Ethical Charter

We believe that good practice in personal, management and organisational development is fostered by adherence to a simple set of guidelines for ethical behaviour that are specific to AMED.

Our members are drawn to AMED by its vision and values; they give their time and energy freely and voluntarily to support our work. Essential features of AMED's approach are a robust, open dialogue and critique about, and promotion of, current and fresh practices and procedures which have a bearing on the lives and experiences of members of diverse communities.

We see ourselves as upholding, in our values and practice, an urgent principle of stewardship and the sustainable use of resources on behalf of the wider community and future generations.

As such, we expect AMED Members to subscribe to the following ethical principles, and if necessary, we will refuse or exclude from membership anyone who is seen to be in breach of our code. That said, we aspire to be an open, welcoming, inclusive and generous community of practice.

1. To be open and authentic to all stakeholders with whom they engage (whether in a commercial or voluntary setting) about:
   1. the context and scope of their professional practice, interests and enthusiasms
   2. the approaches, methods and processes they adopt, and their likely implications;
   3. how they bid for, contract, review, fulfil, complete and invoice for commercial or pro bono projects.
2. To challenge openly and directly any abuse of power or instances of behaviour they consider unethical
3. To challenge discriminatory practice wherever they find it, and promote diversity and equality wherever feasible
4. To take professional responsibility and assume accountability for the outcome of any process (commercial or voluntary) in which they are involved.
5. To maintain confidentiality and guarantee anonymity where appropriate, and undertake not to abuse any position of power in which they might find themselves;
6. Where a conflict of interest between an AMED Member and their work organisation may arise, the nature and direction of their loyalties is made clear to all parties;

1. Maintain professional and personal integrity in their work, whatever its context;
2. Do their best to evaluate client and colleague needs and deliver appropriate, high quality services;
3. Ensure that their clients and/or other stakeholders who are affected by their services are appropriately briefed about what is likely to be involved, and where necessary secure their informed consent in advance;
4. Consider carefully the rights, needs, pressures and problems of others with whom they interact, and seek to avoid asking them to do things which offend their conscience;
5. Give their own continuing professional development a high priority;
6. Represent their own competence and experience honestly and accurately, and refrain from making inaccurate or misleading claims in describing themselves or their services;
7. Refer clients and colleagues to other suitable practitioners who they feel are better placed to undertake a particular project, or aspect or phase of a project.

Given the diversity of services offered by AMED members, it is not possible to find a single term to denote the recipients of and participants in those services. We have chosen to use `client' and ‘colleague’ (fellow AMED Members and Associates) in this document to cover internal and external customers, participants in development programmes and processes, students of management education, anyone else with whom our Members or Associates have a professional relationship, or indeed any other colleague whom they encounter within the AMED Network.