Personal values

Human services professions involve dealing with people who have diversity in terms of age, educational levels, personalities, nationalities and religions only to name but a few. This means that the professionals in this field have to be well equipped to deal with all these issues and perform effectively at their work. For human services professionals to efficiently fulfill the needs of their clients as well as those of the organization, they need to have a variety of values to facilitate the same. They should be committed to diversity, integrity, quality, responsiveness as well as have innovative approaches to the many challenges they are likely to encounter (Sehi, 1997). This paper will highlight my values as human services professional, their implications on my work as a human service provider and the ethical dilemmas in relation to the Ethical Standards of Human Service Professionals.

Values and their implications
Every organization has a list of values that it expects its employees including the human services professionals to adhere to in order to meet the organizational goals and objectives. The workforce should also have their own values which would guide them in their daily operations and especially is they are to succeed in the field of human services (Schuler, Jackson  Luo, 2004). Personally, I have encountered many issues from my educational and working background. I came to the conclusion that people are very different and it would take anyone extra effort to co-exist with others. Based on these, the values I apply in the human services profession in the capacity of a counselor include empathy, integrity, honesty, trust, fairness, confidence, competence and concern for others.

In my field of work, I deal with people of all ages who have consumed drugs of all kinds.  This means that I have to be enlightened about the types of drugs available in the society, the factors contributing to drug use, how these drugs affect the users, prevention and cure and all the other issues related to the same. I have also to evaluate the best methods through which I can help a drug addict to stop using the drugs (Schuler, Jackson  Luo, 2004). In order to cope with such issues, I made a decision to be always informed on the emerging trends in the field of counseling as well as the new ways through which drugs can be consumed, trafficked, prevented and treated. This way, I create time to attend workshops, seminars and other kind of any training that is related to counseling. I attend such so that I can know how to revise and improve on my values to cater for the changes in the counseling world.
My values as human service professional have several implications on my work. For example, fairness value requires me to perform my work and serve others without discrimination based on nationality, race, color, gender, religion, age and any other ground. This may be a good thing but it means that at times I am in conflict with some of my colleagues who do not believe in the same. This implies that at times I have to do things my on own way as long as it is the right thing to do. The value of honesty requires me to be transparent as far as all my work is concerned. I can not therefore take part in illegal deals in the organization and this implies that I am sidelined when such deals are made by my colleagues. The good thing about having good values is that am always referred to as an example of good moral conduct in the organization. This has enabled me to get unlimited rewards from the management. This on the other hand implies that I have to continue applying my values so that I keep to the moral standards I have already set. Basically, having values has positive and negative implications on the individual as well as the organization.

For the people who have strong values, there are always challenges regarding ethical standards of the organization (Marshall  World Health Organization, (2007). The biggest challenge I have had to deal with in the capacity of human service professional has to do with racism. Our organization operates in such a way that a potential client books an appointment with the counselor and they are only seen during those appointments.

 On this occasion, I was to have a session with a black client as scheduled. However, one of my white friends called and wanted me to see his brother who was a drug addict, urgently. I told him to book an appointment with the secretary since I already had a client at that particular time. Since I refused to agree to my friends request, he offered a lot of money so that I could agree to see his brother who was almost sitting for his final high school exams. I refused adamantly and he insisted that I tell him whether the client was black or white. When I admitted that he was black, my friend shouted angrily that he could not believe that I was refusing to see his brother because of a black man, given that I am white. I did this to follow my personal values which believe in fairness and also to comply with ethical standards of human service professionals. Of course I lost the friendship but I am glad that I did the right thing.

Human service professionals have ethical standards which guide them in their work. These give such professionals responsibilities to the clients, colleagues, self, the community and the organization in general. My personal values are in line with the ethical standards and this means that fulfilling the ethical standards of the organization is not difficult for me. Ethical standards explains how the human services professionals should behave in case of issues like the use of psychological tests in the courtroom, the lie detector, boundaries of competence, integrity, sexual harassment, human differences and the legal definition of insanity. The standards require that clients in whichever field be explained to what they should do and the implications thereafter. They should also be made aware of their rights and this makes the work of the human service professionals easier.

In conclusion, human service is a challenging field which requires the personnel not only to follow the organizations values but also to have values of their own to guide them to perform their work exemplary and fully serve their clients.

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