Mandated Reporting of Abuse of Older Adults and Adults with Disabilities; Working with Adult Protective Services (2 credit hours)
Program Summary: This course explores the advantages and disadvantages of mandated reporting for suspected abuse, neglect, or exploitation of older adults and adults with disabilities. It examines the reporting requirements for mandated reporters and the role of APS programs. Important ethical principles are discussed and include self-determination, confidentiality, well-being, informed consent, the right to refuse interventions, the right to the least intrusive interventions, and the commitment to do no harm.
This course is recommended for social workers and it is appropriate for beginning and intermediate levels of practice. This course does not qualify for NBCC ethics credit.
The reading includes the following NCEA publications:
- Mandated Reporting of Abuse of Older Adults and Adults with Disabilities
- Understanding and Working With Adult Protective Services
- Adult Protective Services, What You Must Know
- Red flags of Abuse
Publisher: The National Center on Elder Abuse; The US Department of Health and Human Services
Course Objectives: To enhance professional practice, values, skills, and knowledge by exploring the role of adult protective services and the advantages and disadvantages of mandated reporting.
Learning Objectives: Describe potential advantages of mandated reporting for suspected abuse, neglect, or exploitation of older adults and adults with disabilities. Describe potential disadvantages of mandated reporting for suspected abuse, neglect, or exploitation of older adults and adults with disabilities. Identify the impact of mandated reporting on the ethical principles of self-determination and well-being.
Review our pre-reading study guide.
Free State Social Work, LLC, provider #1235, is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: 9/6/2021 - 9/6/2024. Social workers completing this course receive 2 ethics continuing education credits.
Free State Social Work has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP NO. 6605. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. Free State Social Work is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs.
Social Workers’ Ethical Responsibilities to Clients (NASW Code of Ethics, revised 2017)
- 1.01 Commitment to Clients Social workers’ primary responsibility is to promote the well-being of clients. In general, clients’ interests are primary. However, social workers’ responsibility to the larger society or specific legal obligations may on limited occasions supersede the loyalty owed clients, and clients should be so advised. (Examples include when a social worker is required by law to report that a client has abused a child or has threatened to harm self or others.)
- 1.02 Self-Determination Social workers respect and promote the right of clients to self-determination and assist clients in their efforts to identify and clarify their goals. Social workers may limit clients’ right to self-determination when, in the social workers’ professional judgment, clients’ actions or potential actions pose a serious, foreseeable, and imminent risk to themselves or others.
The NAPSA Code of Ethics can be found at napsa code of ethics.
The NASW Code of Ethics can be found at https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English.
G.M. Rydberg-Cox, MSW, LSCSW is the Continuing Education Director at Free State Social Work and responsible for the development of this course. She received her Masters of Social Work in 1996 from the Jane Addams School of Social Work at the University of Illinois-Chicago and she has over 20 years of experience. She has lived and worked as a social worker in Chicago, Boston, and Kansas City. She currently practices in the area of hospital/medical social work. The reading materials for this course were developed by another organization.
