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What do you consider your personal strengths and limitations in terms of your development as a professional social worker? Considering my strengths, I am cooperative, good-natured, generous, helpful, humble and modest and I trust others. As a professional, I am non-judgmental, not blaming the client for their troubles. Even if someone hurts my feelings, I am quick to forgive. These qualities are important for me, because I am working and will work with a variety of persons – healthcare professionals, clients, and so on – who may exhibit inflexible and demanding personalities that may be challenging to work with.

Finding the right treatment or service for each client based on their needs requires a creative person. I am also meticulous, hard-working, well organized, have good self- discipline, and take my obligations seriously. These traits are suitable for when I am working independently or carrying heavy caseloads.

My extroverted personality also suits my career objective as a social worker as interaction with others is a significant portion of a social worker’s job. Regarding communication skills, I am talkative, assertive, sociable and active. Over the years I have also succeeded to mature emotionally.

One of my limitations is that, although I speak four languages fluently, my Spanish is not acceptable yet when it comes to communicating with Hispanic clients. I am overcoming this personal limitation by taking a course in the next semester as a starting point. My other limitation is a lack of experience as a social worker. As I learn and seeing the issues that clients have, I am discovering that there is much more to learn. There are many concerns that I still do not know how to handle, but I am learning and will learn more in the near future.

Personal Qualities
2. What qualities do you possess which prepare you for graduate social work?

Some of my personal qualities include being motivated and enthusiastic in a thoughtful and respectful manner. I am able to maintain a courteous and caring demeanor, even in stressful situations. I have a high score for intellect, which indicates that I strive to learn and maintain my current knowledge, which is essential for a good and passionate social worker. I am genuinely concerned with other people and try to treat everyone with courtesy and kindness.

I have always had the desire to study and strive in my area of interest. When I had an opportunity in 2005 to go back to school, I was fully committed to excel in my studies. My goal is not just to get good grades, but also to fully understand the concepts in my studies and be able to analyze them. There are many social issues in our society that I would like to personally contribute to for the improvement of society. Through learning, I was able to understand some of my own experiences from the past, and instead of taking them as a terrible lesson, I accepted them as challenging journey.

One of my academic goals is to keep up my above average grades. I put in enormous effort and hard work into my studies. Making it to the Dean’s list every semester is also a priority. Upon arriving at this university, I was determined that I would spend my next four years in pursuit of new ideas and experiences.

Current and Past Experiences
3. What professional skills and experiences make you an appropriate candidate for our program?

Regarding my work experience, since 2005 I have been responsible for daily programming of activities and providing positive behavioral goals and objectives for an eight year old boy with high functioning autism. This year, I was employed at California Psychcare as a behavioral instructor. This company is one of the vendors for North Los Angeles County Regional Center where I provide therapy for children with autism.

Besides my part-time work, I have also been an intern since August 2009 at the Domestic Abuse Center, which is located in Reseda, California. We are trained volunteer advocates responding with police to domestic violence calls, offering immediate assistance with medical, legal and counseling referrals and shelter options.

From January to May 2009, I was a volunteer at the Therapeutic Living Centers for the Blind in Reseda, California. The clients were legally blind and also had some degree of cognitive disability. My interactions with them included learning appropriate prompting, assistance and communication techniques. In May 2009, I received a Dr. Russ Miller Scholarship Award given by the CSUN Sociology Department.

Future Goals
4. Discuss how your professional goals are consistent with the mission of the CSUN MSW Program.

Regarding my professional goals, I have a strong desire to help others. This insight comes from the fact that my mother had a serious mental disorder, namely bipolar disorder, while she was alive. In Yugoslavian society, it was a shame and a stigma to have someone mentally ill in the family. My mother tried hard to adjust and to act normal, but this was beyond her abilities, particularly around the time when the civil war started to break out in Yugoslavia. Instead of demanding to adjust, the family members should have understood that they had an ill person in the family. My father and I lacked this knowledge at that time. When my father got sick from stomach cancer, the whole situation was spinning out of control in my family until it ended in tragedy. My beloved mother could not cope any longer with life’s challenges and she committed suicide. My father died five months later. I strongly feel that my mother could be alive today, had she received help, which is the reason for my choice of future career.

After completing a Master’s degree, I would like to develop psycho-educational workshops. Families with mentally ill members often find themselves overburdened. These families do not have the appropriate knowledge or skills to handle or take care of the mentally ill; they need special training, support and knowledge. Moreover, the families need to know how to interact with service providers effectively and how to interact with their mentally ill members. Consequently, I strongly believe that these workshops will result in good outcomes for the whole family. I never had any professionals approaching me and offering me this knowledge. Even though we were a middle class family in Yugoslavia, it was assumed that if we did not need financial help, we did not need any other help or information. Hopefully for some families who have a mentally ill member, this support in the form of workshops will be beneficial.

My other passion when it comes to career objectives is helping soldiers returning

from war to adjust to everyday life again. We can work to develop a clinical strategy to

reach out to traumatized veterans who have not been able to return to civilian life. After completing the MSW program, I would like to, as a social worker, offer veterans and their families some services such as resource navigation, crisis intervention, advocacy, benefit assistance, and mental health therapy for conditions such as depression, post traumatic stress disorder, and drug and alcohol addiction. For many combat veterans, their problems are compounded by multiple mental ailments. Thus, in facing the challenges on return from combat, it is vital for the veterans to receive family support and understanding.

Many civilians are judgmental when it comes to returning veterans, claiming they

are strong and will get over their war experiences. It is therefore the duty of a passionate psychiatric social worker to educate the public about this sensitive topic and to help these veterans who deserve to be helped. These are my main career objectives.

I come from a country with rich cultural and ethnic diversity, where I lived as an ethnic minority. This self-awareness helps me understand cultural sensitivity better as well as the clients’ cultural beliefs, when working with the specific client populations.

Beside English, I speak Hungarian, Serbian and Croatian and I am in the process of learning Spanish. Knowledge of Spanish will be an asset for me as a social work practitioner. Physical, social, psychological and emotional problems attributable to lifestyle, environment, substance abuse and stress will continue to grow in number and complexity. There will be a need for creative and imaginative interventions.

Professional Objectivity
5. Identify three client populations that might create a value conflict for you
or that might cause you to lose your professional objectivity. Describe what
approach you will take in order to work with each population listed.

One of the client populations for which I need to be more objective is working with gang members. I realize that being in a gang is more than just doing drug deals and participating in other illegal gang activity. My approach to overcome this deficit is through education to learn about the history of gangs, their language and symbolism, economic considerations and factors that contribute to gang activity as well as the risk factors and the impact of migration and immigration on gangs. I need to learn about how to address the root causes, to recognize that young people often join gangs to achieve a sense of belonging and find a supportive community in them that they frequently lack at home, to understand the inner workings of the gang to find out exactly what it provides, who its members are, what activities they are involved with, and how its leadership is structured. I believe that these adolescents are not inherently bad; instead, faced with limited choices, they are making decisions that lead them down a negative path.

Another client population causing value conflict is the terminally ill as such encounters will expose me to feelings of pain, sorrow, anger, helplessness, and hopelessness. Setting realistic short- and long-term goals in treating these clients and focusing on what can be done, even in situations that seem hopeless, can prevent a sense of failure and despair. Furthermore, achievable goals can be set even in the difficult situation of treating terminally ill patients. The goals might include improving the patient’s quality of life in the final days, instilling a sense of choice and acceptance of physical limitations, helping them cope with parting from family members, and examining their priorities.

The third client population is the elderly. Elderly clients are affectionate and eagerly wait for a social worker to visit them. Most of them treat the social worker as a friend. Professional objectivity is required, so that I will not visualize the client as a family, and to keep in mind that the goal is to help them develop the ability to do well without a lot of support.

Time Management
6. Clearly describe the plans that you have made in order to ensure that you will be able to complete the MSW Program you are applying for given the course workload of the program and the number of hours that are required for field education.

As I work part time for 15 hours per week, I have chosen to undertake the three-year program. My husband works full time and I am not the sole financial provider for my family. I am planning my other areas of life around my studies, so I can fully commit and keep up with good grades.

7. If you are applying for the threeaˆ?year program (or stated that you would consider either program on your application), include an additional discussion regarding your current employment, time management, and specific plans to accommodate sixteen hours per week of field education (of which eight to sixteen are during internship business hours) during the second and third years of the program.

My work is flexible; I mostly work afternoons and sometimes on weekends. As stated before, I work as a behavioral instructor with children who have autism. I go into the clients’ homes to provide services. I never work more than three hours per session. I have been able to establish a professional, but friendly relationship with these families; therefore, I can change my schedule, as long as the required hours are completed.

