Does anyone do social work at a for-profit?
What are some of the issues you have run into?
I've had some interesting situations arise this week that border on ethical matters.
Or perhaps you've worked in some other host environment where stuff has come up that has pushed you to your limits?
Discuss. I'd be interested to share experiences.
Happy Friday and Happy Beginning of Summer :D.
I worked for a managed medicaid company (private, for profit) a couple of years ago. They were frequently tossing money/prizes/gifts/big events at members. It was borderline unethical to me because I felt the money could have been used in much more beneficial ways. The decision makers were marketing/business-type people so that often conflicted with what the social workers felt was important.
ReplyDeleteNope, but I could definitely see ethical conflicts being ignored and executives looking the other way.
ReplyDeleteI worked for a for-profit corporation for three years, right after I finished my MSW. The company was huge and owned a lot of different facilities all over the place. I worked at a residential treatment facility. Were there problems? Oh yeah, there were problems.
ReplyDeleteSince the company was for profit they often accepted kids that no one else would accept (for the money). These were the kids who had a long history of violence and aggression. Of course that caused problems with safety at our facility. The kids would go one being violent and aggressive, both towards staff and towards other residents. It caused a lot of dangerous situations and sometimes people got hurt.
Another thing is the company was really tight with the money they spent on programs and on the kids. In a non-profit, you can often get companies to donate things like Christmas gifts for the kids. A for profit company can't get these kind of donations. This particular company gave us something like $5 per kid to buy Christmas gifts.
Anyway, there were a lot of issues there and I could go on and on but I'll stop now.