Whistle Blowing

Whistle blowing is when an employee notices some sort of wrong-doing in their place of
work and reports it, either to the government, higher authority, or the press. While the NASW
Code of Ethics does not address whistle blowing specifically, it does state that social workers
must maintain integrity in the profession, which implies that social workers should report any
wrongdoing that they witness, especially if failing to do so could harm a client in some way.
Social workers may often find themselves in a double bind dilemma in regards to whistle
blowing, where they may feel as though they have to choose between a loyalty to their agency
and their coworkers, a loyalty to their clients, and a loyalty to the moral principles that guide the
social work profession.
One specific example of a social worker who was a whistle blower is Karen King, a
former Department for Children and Families (DCF) supervisor in Kansas (Ranney, 2015a).
When King noticed that one of her caseworkers had reported conducting safety checks on
children on days in which she had not worked, she reported it to her supervisor. While her
supervisor assured her that the reports had been passed onto personnel, King was later told that
the employee would not be disciplined because too much time had passed. King then took it
upon herself to address the issue with the caseworker directly, informing her of the misdocumentation and instructing her to conduct safety checks as required. Soon after, King was
fired from her position with no explanation (Ranney, 2015a).
King faced an ethical dilemma in this situation, as she knew that safety checks were not
being conducted as necessary for children, even though they were being documented by one of
her employees. She took the necessary steps to report the wrongdoing, but when she noticed that
no action would be taken to correct the error, she decided that she would take the action upon

herself, in order to ensure that the children that required these safety checks were kept safe. King
was reprimanded for her decision to take action by being fired from her position. While there are
federal and state laws in place to protect whistleblowers, King may not be protected by these
laws because she did not report her concerns outside of the agency (Ranney, 2015b). King may
also not be protected because King was identified as an unclassified employee at the DCF
agency, while only classified employees are entitled to whistleblower protection (Ranney,
2015b).

References
Ranney, D. (2015a, March 27). Former DCF employee files whistleblower lawsuit: Child
protection supervisor says she was fired after notifying supervisor about social workers
false reports. Kansas Health Institute. Retrieved from
http://www.khi.org/news/article/former-dcf-employee-files-whistleblower-lawsuit
Ranney, D. (2015b, April 3). DCF responds to former child protection workers lawsuit. Hays
Post. Retrieved from http://www.hayspost.com/2015/04/03/dcf-responds-to-former-childprotection-workers-lawsuit/