Through the process of reviewing my journal entries, I was overwhelmed by incidents I went through. I realized some unfortunate and unintentional racism and microaggressions in my journals. I noticed that resulted in producing weak and imperfect assumptions. According to Sue and Sue, Microaggressions are “brief, everyday exchanges that send denigrating messages to a target group like people of color, women and gays “(2007. Chap5). It was obvious I did things according to my own culture and somehow disregarding others’ cultures unintentionally. Added to this, I found out that I was immature and unfair to make conclusions without further scrutiny. Scrutinizing all these non-stopping cultural thoughts, I started to think if I am culturally knowledgeable enough to be a counselor who got the necessary skills and means to work effectively with clients from multicultural backgrounds. Trough my previous journal review, I began to think about the reason why I struggle to bring up these multicultural calamities. Being hesitant on how I am going to provide therapy despite existing diversity issues. Despite all the readings, guest speakers and activities conducted in class, I find I still have some prejudice and assumptions in my subconscious mind such as homosexuality, which is challenging according to my religious beliefs as a Muslim. As a professional therapist, it will be helpful to get rid of these feelings and always stay away from being prejudiced against persons practicing different habits and beliefs. Sue and Sue said that “the belief in the inferiority of others as well as the belief that one has the power to oblige certain standards upon others of another culture is also witnessed” (SS 4). The ethnocentric monoculturalism mindset that Sue and Sue discussed in chapter four both shocks and amazes me.

Reading my journal entries helped me to reconsider the decisions and stereotypes I made about other ethnic minorities and especially homosexual communities. As a result of the journal reading, what are the measures that would help to avoid these stereotypes, perceptions, and beliefs do we hold about culturally diverse groups and may help us to maintain an effective relationship? (SS 2)

As far as my feelings are concerned, I was very frustrated and feel guilty and ashamed of being careless about a variety of multicultural minorities. Besides, it is not fair not to scrutinize these cultural calamities and not to withdraw from others and their situations and circumstances. This curiosity developed in me a sense of appreciation to tolerate these differences and willingness to find out more about my biases willing to work hard in order to be more aware of my weaknesses and change them. “Feelings of shame and pride are mixed in the individual and a sense of conflict develops” (SS 10)

Identity was given a generous part in my previous journal entries as I dedicated more space and time for better understanding of myself. More than that, the conversation I had with my colleagues, guest speakers, and class instructor as well as through readings, helped me to define my identity within my family and other groups in which I have belonged, especially the Muslim communities. This considerable wind of change actually taught me to not take cultural issues for granted anymore, to spend more time and effort figuring out who I am. However, it is still hard to devote completely to accept given cultural differences and to solve identity issues. But, it was comforting that Slavic people had been referred to as such a strong religious affiliations and characterized as “a cornerstone of their identity” (MGG 52, pg. 713. In dealing with multiracial backgrounds and issues, it is awkward to ask coworkers or individuals from different counties questions like “Where are you from?’ or “What are you?” because asking questions about ethnicity generates a sense of being offended and differentiated, and it is sometimes perceived as rude, insensitive, ambiguous and misconstrued. However, the idea is certainly not to make the person feel questioned or offended or attacked when asked about their ethnicity (SS 18). Maria Root’s Bill of Rights (SS 18) is a great inspiration to me since it gave me a much greater understanding of what we “ask” multiracial people to do when we ask about their heritage and expect it to “fit” within the monoracial classification system. Conceptualizing identities and giving them more focus is a good idea (SS 18; Torres, Jones, & Renn). It is crucial for more understanding of the topic of identity development. Personally, I still need to fully recognize and improve my own understanding of myself, my background, and my culture. Added to this the feeling of guilt was also common in my journal entries, and Sue and Sue stated that without such an awareness and understanding, we may unintentionally discriminate among multicultural groups. When this happens, we may become guilty of cultural oppression and be a threat to multicultural minorities (SS 10) I did feel guilty about many things, but it is very significant to be aware of this problem now in order to avoid it in future confrontations.

Personal Reflections on My Experiences

This class was an important step in my journey in life; it helped me to recognize many unintentional biases and stereotypes. It was a positive influence on me by improving my competencies, increasing my vigilance and cultural sensitivity. Yet, there is still a threat of underpathologizing a client’s symptoms without taking into consideration cultural backgrounds. More than that, the understanding of a client’s cultural context, having knowledge of culture-bound syndromes and being aware of cultural relativism, are challenging because, being oversensitive to these factors, the therapist’s pathology might be influenced negatively. As a result, this process ends up underpathologizing disorders (SS 4)

It is fundamental to put up with and value the difference of other cultures, and this class helped me also to think about it seriously as I believe during this short semester I achieved a level of cultural sensitivity and awareness by discussing the IDI Profile which presented information about how to make sense and how to react and treat these cultural similarities and dissimilarities.

Emotions such as anger, sadness, and defensiveness took a part of the discussion about experiences of race, culture, gender, and other socio demographic variables (MGG 1). These feelings can either improve or reduce the understanding of the notion of multicultural calamities. That is why I believe this class was very important to take. As a professional, working with a multicultural population, I am sure that I need to know that I am different and how to deal with it in an appropriate way. Moreover, in my little work experience, I worked with many different people who are from diverse cultures and that led to some challenging times to understand each other in the beginning in terms of language, eye contact, and sometimes body language. I have discovered that by making statements of similarity, I have the possibility to share our differences that can influence my professional and personal life. Discussing the language difficulty openly with a client may be a beneficial tactic in the future. Working with older adults was a good point that Sue and Sue covered in their book. They are aware that it is important to critically evaluate our own attitudes about old adults and their daily attitudes and concerns. Sue and Sue stated some legal and ethical issues that should be in mind while dealing or working with older adults (e.g., competency issues). Older adults need care and respect in terms of their mental status, and as a counselor, I have to know how to deal with those people in professional way.

The disabled population is another community that I learned to be aware of how to work with. Three models of disability affecting individuals were presented in the Sue and Sue book. First, the moral model is a “defect” considered a sort of sin or moral lapse. Second, the medical model is represented as a defect or loss of function that resides in the individual. Finally, the minority model is seen as an external problem involving an environment that fails to provide a shelter for individuals with disabilities. (SS 26) I learned that I have to treat people regardless of disability status with the same expectations and gather information about my client’s disability. Those people gave me strength.

It was also interesting to be aware of social class issues, and this class was beneficial in helping us as future professionals to figure it out. As discussed in chapter 12 in Sue and Sue, “Multicultural counseling and therapy must be about social justice, providing equal access and opportunity to all groups; being inclusive; removing individual and systemic barriers to fair mental health treatment, and insuring that counseling/therapy services are directed at the micro, meso, and macro levels of our society” (SS 12.) I learned that as counselors, we need to be hard working and supportive for immigrants and offer needed services for minorities and provide for local, state, and federal immigration laws. It is a big challenge to be able to work within different cultures setting, but keeping up will help people face all the barriers coming in the future.

Within my family, I feel powerless. I still have some issues that cannot be discussed with them, and most of these are cultural issues that I cannot change immediately always lead to conflict. The issues range from the handling of emotions, such as being able to express anger or shame about specific things, or being able to talk loudly about making my own decisions such as my relationship with the person who I choose to live who is from another culture. I learned also that sometimes, even the married couples of similar backgrounds; they may still face some intercultural concerns. However, relationships from multi cultural backgrounds reach to the edge of success and go beyond given culture differences.

As far as my IDI-personal plan is concerned, I mentioned that culture is about the rules of how to function within cultural context. Within the process of understanding these cultural differences and rules, I was somehow sensitive to those rules, but it is an important factor that participated to ameliorate my cultural awareness. I think I need to learn more effectively about my own culture including history and rules of myself and my family.

The encapsulated Marginality part in my IDI- personal plan signified that I am trying to figure out how to correlate my intercultural beliefs with my identity and how to make such transition. This condition transition between culture and identity is referred to as Adaptation and Integration. To demonstrate this transition, I am saying to myself, “Who I am?” compared to “What is my true culture?” like my Berber origins compared to other cultures in my country.

Another brief statement in my IDI-personal plan stated that I avoid learning about other cultures and ignore their history.

The profile also shows that I may have a commitment to the idea that people from other cultures are “like us”, or those people should share the same set of “universal” values I have. I may also have difficulties in identifying important cultural differences that influence intercultural relations, and I need to resolve these issues before I can exercise my greatest potential of intercultural competence (Bennett & Bennett, 2002).

In my professional part of my IDI-Personal plan, I mentioned that I have to be able to experience the existence of other cultures and I should be sensitive and aware in order to be effective with my clients.

It terms of working with people of color, it is useful to discuss the reaction of the client to a professional who is from a different ethnic background (e.g. “Sometimes clients feel uncomfortable working with a counselor of a different race”) and be aware of mistrust and work to earn a client’s trust (SS 14). It is very significant to comprehend the dissimilarities, assist the clients to be relaxed in working with me as a professional, and be trusted and well-liked.

Assessment of the Effectiveness to date of The IDI-based Personal Development Plan

My IDI Individual Profile helped me reflect on my experiences around cultural differences and similarities. As I reviewed my IDI profile results, I considered past situations in which I attempted to make sense of cultural differences and similarities; this can assist me discover statements that may have guided my actions in these situations. Moreover, I need to focus on a situation I am presently facing.

