Ethical Practice – Competent Practitioners

Who is this resource for?

Ethical Practice – Competent Practitioners is relevant to anyone who does community learning or community development work, whatever sector or context they work or volunteer in, whatever age groups they work with, and however they describe what they do.

A commitment to practise in line with the Code of Ethics is a condition of membership of the Community Learning and Development Standards Council.

Why do ethics matter?

Community Learning and Development (CLD) is a values-based profession. The values adopted by the CLDSC underpin CLD practice and the CLD Competences provide a framework for practice. But how we practice needs to be directly informed by why we’re doing it – the CLD Code of Ethics provides the means for us to make this connection.

Getting your bearings

Each section is an individual PDF you can open by clicking on links below

• • You will find the Code of Ethics itself here.
  • Section 1 (PDF) is an introduction and includes some initial topics for reflection and discussion which provide starting points for using the other sections.
  • Section 2 (PDF) covers what we mean by “ethics” and explores theories, frameworks and professionalism.
  • Section 3 (PDF) looks at ethics in CLD and considers four themes in particular: boundaries, accountability, “enforcement” and professional identity.
  • Section 4 (PDF) offers worksheets exploring each clause of the Code of Ethics in depth, highlighting links to the CLD Competences and offering prompt questions about applying ethical principles.
  • Section5 (PDF) is about embedding the Code of Ethics in practice as an organisation. This section is designed to be of particular relevance to senior managers with responsibility for CLD.

You can also  download the whole resource as one (PDF)

This Resource was refreshed in November 2020.