The Community Ethics Toolkit was developed after acknowledging the lack of adequate resources within the community health sector to support staff with making ethical decisions in complex community care settings. This Toolkit offers community health care professionals a common approach towards ethical decision-making, regardless of their discipline or organizations in which they represent. A common approach to handling ethical dilemmas can facilitate collaboration amongst care providers, allowing them to achieve greater consistency in practice across the community health care sector and delivering client-centered care.
The toolkit consists of the following components:
A Code of Ethics for the Community Health and Support Sector
A list of common values identified in the community health sector to guide ethical decision-making.
An Ethical Decision-Making Worksheet
An easy-to-use worksheet divided into sections to help expose the layers of complex ethical issues in a case. It also allows the ethical issues to be organized and summarised in a clear and concise way to facilitate case analysis and thereby allow for a confident ethical care decision.
Guidelines for using the decision-making worksheet
Step by step instructions to help the user identify the facts, determine the ethical principles in conflict, and actions to take upon completion of worksheet.
To facilitate sharing, the toolkit has been made available electronically. Please cite or acknowledge authorship when using or referencing the toolkit.
Community Ethics Network Blog 