The IDI-based personal plan helped me to learn more about my own culture. I was surprised when I read the outcomes of my IDI result, especially in terms of being aware of my biases that I was thinking were strengths. In my developmental task, I stated that I have to recognize cultural differences that are escaping my notice. I have to learn more about my own culture especially its heritage. I will explore my own culture by gathering necessary information.

The IDI gave me the chance to be more conscious of “who” I am and where I came from.

Steps to continue developing my sensitivity to difference and cultural competence

I need to continue developing my sensitivity to difference and cultural competence and be able to work successfully with clients from diverse ethnics and cultural backgrounds. I need to continue developing awareness by recognizing the value of population diversity.

It is correct that one cannot discover everything about other cultures. However, I need to get awareness about other groups. I also need to separate my religious insights and respect others’ religion beliefs. I need to recognize and be mindful of who I am and where I came from. I need to be aware of my privilege as an educated person in my family. Finally, in order to continue developing my own sensitivity to difference and cultural competences, I have to recognize how my culture is viewed by others. I need to attend workshops and seminars about other cultures. I need to learn about others’ culture by watching documentaries and movies as much as possible.

Visiting other countries and participating in its cultural events and festivals, and sharing experiences with other people will be a very effective plan.

Within this assignment I will demonstrate the knowledge gained in my practice since starting my post qualifying degree and consider my future learning and development. This training has been about gaining or updating knowledge, but I have also gained further insight into how I work as a practising social worker, I would agree to Gillian Ruch’s (lecture notes, February 2008) comments about taking care of yourself quoting Simmonds, le Riche and Tanner that:

“Knowledge of others cannot be acquired without knowledge of oneself. Knowledge of others cannot be substituted for knowledge of oneself. Knowledge of oneself cannot be acquired without a relationship with others.’ (Simmonds, in le Riche and Tanner 1998:96)

Focus on the Child

Assignment on Observation of child in Nursery or play group:

For this unit I had to observe a child between the ages of 0-5 years. I had mixed emotions and anxieties. The anxiety was about visiting a place I had very little knowledge of, what would I be observing? What would the young person I was observing be like? Was I competent enough? This helped me to reflect on my own anxieties when visiting children in need in their homes. It has been an important learning experience to understand the impact of my presence that might have on children and their families.

The challenge was to observe a child without any specific reasons or concerns with regards to that child. Therefore observing a child without any professional skills of communicating and engaging children, raised the question: “How can a professional give up the sense of being in control and become a student again, lay down one’s tools and simply be open to what is happening?” (Segal 2002-3, p16).

Reflecting on this activity I realised the danger in my actual practice. All of us have our own preconceptions, our particular mind sets and prejudices. We have a tendency to see what we are looking for and to look for only what we want to know about. Rarely do we take time to stop and watch intently. These observations sessions offered me with the opportunity to develop ability to remain detached, to suspend judgements and refrain from participation.

Assignment on ADHD:

I was able to consider current research and ways of supporting children with ADHD and their families.

Throughout my research for this assignment I found little evidence that socioeconomic and environmental factors caused ADHD, I also found little evidence that poor parenting or a hectic home life caused ADHD. There are different approaches to treatment of ADHD such as Medical approach and Behavioural modification approach. To date it is unknown what actually causes this condition, which is arguable and so makes it much more difficult in treating ADHD. In addition to this some of the researches suggest that the medications for ADHD can cause potentially harmful side effects and does not treat the cause of Attention Deficit Disorder. I am aware that most doctors would argue that the medication used is safe and beneficial. However in my opinion it is important to recognise that ADHD is a disorder that is managed and not cured. Therefore it is essential for all agencies to work together: medically, socially and educationally, with a common understanding of the whole approach for treatment. Behaviour management techniques take time and great patience on everybody’s part. But the techniques have been shown to be very effective. In my experience the importance is given to curative rather than preventive measures. I am of the opinion that children with ADHD should get a package of treatments involving the medicines which are closely monitored by doctors and parental involvement with other agencies support for them to manage the children’s behaviour with setting appropriate boundaries.

Practice in Partnership with Children, Young People, Their Families and Carers

This piece of work highlighted the importance of working in partnership with professionals as well as families to get the best possible outcome for the children. For this particular assignment I tried to reflect on my own understanding about working in partnerships whilst working with the family.

Family Rights Group suggests a definition of partnership, ‘Partnership is for each other, rights to information, accountability, competence and values accorded to each individual input. In short, each partner is seen as having something to contribute, power is shared, decisions are made jointly and roles are not only represented but backed by legal and moral rights.’ (Family Rights Group, 1991). Children’s safety and welfare should be paramount. A learning curve for me was the understanding of importance of self awareness and how this helps to promote the service users best interests (Ruch 2005). It was crucial to consider theories of attachment, child centred services and task centred approach, whilst working with the family to achieve best outcome for the family. It is important to be mindful to practice in an anti oppressive and anti discriminatory way at all times. It was enriching experience to recognise the importance of doing assessment with the families and not on the families addressing power imbalance between professionals and service users.

Participation, partnerships and networks

Research Report

This unit gave me opportunity to study thoroughly on one specific subject. As a practitioner working in a very busy front line team it is always hard to go back to become student to learn and unlearn. I was always interested in gaining in depth knowledge in the area of unaccompanied asylum seekers. This study answers the question,’ Can Collaborative Practices be developed to enhance the services for Looked after Children with specific reference to Unaccompanied Asylum Seeker Children [UASC]’.

“Collaborative working” is often used to refer to “the process of working together with other professions” (Quinney 2006: 10; Balloch and Taylor 2001) with Whittington (2003) defining it as “partnership in action” (Whittington 2003:16). This area was chosen due to the author’s experience of working in a front line team where such examples of working collaboratively with professionals when dealing with UASC are prevalent, and strategies for improved collaboration are always needed.

Home office reports that there are approximately 360 children are trafficked into and within the UK each year. Therefore it is therefore necessary when considering what strategies need to be developed to address these shortcomings and to build on pieces of practice that supports all the professionals including fosters carers and social workers to ensure the children are protected. The study also raises flaws in training to both carers and social workers with regards to current legislation and policies to be practiced. Lack of understanding of such important information may result in ineffective responses to identify the risk factors and react efficiently towards it. This study gave me opportunity to acquire conceptual understanding and recommendations for my future interventions with such vulnerable group of children.

Innovative Regulatory Practice

Group Presentation

This particular unit turned out really very hard due to many reasons. The members of my group were from same place and I was not in the same area. Initially there were difficulties of distance and co ordination and I started feeling left out. However with confrontation and with the help from tutors we managed to come up with a good plan of actions and the presentation was prepared as a group activity. I was able to reflect on my style, creativity and interpersonal skills and used them all to be creative in the presentation. I enjoyed researching a topic that I needed further knowledge of: the subject of Trafficked children, which has proved very useful in my work for me and colleagues. On reflection it has shown me how research and knowledge can be effectively used and strategies can employed in working with people to change things together and develop new ways of working which improve practice, knowledge and skills. This very much linked with my Research topic and gained further knowledge in subject matter.

Enabling Others

Taking a role as work based supervisor for a final year student for their 6 months

Placement in the team

This unit enabled me to reflect on my own practices and support a student in placement. I am aware that people work and learn differently and have different needs. I have learnt the importance of balancing and developing my own theorist and reflector styles of learning which has been facilitated by my post graduate training. It has been valuable to understand my own position to be able to recognise and consider other people’s perspectives in my styles of learning. This analysis enabled me to use different approaches and strategies to help students and others to learn and develop. I am more confident to enable others in the work place. I am able to use the theoretical knowledge gained from the course and practical experiences to enable my student to acquire the same.

Aims for the Future

As social workers we are tasked with making judgments and decisions about individual’s lives on a daily basis it is therefore essential that analysis and reflection take place to ensure that those decisions are the right ones. To do this job effectively requires self-knowledge, support and professional competence at the very least. “The nature of the training, ongoing supervision and consultation that are required is something that needs urgent attention at many levels” (Rustin 2005, p19 in Ruch, 2008).

The knowledge gained in completing my post qualifying degree will enable me to incorporate critical reflection into my everyday work practice with service users, student social workers and other professionals across agencies. As usual, social workers are seen to be the reasons why children die when incidents happen. There is a great responsibility on everyone to try to change our culture of blame and help develop personal responsibility and sense of community. Having a more thorough knowledge of the process of change, everyone is different and has different views, enables me to work in such an environment. The course has provided an opportunity to be challenged, learn new things and make sure that I continue to do so.

