Herman’s Rights or Worker Safety?

Herman’s Rights or Worker Safety?

Marquise A. Davis

Northwestern State University

Abstract

This paper explores a case between an elderly veteran and intake case manager who’s trying to get home-delivered meals. This paper expresses my feelings about the story and how somethings could have been handled differently. It states each person role in the story and how it affected Herman. The paper also lists some Code of Ethics that were broken by the case manager and how some could have been used by the case manager. The death of Herman could have been prevented if some things were done differently by him, his case, manager, the volunteer aide and the center director. Supervision and consultation could have played a big part in a outcome of this story also.

        Herman’s death could have been prevented. The choices—providing needed services or protecting a worker’s safety—were in direct opposition, (Bailey, 2015). If one thing was done, then the other thing was automatically out of the window. Herman was an elderly veteran who needed assistance. Kathleen, the social worker, was contacted to do an intake assessment to determine the eligibility for home-delivered meals. While doing intake, she learned a few things about Herman. One important thing that she learned about Herman was that he had a lot a break-in attempts and bullet holes in his door panels. She later learned that Herman kept a gun next to him and she did not report it. As Herman is getting his meals delivered, he developed a relationship with the volunteer who worked for the senior center. The delivery aide so happened to pass a comment by the center director that Herman kept a gun by the side of him, not knowing what she had done. The director immediately stopped the aide from delivering the meals to Herman, unless he got rid of his gun. Being the case manager, Kathleen, was contacted. Herman refused to give up the gun or even hide it and she did not force him. Later on after not receiving anymore meals, Herman killed himself.

        Kathleen should have first made documentation of the gun when she was first notified about it and took the proper steps. She could have also took record of all the police report reference cards that represented each time he had called the police and filed a report of an break-in attempt or some other suspicious activity.  Code 1.14 states that clients who lack the capacity to make informed decisions, social workers should take reasonable steps to safeguard the interests and rights of those clients (socialworkers.org, 2016). She could have done this by making the decision for Herman to remove the gun from the home. But, if she would have done this then she would have been breaking code 1.07. This is so because that is Herman’s weapon to protect himself for when people are trying to break into his home and it would have been violating his privacy because he didn’t have to tell her that he had a gun.