the home. This movement is an example of working to change an institutionalized “culture” of denial and oppression. Because values are such an important component of social workers’ advo cacy practice, it is important to identify the source of these values. The next sec tion examines the National Association of Social Workers’ (NASW) professional Code of Ethics to explore the connection between professional responsibility (as defined in the NASW Code) and advocacy practice. (Websites for other codes of ethics are provided in this chapter’s Discussion Questions and Exercises.) Advocacy in the National Association of Social Workers’ Code of Ethics (a) Social workers should engage in social and political action that seeks to ensure that all people have equal access to the resources, employment, services, and opportunities they require to meet their