Self-monitoring is a personality trait which measures the ability of an individual (he or she) to adjust their behaviour to the demand of the external situational factors. There were many situations where my behavior was not proper with respect to understanding of other person’s situation. Every employee gets stressed as they approach deadlines. I have neglected colleagues many times by not replying to their urgent emails because I was much worried about completion of work on time, though the sender required input data from me to go ahead further. I gave inappropriate answers to colleagues who approached me for technical doubts that added unnecessary arguments. The management had introduced a new process for the projects like documentation, reviews and so on. I argued many times by not thinking from perspective of the manager and the organization. There were situations when I got escalated with trivial issues. However, the problem might have been solved easily if I had thought from the other person’s perspective and acted accordingly.

1.Action Described
People Centred Manager Skills that I will develop
Example of New Behaviour you will display given this new skill
Resources you
need to
implement
action
Action’s specific benefits to an organization according to theory ( Kinicki &Kreiter)

Not replying to important emails when under pressure.

Giving vague answers when I was in stress

Argued with manager against new process by not thinking in right perspective

Escalated with trivial issues when in stress

Be more flexible and respond to others in an appropriate manner.

Think twice before responding to others.

Communicate in a clear and good manner.

Stay cool and calm during stress and control the temper levels.

Avoid unnecessary arguments. Think objectively.

Understand the issues objectively before intensifying.

Spend some time on replying urgent issues. If I cannot reply immediately, I would inform they by email or phone.

Give clear answers to people according to the situation and let me them that I would attend them later if I am busy.

Think objectively, think from others point of view before raising concerns. Be patient.

I would practice constructive criticism.

Avoid discussing unnecessary issues.

Take help from friends and colleagues by discussing how would they handle stress and plan their work.

Gain knowledge on how to interpret both the verbal and non-verbal gestures.

Practice pranayams(breathing exercise) and do meditation.

Improve communication by talking and reading Communicating in Digital Age(Kinicki &Kreitner, 2009)

There is must success with high self-monitors and career success (Kinicki &Kreitner, 2009)

Good communication within the team and improves well-being of the group (Kinicki &Kreitner, 2009)

High self monitors are people who are emotionally mature especially managers who can help their employers reduce conflicts, anger and stress related problems.

(Kinicki &Kreitner, 2009)

Reflection 2 and Action plan 2: Measuring your desire for Performance Feedback

I strongly believe that feedback helps what actions an individual need to change. I come under the category of moderate desire for feedback as per the hands-on exercise. As a person I knew what I did and how much I am supposed to do (a task). Generally I work according to the plan as scheduled by me ahead of the task. Sometimes, I regret for not taking feedback about my progress at work. Even though I am satisfied with my work, often I get doubts whether the management is happy about the quality of my contribution the organization. Most of the time, I did not bother negative feedback and did not handle in a proper manner in order to avoid feeling insecure. Many times I got a feedback with a negative message like I does not listen to team leaders, come late to the office and leave from work before closing hours. Because of this I should not show deaf ear to all kind of feedbacks rather I must get used to take objective feedback to improve my self-efficiency.

1.Action Described
People Centred Manager Skills that I will develop
Example of New Behaviour you will display given this new skill
Resources you need to implement action
Action’s specific benefits to an
organization according to
theory ( Kinicki &Kreiter)

Working according to the plan without taking feedback.

Neglecting to take feedback with regard to progress of my work.

Avoid by not taking

feedback from management with regard to the quality of work done by me.

Avoiding negative feedback

I would take feedback from team members and plan accordingly to improve.

Get up to date feedback for progressing, improve quality and productivity of work.

Take regular feedback with respect to quality of work.

I would rather focus to improve in the areas where I feel uneasy by using objective negative feedback.

Schedule the task to be done and work on it, request colleagues to go through it and get feedback to improve planning the thinks.

At the time execution of the task, regularly get help from colleagues in the form of feedback to find out whether I am at par with others.

When I complete the task, I would ask team members to review it so that the mistakes are traced out and can improve the quality of the task(work).

It would be better for me to take feedback from others as I cannot be objective for my own performance. Consider, for example how I can improve my communication skills.

Schedule a timetable for getting feedback time to time from a well organised teammate so that I can get proper guidance.

A user friendly centralised system should be developed to help people to give feedback

A moderator to be present in the discussion to ensure that the feedback is objective

A new approach for building positive relation between

managers and employees so that work is managed well and there is a good outcome as expected. (Performance Conversations Model, Christoper D.Lee).

Employees gets motivated to improve performance, attitude and their intensions from performance feedback.

Sometimes even the negative feedback can have

positive motivational effect

(Kinicki &Kreitner, 2009)

The outcome of feedback gives behaviour direction, resistance, effort and persistence

(Kinicki &Kreitner, 2009)

“http://www.amazon.com/Performance-Conversations-Alternative-Appraisals-Christopher/dp/1587366053”

Reflection3 and Action plan 3: Job satisfaction

Job satisfaction has relation with motivation at work. I have low job satisfaction with recognition, compensation and supervision as per the hands-on-exercise. I came to know that my friends are paid more for doing similar jobs in other companies. I also regret about the goals set to me by my manager at the time of appraisal. It has effect on my compensation which lowered motivation. However, I have not approach my manager to express my concern and to worsen the situation I got frustrated and decreased my efficiency at work. My manager is a headstrong person who wanted things to happen in his way. As an employee I expected to have freedom at work. Many times we ended up with arguments there by creating uncomfortable working conditions. Because of constant supervision my frustration levels increased which reduced the productivity. Often, team members were blamed for unnecessary issues that were not relevant to work which in turn lowered the motivation level among the team.

1.Action Described
People Centred Manager Skills that I will develop
Example of New Behaviour you will display given this new skill
Resources you need to implement action
Action’s specific benefits to an organization according to theory ( Kinicki &Kreiter)

Did not discuss with manager regarding

appraisal.

I have not given the feedback to the manager, so work atmosphere is not improved.

Getting stressed and their by neglecting work.

Expressed my frustration on team members for which I ended in bad relationship with team.

Got de motivated and reduced the production level due to unnecessary arguments with the management.

I would express my views by talking to manager and come up with all the available options.

Always give quick feedback to the management so that they take immediate action on concerning issues.

Analyse the issue and act accordingly so that a good environment is created.

Maintain healthy relationship with team members by being calm while at work.

Avoid arguing unnecessarily by thinking objectively and positively so that at least new issues may not be raised.

I prefer to take feedback from the management so as to understand how they think of the productivity.

I would approach the concerned authority and let them know about the problems in the team.

Talk to the manager personally about sensitive matters like appraisal to maintain good relationship.

Reducing the frustration levels when talking to colleagues. Get dedicated to work along with the team.

If there are any problems approach the management and let them know and talk to them clearly.

Expecting the onsite opportunities to work on a project cover the lost compensation.

I make sure that I

attend various programs that improves me personally

and team coordination.

Get used to new activities like yoga, playing indoor games to calm down yourself.

Know myself at what level I am in the team by taking feedback from my team members.

There is a conntection between job satisfaction of and motivation (Kinicki &Kreitner, 2009)

There is a positive relationship between customer satisfaction andorganisational citizenship behaviours (Kinicki &Kreitner, 2009)

The more the person is healthy and has control on him the better the positive atmosphere is created in the organization

(Kinicki &Kreitner, 2009)

When we are satisfied we perform well and performance in turn causes satisfaction(Kinicki &Kreitner, 2009)

Reflection 4 and Action Plan 4: Ethical Behaviour

As a fresher I misused office resources when I was working for a company. As per rules of an organization, we were not supposed to divulge confidential information to the people who are not part of our team but many times I talked about the project with friends. We are supposed to use landline phones for office purpose only i.e. to clarify doubts with team members but we misused it for personal purpose. The company used to provide food and transportation for employees who work after 9 p.m. We used to stay till 9oclock to have food and go home by office car. We used to move around in the lunch break and back to the office late in the afternoon session. Sometimes we abscond from office during work hours by telling that we were not feeling well and take official leave. We were supposed to internet services for searching only the data that was relevant to the technology we were working on but many times we misused by watching news, cricket scores, chatting and so on. Many times we blamed each other for errors in the project work even though our mistake is there. Inspite of us being unethical to the organization we were not pointed out by the management because of our work performance.

1.Action Described
People Centred Manager Skills that I will develop
Example of New Behaviour you will display given this new skill
Resources you need to implement action
Action’s specific benefits to an organization according to theory ( Kinicki &Kreiter)

I am unethical to the company by using its resources for personal purpose

Using internet services for personal use.

Blaming others for errors in the project.

I would send a clear message by cultivating good habits and behavior about ethical conduct.

Let the management know what need to be done to restrict the employees from misuse of the resources and suggest them to take severe action.

Talk and listen to the senior employee about the ethical standards. Make a habit of following ethics of the company.

Be regular to the office and work till the office hours are completed.

Make use of the available resources strictly for office purpose only and not doing personal work in the office.

I would be responsible for what I do and rectify the mistakes I have done by approaching collegues.

Attend various ethical training programs to tackle with the ethical issues.

Make use of the decision trees to evaluate the ethical questions.

Attend meetings and informal conversations where leaders talk about ethical behavior by telling the situational examples.

