Professionalism, Ethics, And Welfare Reform: The Importance Of Ethical Competence

Abstract

This paper examines the professional ethics of welfare reform providers to determine its role in the achievement of welfare reform goals and to suggest an alternative context, based on professional ethics, for discussing the success or failure of welfare reform. Four themes emerged from the analysis of literature. First, patriarch authority keeps welfare women at the bottom of society. Second, different political interests weaken partnerships and services at the expense of welfare recipients. Third, welfare recipients are unjustly stereotyped and perceived as deficit-driven and as the single cause for their economic situation. Fourth, teachers’ beliefs, relationships, and learning environments hold a key to sustained and successful engagement and participation in welfare-to-work programs.