Social Work Core Values and the NASW Code of Ethics

The core values of social work are the six principles the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) placed at the center of its Code of Ethics: service, social justice, dignity and worth of the person, importance of human relationships, integrity, and competence.¹ Each one carries specific duties, and together they define what clients can expect from a social worker and what a licensing board can hold a practitioner to.

The NASW Delegate Assembly adopted the first Code on October 13, 1960, and has revised it several times since, most recently in 2021.² A number of state licensing boards incorporate the Code into their regulations by reference, so failing to live up to its standards can cost a practitioner their license.³ The values are not aspirational slogans. They are the base layer of an enforceable professional standard.

Service

The first value is the simplest to state: a social worker’s primary goal is to help people in need and to address social problems.¹ Client needs come before personal financial gain. When a community lacks a resource, the practitioner is expected to apply their training to help fill the gap, whether through program development, referrals, or coordinated care.

The Code also encourages social workers to volunteer some portion of their professional skills with no expectation of significant financial return.⁴ Pro bono work is treated as part of the professional identity, not as optional charity.

The 2021 revision added language on self-care. Professional demands, difficult workplace climates, and exposure to trauma warrant that social workers maintain their personal and professional health, safety, and integrity, and agencies are encouraged to support policies that make that possible.⁵

Social Justice

Social workers challenge social injustice.¹ The expectation is advocacy against institutional barriers like poverty, unemployment, and discrimination, with the aim of expanding access to resources, information, and opportunity for marginalized people. In practice this can mean testifying before legislative bodies, organizing community coalitions, documenting disparities through research, or working inside an agency to change its practices.

This is where the profession stakes out territory other helping fields largely avoid. A clinician might treat a client’s anxiety without asking why the client’s neighborhood lacks safe public spaces. A social worker is ethically expected to ask that second question and act on the answer.

Dignity and Worth of the Person

Every client deserves care and respect regardless of background, identity, or past conduct. The Code asks practitioners to stay mindful of cultural diversity and individual differences and to tailor their approach rather than apply a single template.¹

A central expression of this value is the right to self-determination. The social worker promotes the client’s ability to identify their own goals and make their own choices. The Code draws one explicit line: a practitioner may limit self-determination when, in their professional judgment, a client’s actions pose a serious, foreseeable, and imminent risk to the client or others.⁶ Outside that narrow exception, the client leads.

Informed Consent

Dignity requires giving people real information to decide with. Before services begin, the Code requires practitioners to explain, in clear and understandable language, the purpose of services, the risks involved, relevant costs, reasonable alternatives, any limits imposed by third-party payers, the client’s right to refuse or withdraw consent, and the time frame the consent covers.⁶ Clients must have the opportunity to ask questions.

When a client has difficulty understanding the primary language, the practitioner must arrange a detailed verbal explanation or a qualified interpreter. Separate informed consent is required before recording sessions, allowing third-party observation, or conducting an electronic search on a client. For clients receiving services involuntarily, the practitioner still must explain the nature and extent of services and whatever right to refuse the client retains.

Cultural Humility

The 2021 revision expanded this value substantially. Standard 1.05 now explicitly requires social workers to take action against oppression, racism, discrimination, and inequities, and to acknowledge personal privilege.⁵ It introduces cultural humility: critical self-reflection on one’s own biases, recognition of clients as experts on their own culture, and a commitment to lifelong learning. Social workers must understand diversity and oppression across race, ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, religion, immigration status, and mental or physical ability.

Importance of Human Relationships

Social work treats relationships as the primary vehicle for change. The Code recognizes that strengthening connections between people is central to restoring well-being and solving problems.¹

In day-to-day work, this means treating clients as partners rather than passive recipients. Collaborative problem-solving produces better outcomes than top-down directives, and reinforcing ties among family members, peers, and community groups builds a support network that outlasts the formal relationship with the social worker. Those connections buffer against isolation and emotional distress, which is why the profession elevates them to the status of a core value.

Integrity

Social workers are expected to behave in a trustworthy manner, which means honesty in every professional interaction and careful management of situations where personal interests could cloud judgment.¹

Conflicts of Interest and Dual Relationships

Practitioners must stay alert to conflicts of interest and resolve them in a way that puts the client’s interests first. When a real or potential conflict appears, the social worker informs the client and takes reasonable steps to address it. Sometimes that means ending the professional relationship and referring the client elsewhere.⁶

Dual relationships are a common integrity trap. They occur when the practitioner relates to a client in more than one role: professional, social, or business. The Code does not ban them outright, since in small communities they are sometimes unavoidable, but it requires clear, culturally sensitive boundaries and places the responsibility on the social worker to protect the client from exploitation or harm. Technology multiplies the risk. Communicating with clients for personal reasons, posting personal views on a professional website, or belonging to online groups a client could discover all muddy the professional role.