By being ethical one can act has a role model for others to follow and create good atmosphere in the company(Kinicki &Kreither, 2009)

Create an environment where employees are given chance to express them so that companies ethics are not violated(Kinicki &Kreither, 2009)

Provide training sessions on ethics at the time orientation, online lectures and through seminors (Kinicki &Kreither, 2009)

Reflection 5 and Action Plan 5: Intrinsic Motivation

We were supposed to deliver a project to the client in a very less span of time. The task became a huge challenge to me because the time span is not sufficient. We were told to work for extra hours in the office. I went into a perception that I lost passion about my work because it was difficult for us to adjust all of a sudden to the new work environment.

My team members and I could not give output up to the expectations because of the low intrinsic movtivation this in turn has effect on capabilities of my decision making. We lost confidence and passion for work. We did not get proper requirements from the client and as well from manager i.e. he does not give clear picture of what we are supposed to do. It was very difficult to go ahead with the project in less span of time because we were supposed to learn new concepts to implement in the project. Inspite of me working hard I do not get proper information from my lead or manager from time to time.

1.Action Described
People Centred Manager Skills that I will develop
Example of New Behaviour you will display given this new skill
Resources you need to implement action
Action’s specific benefits to an organization according to theory ( Kinicki &Kreiter)

Lost passion at work because of new work environment.

Did not get proper requirements from manager.

No idea of new concept to be implemented in the task.

No recognition from manager for my work.

Get inspiration by recognizing my passion at work and by modeling desired behaviours.

I would discuss with the employees about the tasks.

Give proper training on the concepts before going ahead with the task and give support to learn.

Report to the manager from time to time about work, be ethical.

I would work with commitment and compassion till the project is handed to the client.

When I get a task I would sit with the colleagues and get a clear picture of what we are supposed to do.

Implement the task using new concept and approach team mates if necessary.

I would work for extra work in the office and let the manager know if I help others at work by working late nights.

Motivational lectures from the management or video tapes showing the examples for commitment towards work.

Come to a solution by analyzing the task, approach the manager for modifications for confirmation.

Sample documents that are related to our task.

A system should be developed where the employees are monitored and rewarded .

The company benefits from high productivity if the job performance of its employees is raised

Identify and implement various kinds of managerial behaviours to improve intrinsic rewards(Kinicki &Kreither, 2009).

The organization have high retention rate if the employees feel that they are more valued

The organization can improve bottom line results.

“http://www.ehow.com/how_4714830_foster-intrinsic-motivation-workplace.html”

“http://www.callcentrehelper.com/building-better-performance-through-intrinsic-motivation-48.htm”

This essay seeks to discuss the concept of personalization in the health and social care services in the united kingdom whereby highlighting various theories that define the aspect of risk assessment as well as determine the risk concept as it exists in personalization and the available risk assessment models and finalize the discussion by highlighting the national and local reports relevant to personalization in the united kingdom (Keohane, N., 2009).

Risk refers to the potential danger that one is exposed to given the situation is operating in or the activities that he is performing. Risk can lead to loss of life or property depending on where the risk happened and what was involved. The issue of risk can also have the influence on the final result of a given process. Any human activity in one way or the other poses some kind of risk and if not well handled it can amount to maximum destruction. Risk in some other situations can be motivated by constant exposure to activities that are dangerous to one’s life.

This first part of the essay aims at discussing the process of risk assessment, the conceptual frameworks, theoretical models and practice tools which inform the processes of risk assessment with regard to personalization and the associated risks

The process of doing risk assessment is aimed at determining various risks in personalization in the health and social care services. Assessment on risk has to be accompanied by intervention since the process of doing risk assessment is to determine the risk and the course of action required. Risk assessment in the health and social care sector need to be a continuous process in order to guide the decision making process for the services providers. Assessment is also important in helping the service providers to come up with strategies that should be applied when dealing with risks (English Community Care Association, 2010). Use of risk assessment in the health and social care services, needs proper planning based on the previous reports in order to establish what is already known about the social services from the past experience and research information (DWP, 2006).

Personalization is the process of availing public sources for the users. It’s informed as a philosophy and a policy on reform on the various ways public services should be presented to those who require them. It requires very deep thoughts about the services that need to be rendered to the public. One has to think first about the user before thinking about the service, this is so because it assists in determining the kind of service the person requires and then present the same to him to meet his/her needs.

Personalization normally takes different forms depending on the service that need to be offered to the public. But in most cases it’s done in such a manner that it provides many choices to the users through different service providers. This approach has been developed in the service care whereby various budgets are being prepared and funded alongside the universal services that need to be accessed by everybody (Gregg, P., 2008). This policy has become the fastest rationale in reforming various sectors such as the health sector which is one of the most important sectors that deal directly with the people in terms of providing them with healthcare services. The approach of providing the services to the public is something that has received support from many governments, agencies and individuals as indicated in the report on personalization of 2010 during the general election.

Personalization process is a public engagement by an individual whereby the social care providers are associated and involved. Since personalization is an agenda that which one needs to take part in, it has some risks to the care providers which include; lack of privacy to personal life and information. The carers’ in most cases are exposed to the risk of having their personal lives known to the public. They also risk by having to sacrifice much of their time and other commitments for the public activities as well as incurring personal costs in order to provide for the need (DWP, 2008).

One of the risks associated with personalization, is the demand to ascertain the advancement the public services providers have attained. The phase of implementation has been a real challenge because of the difficultness to identify what exactly should be done in personalization. Based on the previous discussion, personalization is all about social care and it has been developed in such way that it takes into consideration four main factors namely; the ability to choose and manage the services, social capital as well as prevention and ensuring access to those services that are of the national importance with a strong concern about making users self direct on public services (ESRC/ACEVO, 2009). In some cases, personalization has been established in such away in that it’s now a broad agenda of ensuring that services are tailored to the users by employing the state-led users’ approaches. This part of the discussion will take a look at various reforms that have been incorporated to ensure that services are driven to the individuals. We will give consideration to adult social care, health, employment services and housing.

Personalization has a long history in adult social care that was initiated by the independent movements in the 1970s that has led to total society care reforms in the 1990s. It campaigned for the need to have people who are physically able to get direct payment, which later show the inclusion of the elderly, disabled children, mental cases as well as those people who have problems in learning. In response to this, the social enterprise in control together with the local authorities developed a budget for direct payments to individuals through an integration of various sources for more creative use (DWP, 2008). The evaluation on this initiative that was done in 2005 revealed that many people appreciated the plan as it empowered them to have a say on their lives

Another agenda for personalization has been to provide good housing. It’s intended at addressing people’s housing needs in a number of ways to make sure that accommodation is among the care agendas. Decent accommodation is one way of providing social care. Being one of the government’s ‘think family initiative’ housing of families at risk was oriented and became one of the elements that were considered when preparing the budget. Local authorities also provided funds to support people in acquiring decent accommodation for those people who are vulnerable to risk (DWP, 2008).

Personal health budgets are currently piloted to various services within the health sector which included mental health, maternity care and drug abuse care. The cost of managing the services individually is not an easy thing for many people and therefore the legislation has been put in place to give direct payments to the health sector. There has also been the tailoring of health support to individuals with chronic diseases like diabetes and HIV/AIDS through the involvement of experts who provide personal care to these patients (Duffy, 2008)

Therefore, personalization being an important process that is intended to deliver services to the users, there is need to involve different parties such as the multi-agencies, individuals, different groups and institutions to assess the whole process to establish the associated risks. During personalization more focus is put on adults in most cases and it is believed that emphasis is not put in to recognize children as special people who are at risk and need special attention. The internal control for children has embarked on a journey to establish the need to have personal budgets and a wide range of activities for the children, young persons and their respective families through the taking control programme of 2010. In the year 2007, the department of education by then, announced various pilots that should be applied to provide individual budgets for the children who are disabled and their families through the act of aiming high programme. In Yorkshire and Humber, the work of providing children with care has been supported by improving the experiences of the children at that point when they are becoming adults. The special schools were also included through the person centered planning. Those children who may have additional needs such as physical or learning problems were found to be at risk of neglect or abuse and through the (BHLP) model, the budgets were piloted to aid their needs. This model has so far seen children being introduced into a culture of, ‘I can do’ starting from the bottom up (HM Government, 2007).

In the area of providing employment, the jobcentre plus initiative launched in 2002, has since then incorporated personal advisers for those that are seeking jobs. However, through the assessment report, it was found that the caseload was so big and can not be handled to deliver personalized support for individuals and therefore more career training was essential for the advisers to make them more effective according to McNeil report of 2009, on career progression and development. This led to provision of block contracts in order to cover the jobseekers who have different needs (HM Government, 2007). The Gregg report of 2008 came up with the idea of personalized conditionality for the people that are not working by combining the whole idea of personalization with the concept of conditionality to those behaviors that are insensitive to change. The flexible new deal was established by the department of work and pensions in 2008, to help in creating a more personalized service provision for the people that are out of work. The public sector came into agreement to assist in placing people to work through a public funding that will be provide depending on the number of people who have been placed to work(ESRC/ACEVO, 2009).

