Standards & Ethics

Ethics and Professional Standards in Clinical Social Work

A wide range of ethical and clinical practice standards issues arise in clinical social work practice. This section of the Society’s website is designed to help you address the more common ethical and clinical practice standards issues that arise in practice and to provide education on ethics, professionalism and practice standards and their application in problematic practice situations.

Ethics and Practice Standards

This section will provide links to clinical social work practice standards. Click on the title of a listed standard to view the standard, download it in PDF format or print it.

NYSSCSW Code of Ethics | This PDF is contains the Society's Code of Ethics and provides a history of it's development.

Standards for Clinical Documentation and Recordkeeping | This PDF sets forth the standards for clinical documentation and recordkeeping in clinical social work practice.

Standards for Forensic Clinical Social Work Practice | Please stay tuned for publication of this document.

Ethics & Professional Standards Q & A

In this section, recent responses and answers to various ethical and clinical practice issues with regards to which the Society’s Committee on Ethics and Professional Standards has provided consultation will be posted (without any information which would indicate the practitioner who made the inquiry or the patient(s) involved). In some instances these postings will only provide information about proper practice, and in other instances, by documenting the thinking process used to answer the ethical or practice question presented, it will also hopefully help others to learn about the process of ethical decision making which is the cornerstone of professionalism.

HIPAA Handbook and Forms

In this section, the Society’s HIPAA manual and a variety of HIPAA forms will be available for viewing, downloading in pdf format, or printing. Some of the forms may also be available in MS Word or Word Perfect format. You may click here to view, download as a pdf file or print the List and Description of HIPAA Manual Sections and HIPAA Forms.

Ethical & Clinical Practice Issues: Search for Answers

Using a customized Google search you will be able to search the files of consultations and answers provided in response to inquiries to the Society’s Committee on Ethics and Professional Standards regarding ethical and clinical practice issues, some of which will have previously appeared in the Ethics & Professional Standards Q & A section located above.

You may enter your question (e.g., What are the standards for clinical documentation?, How do I response to a subpoena for my records?) or key words (e.g. documentation, records, subpoena) or phrases (“clinical documentation”, “documentation standards”,“record keeping”, “subpoena response”, “records disclosure”) to make your search.

If you cannot find an answer which meets your needs click here to go to the Committee on Ethics and Professional Standards area of the website to view the procedure for seeking assistance from the committee.