Professional Accountability

Integrity also means accepting accountability. Anyone can file a Request for Professional Review with the NASW alleging a Code violation within one year of the alleged misconduct, or up to two years with a time-limits waiver.⁷ That review process operates separately from state licensing board action.

Competence

The sixth value requires social workers to practice only within the boundaries of their education, training, license, supervised experience, and consultation received.⁶ If you haven’t been trained in a particular intervention, you don’t use it. In emerging areas that lack established standards, the Code calls for study, research, training, and supervision before the practitioner takes it on.

Competence is maintained, not achieved once. The NASW’s professional standard calls for 48 hours of continuing education every two years.⁸ State licensing boards set their own requirements. Most require between 30 and 45 hours per biennial renewal period, with some as low as 20 for entry-level licenses and more for clinical licensees.⁹ Reaching the clinical level typically takes 1,500 to 3,000 hours of post-graduate supervised practice, depending on the jurisdiction.

The 2021 revision added a technology-specific competence requirement. Practitioners who use technology to deliver services must have the knowledge and skills to do so competently, including an understanding of the communication challenges digital platforms create.⁶ Cultural competence applies here too: a video platform doesn’t help a client who lacks reliable internet, and ignoring that barrier is treated as an ethical issue rather than a logistical one.

How the Values Shape Confidentiality

Confidentiality is where the values meet daily practice most concretely. Practitioners must protect all information obtained during professional service, avoid soliciting private information unless it is essential to care, and discuss the nature and limits of confidentiality early in the relationship. The Code identifies specific situations in which disclosure is permitted or required:

When disclosure is necessary to prevent serious, foreseeable, and imminent harm to a client or an identifiable other person.
When a law or regulation requires disclosure without the client’s consent, such as mandatory reporting of child abuse.
When the client, or someone legally authorized to consent on their behalf, gives valid permission.

Even when disclosure is justified, the practitioner shares only the least information necessary and, where possible, tells the client about the disclosure and its consequences before it happens.⁶

Social workers in healthcare settings and private practices that transmit health information electronically are often covered by the federal HIPAA Privacy Rule, which adds a legal layer of protection on top of the ethical one.¹⁰ Not every social work setting qualifies as a HIPAA-covered entity, but many do.

Two confidentiality limits deserve specific attention. Every state designates certain professionals as mandatory reporters of suspected child abuse and neglect, and social workers appear on that list in virtually every jurisdiction. The federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act conditions federal funding on the existence of state reporting laws but leaves it to each state to define who must report and what triggers the duty.¹¹ Failing to report can carry criminal penalties in many states. The second limit is the duty to protect identifiable third parties from a client’s threatened violence, a doctrine that originated in the 1976 California case Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California. Most states have since enacted some version of a duty-to-warn or duty-to-protect statute, and the NASW Code’s “serious, foreseeable, and imminent harm” exception is written to align with that framework.

What Happens When the Values Are Violated

Breaching these standards carries real professional consequences. State licensing boards have broad authority to discipline practitioners, with sanctions that can include revocation, suspension, probation, a limited license restricting the scope of practice, censure or reprimand, fines, and assessments covering the costs of investigation and adjudication. Boards may also summarily suspend a license before a hearing when immediate public protection requires it, with a formal hearing following within a short statutory timeframe.¹²

Beyond board discipline, ethical violations can expose practitioners to malpractice lawsuits from harmed clients. Professional liability insurance is standard in the field for that reason, and many telehealth-related policies require the practitioner to be following state regulations and HIPAA privacy standards.¹³ The six core values set the standard; the licensing system, the courts, and the NASW’s own ethics review process enforce it.

1
National Association of Social Workers. Code of Ethics
2
National Association of Social Workers. Code of Ethics History
3
Association of Social Work Boards. Delegation and the NASW Code of Ethics
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National Association of Social Workers. Code of Ethics – English
5
National Association of Social Workers. Highlighted Revisions to the Code of Ethics
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National Association of Social Workers. Social Workers’ Ethical Responsibilities to Clients
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National Association of Social Workers. How To File a Complaint
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National Association of Social Workers. NASW Standards for Continuing Professional Education
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Association of Social Work Boards. Getting Continuing Education Credits
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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The HIPAA Privacy Rule
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U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act
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Association of Social Work Boards. Disciplinary Actions Guidebook for Social Work
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National Association of Social Workers. Telemental Health – Legal Considerations for Social Workers