In education sector, personalized learning was put into the agenda in 2004 by David Miliband by then the minister for school standards. He described it as ‘an high expectation of every child, given practical form by high -quality teaching based on a sound knowledge and understanding of each child’s needs’ that is according to the report produced by Miliband in 2004. The Children’s Plan published by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) in 2007, stated that there is need to make learning the norm for every year to ensure that every child is given proper education and no one should be left behind. The government announced a 1.2 billion sterling pound for three years plan to support personalization for educational needs (English Community Care Association, 2010).

Risk assessment is a technique that is used in social work to assist in setting the ground for making informed decisions since it provides all material facts about the users of the services and different people who are ignored within the community and who require immediate attention.

Frequent assessment framework on risk is provided for use in order to give all the participants the opportunity to regularly conduct risk assessments in order to determine the various needs for the users that need to be supplied. This will enable individuals directly deal with evolving needs with regard to health and social care (Hurst, G., 2009).

Given the need to reveal the likely risks, a given systematic procedure with specific frameworks, models and practices have to be employed to ensure that the process of assessing the risk is a success. This essay has sort to go through various tools and practices that need to be considered when looking the risks that are likely to occur and they include the following; Time is of essence during then process since it’s required to enable the assessors to go through all possible areas that may be a course of any eventuality. It’s important that all the involved parties are given humble time to accomplish their assessments to come up with a good report. Time is required to collect all historical facts and the same time to compare all information to help generate concrete conclusions.

What the assessor should not do at all, is just to collect materials and put them down on record because this avoid the views of the users and other social carers. All concerned people need to be honest to each other at each step as this will create moment consultation and discussions doing the assessment (Hurst, 2009). Those parties that are deemed vulnerable should always be given a hearing to avoid any conflict. Every party should feel honored and respected during the exercise. What must not be done in this case is to avoid recoding any information especially the disagreed areas because this might be the situations that are prone to risk.

It’s important for the assessors to understand what exactly the service user desire to know. In this case what should be avoided is to assume things especially the way one is supposed to address the other colleagues (ESRC/ACEVO, 2009). Every material needs to be made available to the users. It’s supposed to be easy to be retrieved and acceptable by the professionals. At the same time they also need to consider the importance of sharing materials and facts at any given time. It’s absolutely very necessary to keep consultations a life for both the assessors and the users. What needs to be avoided here is being selfish in consultations with the advocates especially when they believe that the time of assessment is likely to be a little bit longer and want to rush to avoid criticism and concerns about the assessment report (GSCC, 2008).

This part will critically analyze awareness of individual, group and institutional decision-making processes and the implications for multi-disciplinary systems and processes.

Individuals, different groups, and decision making processes need to apply risk assessment reports to make their decisions with regard to the needs that are there. Once a need has been identified, it is important for various service providers such as commissioners, users and service providers to work together as a team in order to come up with a strategy that can be used to meet the needs of the users. The process of containing risk is called management of risk and it’s aimed at reducing any associated dangers that may result from that risk. In most cases the risk that has been there for the services providers is the one associated with lack of information and financial resources to determine and manage their affairs (Duffy and Fulton, 2009).

Various agencies and other third party services providers need to come up with various ways to manage new and emerging risks at work especially when dealing with the local authorities in order to be in a position to minimize the danger of failing to meet the users’ needs. There is need for collaboration between the local authorities and other agencies to avoid the risk of meeting the market demands. Its appropriate in some cases to have contingency funding in place to fund for activities incase there could be a likelihood of the market failure. On the other hand, commissioning organizations need to elaborate the extent to which they can handle the legal liabilities especially if there are legal disputes that may arise in the process of delivering services.

Commissioning of personalization is the process of redefining new approaches to be applied in providing services to the users (GSCC, 2008). The approach was developed as a result of the need to reach many people and avail a number of services for the customer choices. The approaches are expected to be convenient and faster in services delivery apart from being cost effective. In the processing of commissioning, however, so many challenges have come into being as result of personalized approach to service delivery. Commissioning of services does not mean that only people whose job title is written commissioning will be doing the job but the service users also need to be involved in the process of providing services to the number of the services providers who can be used at any given time to assist in service delivery (DWP, 2008).

Good commissioning is important in attaining the vision described out in Putting People First. It needs a transformation within the commissioning agenda in regard to the investments commissioners have, the different markets they wish to work to shape and the kind of relationships they wish to need to build in order to meet people’s needs (Gregg, 2008).

Commissioning in the transformed social care is somehow different but no much important task. As councils differ to increasing proportions for their investments meant to make individuals to come up with their own service decisions, commissioners have to find ways to use to work in partnership with service providers to make sure a wide range of selections are made available and that the right kind of support for budget bearers and self-financiers. This will definitely mean that there is a need to come up with more innovative services that better relate to persons selection decisions (Duffy, 2008).

In actual sense personalization is the mechanism developed to tailor services to the users in a more convenient way. The process ensures that all essential services are channeled to the right people at the right time. The activities surrounding the delivery services include a number of key players who take part in the exercise. These services are delivered to meet the needs of individuals. The key players of service delivery are; the social care workforce, third party organizations, the private sector organizations, user-led organizations, commissioning and the policy regulation (DWP, 2008).

Social care workforce as an agency is used when there is total need for change at levels on the various strategies that are used to offer the services to the people and their duties include the following; to provide personalized social care and supportive services incase of any need. They are key players used by the government in performing its central role of service delivery to the users. These people are supposed to add value to the lives of people through their distinct contributions especially for those services that relate to bettering life and empowering the people to be independent for all those who use these services including; families, carers and communities. The social workforce is intended in supporting independence, choice as well as control over difficulties that different individuals face such as disabilities, age and mental health related problems (HM Government, 2007).

Advocacy workers groups are established to fight for the needs of people and protecting their rights. They support the people in making sure that services for consumption are always available for the users and at the same time ensure that they are safe and life promoting services (Gregg, 2008). Personalization for advocacy workers means working together with people who are the users of the services to ensure that services provided are genuine. They also assist in monitoring the systems that are used to deliver the services.

They are also meant to enhance the advocacy levels to make sure that care for people is well funded and does not fall below the required budgets that are used to support services to the public (Hurst, 2009). They also advocate for changes to the types of services that people require and the budgets being spent for the purpose of accountability in the sector of social care.

They also assist to negotiate for people to get more support than the usual conventional one. This is aimed at providing more personalized services that support individuals to enhance their capabilities in terms of contribution to the community, improve their lives as well as the community life (ESRC/ACEVO, 2009).

Home care service providers in most cases in many occasions assist to offer services that confine with personal needs thus creating the need to have more support from people who use them. These are called the home care service providers and their main agenda is to make sure that services are put closer to the users. These are organizations that are started and within the community to perform various duties in relation to services provided. There duties include developing systems and trainings to assist the staff enhance their knowledge as well as creativeness and innovation in person centered approaches (DWP, 2006). They think on how to add on the expansion of assistance offered to individual workforce so as to increase more specialized services to the diverse markets. It’s also important for the home care services providers to find the best to provide their services whether directly through the councils or personal budget bearer.

This part seeks to evaluate the local authorities’ reports on personalization

The 2009 report by the Association of Adult Social Services (ADASS) and the Local Government Association (LGA) which carried out a survey on the process of putting people’s needs first when delivering services indicated that a number of recommendations were put forward to assist in delivering well transformed needs which conform with the needs of the users. In the report, the following recommendations were arrived in order to transform service delivery to the people; the transformation of the social care proved very necessary since it was discovered that there was conflict of interest among different service providers since among them, there were those interested in the same services. This has proved difficulty in promoting transparency and accountability within the sector thus requiring total transformation for efficient management of the public services (Hurst, G., 2009)

There is need to streamline the process of transferring funds to those who are eligible so that to have personal. There is need for all partners to come up with systems that are cost effective as an intervention to reduce the high demand for services and lastly ensure that people who receive and use these services are well informed of the available options within the community to meet their needs (GSCC, 2008).

The report on personalization produced by the centre for Public Service Partnerships (CPSP) indicates that personalization is an important factor in providing services to the public. This reform since then has raised many important questions that need urgent debate on the way forward about personalization using personal budgets. Personalization of public services is meant to last even if it means using individual budgets to empower the users purchase the services.

Personalization policy must be supported and maintained. The report went further to state the need to improve on personalization in order to extend service delivery to the public. Many of the public services like social care, handling of long-term diseases among the citizens, child care, developmental training, higher education and support for those people who are not working either because they are retired or aged require a model of personalization will assist in channeling public finances down to the people in order to allow them make their own informed choices on what to purchase and from where (Duffy, 2010). However, this strategy is accompanied with challenges that need to be taken care of. Firstly, it will require that the relationship between the individuals and the state be streamlined in order to determine what services should be channeled and by which provider. This is likely to abolish monopoly in the public sector services enjoyed by third party businesses and other sectors previously enjoyed the government protection. The whole process of personalization will mean fair competition and dealing within the public services production sector. However, this requires proper regulation to control the quality of services and the costs of obtaining those services (HM Government, 2007).

