Whistle-blowing as a form of advocacy: guidelines for the practitioner and organization

Advocacy has been an inherent component of social work since the mid-1800s. The NASW Code of Ethics explicitly promotes advocacy as an ethical stance against inhumane conditions. Whistle-blowing, on the other hand, occurs mostly in the business and public administration disciplines and is relatively unknown in the social work profession. Using facts from composite cases of whistle-blowing incidents, the purpose of this article is to review the social work profession's current stance on advocacy to protect clients' rights, define and describe theoretical and practical knowledge about whistle-blowing based on a literature review, explain whistle-blowing as a special form of advocacy, and offer guidance to potential whistle-blowers and their organizations on how to handle situations in which whistle-blowing is likely to be considered an option.