Learning outcomes

The services suppliers have to change their way of operation to fit in the competition that involve many suppliers in the pubic service delivery sector. There is need for service providers to develop models that are more personalized thus meeting the specific requirements of the users. The demand for public services will shift from the commissioners to the providers thus creating more demand for services which in some cases will not be easy to manage without enough cash flows. This will require more funding to facilitate (GSCC, 2008).

The regulations used should be citizen based to allow for proportionate handling of risk. This is to protect the user from exposed to higher risk than the service provider. No single service provider will enter the sector to reap from the public but must put the interest of the users first. The main function of commissioners in this case is to recognize the needs and various aspirations in relation with the users and other professional bodies that deliver services. They also expected to assess the needs where there is no uniformity in service delivery and allocation of financial resources to the users. They will also be expected to monitor the quality of services and their standards against the legislative requirements. This regulation is very necessary since it protects the users from accessing substandard services (Duffy and Fulton, 2009).

Under this strategy, the citizens must be supported to make their own well informed choices from a variety of sources. This model raises a fundamental question on the kind of relationship that is there between the professional adviser and the users that will motivate the discharge of very important information concerning various services as well as information about power and authority between them. A lot of counseling is required for the users to follow the professional advice and access to advocacy (DWP, 2006). However, personalization means that the service users are able to make informed choices. This is necessary to avoid conflicts between the users and the service providers. Personalized services are expenditures incurred on the public budget and must therefore be well managed to benefit the final users. While spending the public budget, there is need to take into considerations various factors such as purists and pragmatists, dogmatic and idealistic so as to provide well balanced services for all users regardless of whom they are.

Personalization in the social care context, require proper knowledge about the divergent needs the users have, their rights and the possible risks that may face the process. Risk assessment and care provision services are supposed to offer more meaningful and legal direction which the various participants will require in order to provide satisfactorily services to the public (DWP, 2006). The personalization process must be designed in such away in order to offer quality services that are more responsive and cost effective so to enable the carers’ avoid any kind of unnecessary challenges in the execution of social care services to the community. There is need also to start smaller units that offer community care within the society so as to assist in protecting the abused within a given public setting (Gregg, 2008). People who have learning problems need to be provided with special care homes within the community where they can be supported and provided for. The social care workers are expected to practice professionalism while carrying out social duties in order to add value to the services provided.

I agree that not everyone is suitable to do crisis intervention work as there are many factors that need to be considered when doing crisis work. The main factor that is essential for any crisis intervention work is the characteristics and personality of the crisis worker. James & Gilliland (2001, p.17) claim that effective crisis workers share a number characteristics and such workers demonstrate competency in their professional skills. Before we analyze the crisis worker, we need to understand crisis, crisis intervention and the difference between other therapies and crisis intervention because of the need to understand how the role of the intervener differs from other therapies and what are the characteristics that is needed specifically for the crisis intervention.

There are many definitions of crisis but a summarized definition would be that “crisis is a perception or experiencing of an event or situation as an intolerable difficulty that exceeds the person’s current resources and coping mechanisms,” (James & Gilliland, 2001, p.3). A similar definition of crisis is by Roberts (2000) who views crisis as “a period of psychological disequilibrium, experienced as a result of a hazardous event or situation that constitutes a significant problem that cannot be remedied by using familiar coping strategies” (p.7). There are many types of crisis and crisis is not simple but is complex and difficult to understand. It is essential that the individual is able to get relief from the crisis because the crisis causes disruption and breakdown to an individual’s ongoing pattern of everyday functioning. If the crisis is not handled, the situation would tend to immobilize them and they will be unable to control their lives. Apart from that, a crisis can cause individuals to have affective, behavioural and cognitive malfunctioning.

Crisis intervention is an internal helping response and is defined as “methods used to offer short term immediate help to individuals who have experienced an event that produces mental, physical, emotional and behavioural distress,” (Mitchell, n.d. para.1). The ultimate goal of crisis intervention is reducing the dangers of the crisis and allow it to be resolved positively allowing the individual to go on and thrive in life (Echterling, Presbury, & McKee, 2005, p.25). This intervention will focus on resolving the immediate problem to prevent further deterioration and to prevent negative outcome. An article by Center for School Mental Health Assistance (2002) states that, “crisis intervention will restore a sense of equilibrium for the individual in crisis and give them the ability to creatively problem-solve and feel efficacious.”

Crisis intervention differs from other therapies and traditional counselling because it “focuses on short term strategies to prevent damage during and immediately after the experience of trauma,” (Mitchell, n.d. para.5). This intervention is oriented in the present and focuses on the immediate problem which disrupts people from controlling their life. The intervener’s role is to offer immediate assistance to the individual who is struggling with a complex situation and assist them to go on and achieve a meaningful resolution (Echterling, Presbury, & McKee, 2005, p.25). In comparison to crisis intervention, other therapies deal with the totality of the individual’s personality and life issues and tend to be long term as they aim to improve the client’s mental health and personal wellbeing with an attempt to remediate more or less ongoing emotional problems. This only escalates to a crisis when there are threats to fulfilment, safety or meaningful existence (James & Gilliland, 2001, p.8-9) and this is where the crisis worker takes over.

To be a crisis worker, the helper has to have certain qualities to be able to intervene during the crisis and life experiences of the intervener are an important aspect to handle a crisis. These life experiences serve as a resource for emotional maturity that combined with training, enables workers to be stable, consistent and well integrated not only within the crisis situation but also in their daily lives (James & Gilliland, 2001, p.13). When a worker has previous experience of going through a crisis and comes across another individual who is in the similar crisis, they will be able to use their background as a resource to deal with the crisis. For example a crisis worker has previously made suicide attempts and has dealt with it, now has a client who is on the verge of attempting suicide. The crisis worker will be able to help the client overcome the issue because of the first hand experience of the crisis. James & Gilliland (2001) suggest that people who usually do crisis intervention are products of their own crisis environment and they have chosen to work with people experiencing the same kind of crisis they themselves have suffered, and they use their experiential background when working with people in crisis (p.13). Apart from this, life experiences means the helper has emotional maturity and it can enhance the dept and sensitivity with which the clients are treated.

One other characteristic that is essential for a crisis helper is remaining poised because “the nature of crisis intervention is that the worker is often confronted with shocking and threatening materials from clients who are completely out of control,” (James & Gilliland, 2001, p.14). When a helper remains poised in a situation where the client is out of control, there are chances that the stress level of the client will not be escalated. As the helper models this trait to the client, soon a stable atmosphere and a state of composure can be achieved. Eventually the situation will be brought into control and any immediate danger will be diffused. This trait of calming the victim and the situation has to be deeply abided within the helper and cannot be taught.

Aguilera & Messick (1982) stated that creativity and flexibility are major assets to those confronted with perplexing and seeming unsolvable problems (p.24). All crisis helpers are equipped with many skills and these skills have to be used in specific and creative ways personalized to the client’s needs and crisis. Sometimes to solve the crisis, untraditional and unconventional approaches need to be used. Helpers also cannot approach a crisis with a fixed and rigid formula but instead should have “a tentative plan for how to address it, combined with a readiness to let go of that approach if it does not work,” (Miller, 2012, p.6). Creating solutions is time sensitive and by being flexible to try and use different approaches, the helper will be more effective to lead the client through a comfortable intervention.

Energy and resiliency are required for crisis intervention as crisis situations can be very demanding. Being energized is largely dependent on the worker themselves to take care of their own physical and psychological needs so that their energy level remains high (James & Gilliland, 2001, p.15). Resilience on the other hand is also essential because it is natural for helpers to face failure no matter how capable or committed they were and when times of failure arise, helpers need be able to move forward and not face a meltdown.

As mentioned previously, crisis intervention compared to other therapies is time critical and helpers must have quick mental reflexes to “deal with the constantly emerging and changing issues that occur in the crisis,” (James & Gilliland, 2001, p.15). Helpers need to be able to think quickly on their feet and make quick evaluations and decisions as there is no time to reflect and slowly mull over the crisis. There is also a need for the helper to be comfortable in making decisions on their own because most of the time, they do not have another person supervising them.

Finally, one of the other trait a crisis helper should posses is the potential and desire to grow and change. Doing crisis intervention is not a static work as there is constant and rapid change in this field. The helper needs to change after each contact with a client because “successful resolution of the crisis results in two products, the first is helping the client overcome the crisis and second, effecting positive change in the helper as a result of the encounter,” (James & Gilliland, 2001, p.15).

In conclusion, I agree that not everyone is suitable to do crisis intervention because a crisis requires helpers who share a number of characteristics to demonstrate competency in their professional skills. Helpers ought to maintain poise when confronting a situation, to be creative and flexibility in their approach to deal with the situation, to be able to have energy and resilience, to be able to have quick mental reflexes and also have the potential to grow from each encounter of crisis. All of these characteristics are of enormous value to the helper and to the client and without them it is unlikely to be able to assist the client to reduce the dangers of crisis and facilitate a positive resolution.

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Personalisation is a new government strategy which has been set up to support service users who need support or care from adult social care. This policy is a new approach in supporting disabled people to enable them to lead more independent lives and exercise choice and control over the services they receive (Social Care Institute for Excellence, 2010). The overall aim is for service users to have control over how money is allocated to their care is spent, this includes direct payments, individual budgets, personal budgets, user led services, self directed support. As well as, support brokerage which would involve professionals from the wider fields of healthcare, including occupational therapists, and non professionals to provide advice and support for them (Mandelstam, 2010).

A personal health budget will enable a service user to decide how to use the money that the National Health Service has allocated to them for their care needs. It could just be a discussion with a doctor or other health care professionals, such as a care manager about the different ways the money could be spent on a care plan, or alternatively patients will be able to receive a cash payment to allow them to buy the care which has been agreed in the plan themselves (Stobbs, 2010).

The Department of Health (2007a) also state that this is a move away from the traditional welfare system to a more consumer type model of service provision which in turn will improve the quality of people’s lives. Although elements of this new policy are not legally defined, service users will be fully involved in accessing their own needs by having a personal budget by means of a direct payment, which in turn gives them control of the money.

Lymbery (2010) argues that there appears to be little recognition of the complexities and contradictions which characterize some areas of the policy, as well as having in inadequate resources bases for adult social care.

However, Dunning (2009) suggests that as the personalisation agenda advances the role of advocacy and support brokerage will be of increasing importance. However as Mandlestam (2010) argues that brokers need not be local authority employees or even professionals, which can place individuals at risk. If personalisation is to achieve its core aims, it will be essential that those accessing individual budgets can refer to sources of advice and support. Councils will also have to strike the right balance between giving people the freedom to choose their own care and protecting clients and their budgets from abuse. In addition, Mandelstam (2010) also believes that professionals will benefit from moving away from financial ‘gate-keeping’ to that of brokerage and advocacy.

Duffy & Gillespie (2009) discuss in their report that there appears to be some conflict between personalisation and safeguarding. The conflict has arisen through people thinking that that the ideas linked to the term ‘personalisation’ and those linked to the term ‘safeguarding’ is that this conflict is more likely to be a deep misunderstanding about both ideas rather than conflict. They have identified these misunderstandings around personalisation and safeguarding as; the goal for personalisation is freedom from control, not safety; the practice of personalisation is less concerned with the reduction of risk; and the rules and systems required for personalisation will increase risk. Although Pitt (2010) states that safeguarding and personalisation are seen as two sides of the same coin.

Also, they discuss the procedure with regard to the complex cases of vulnerability and abuse where careful risk management and person centred practice is required. Self-Directed Support is enshrined within the personalisation policy and states that before any individual receives any support services, six vital checks for risk are to be completed which are; First Contact, Assessment, Capacity Test, Support Planning, Plan Review and Sign-Off Outcome Review. As well as this, Self-directed support is very flexible and holds a number of tools which make it easier to solve complex cases. Resources are targeted at outcomes as this identifies the right level of funding applicable to the particular situation and needs of the individual. High quality planning; which commands that the social worker/occupational therapist identifies the best approach for the individual. Risk assessment; especially where abuse is suspected or criminal measures might become necessary, police may play an integral part to the final decision on the balance of risk. Appropriate control,; self directed support puts control of the funding into the hands of the appropriate person, such as a carer or a professional. Appropriate support; local authorities have to ensure that individuals can receive the help to manage their support that being traditional services, new or systems of peer support. Flexible resources; should be used creatively to support individuals and finally Outcome review; is essential which plays an integral part of the risk management process for the local authority.

However, as Mandelstam (2010) points out personalisation may not always work for vulnerable adults who are unable to express choices, unless they are adequately supported. Shortages of resources in some local authorities could threaten the availability of the vital support which is needed for individuals, and therefore for this system to work it is not to be seen as a cost cutting measure.

Duffy & Gillespie (2010) report that there is a misconceived idea that personalisation is simply about ‘freedom’ and treating safeguarding as it is simply about ‘control’ is wrong and to enable a person to have a good life balance you have to balance between freedom and control. Safety is one of the key goals in personalisation as control can be personalised because designing support arrangements need to be tailored to fit the person and need be justified with regard for their capacity, effectiveness and proportionality.

They also state that control does not guarantee safety, for example the current community care system is poor in providing individuals to exercise freedom and control. Individuals who need support often find they have little or no choice over the support they can receive as most social care services struggle to provide personalised support due to bureaucracy that surrounds them. This in turn can create dependency or frustration which can easily place individuals at greater risk.

The idea that personalisation may increase the risk of abuse in some way has been suggested by many professionals (Lymbery,2010. Duffy & Gillespie (2009) argue that personalisation is committed to improving safety as integral part of promoting well-being and enhancing citizenship along with offering techniques and approaches such as self-directed support which provides the framework for minimising the risk of harm and protecting vulnerable people from abuse. Personalisation is about designing support arrangements so they are more personal to the service user.

McGauran (2010) points out in her report that occupational therapists are placed well within the personalisation agenda as they are the only allied health professional who are widely employed throughout social and health care sectors. Personalisation is congruent to the philosophy of occupational therapy as the heart of its practice is to be client centred, and therefore occupational therapists need to seize these opportunities to pilot new ways of delivering this service which would be of benefit to the clients and enhance professional practice.

An example of this can be seen when an individual is given choice and control of a personal budget to purchase personal or nursing care for an older adult, then it would give the individual personal control over how, when and by whom the care or equipment should be provided. This philosophy is embraced with the College of Occupational Therapists Code of Ethics that ‘occupational therapists shall at all times recognise, respect and uphold the autonomy of clients, and advocate client choice.’ (College of Occupational Therapists 2005, p.2.1).

Social Care Institute for Excellence (2010) agree that occupational therapists are skilled in finding and tailoring individual solutions for people in different care settings and aim to improve the quality of life, as well as a facilitator of learning needs and can work collaboratively with people who use services, their carers, families, friends and other social care and health professionals to co-design and co-produce care and support.

Social Care Institute for Excellence (2010) believes also that by introducing this new agenda it will allow service users to become empowered and enable them to design the support packages for themselves or choose how they want to live. This in turn will enable service users to feel that are being supported in staying well and ensure that they have access to public services. This approach undoubtedly has the potential to improve the quality of people’s lives and give occupational therapists the opportunity to use their skills and expertise.

Over 70 health projects have been chosen by the Department of Health across England to pilot personal health budgets and a formal evaluation has been carried out by the Department of Health (Department of Health, 2009). Evidence suggests that although it was popular with younger disabled people, many of the older age service users found they were put off by the complexities of the scheme, especially around issues of becoming an employer if they needed to appoint paying carers (McGauran, 2010).

As Mandelstem (2010) points out there is some confusion in the legislation in the personalisation agenda as there is no new legislation or detailed statutory guidance to support this. The Department of Health have set up a ‘toolkit’ that fits personalisation into legislation but it is inadequate and contains errors. Therefore suggesting that there could be risks involved in the transformation of social care.

What is apparent from evidence on pilot studies is very early to say what the full impact of personal budgets will be on occupational therapy staff and other professionals, and that it is most likely that developments of personal health budgets need to significantly change cultural values throughout the National Health Service (Stobbs, 2010).

Personalisation in social care does have potential benefits in giving service users choice and control over their care services. Although there is no doubt that it does have some potential pitfalls. What can be recognised from this new approach is that safeguarding is essential to all service users especially complex cases where careful risk management and person centred practice are essential.

However, personalisation is in its infancy stage and a lot more debate is needed around this new policy for service users to feel confident in new transformation of our healthcare system. Equally, this can be seen as an excellent opportunity for occupational therapists to demonstrate that they are well equipped to take the lead in this personalised agenda as it sits well in the role of their profession.

In this easy, I will be discussing personalisation in considering its key elements. Looking at the impact of Fair Access to Care Services (FACS) in meeting service user needs. How it contradict in particular the notion of choice, control and independence for old people. I will also the implications for social work practice, and my own personal practice in an anti-discriminatory point of view.

The adult transforming agenda is focused on the development of personalisation of support. The 2006 Community Services White Paper, Our Health, Our Care, Our Say, announced the piloting of Individual Budgets. Personalisation had its beginnings in Direct Payment which was introduced in 1987, were people who are eligible for social care can choose to receive a cash sum in lieu of services (Henwood &Nigel, 2007).

The development of Transforming Social Care is driven by the demographic pressures and changes to public expectations. According to Chandler (2009, p2) “by 2022 20% of English population will be over 65 and the number of those over 85 will have increased by 60%”. The development of better housing options and extra care housing will be crucial for the future. Majority of older people will expect to live in their own homes for as long as they possibly can. And with more people living longer and requiring support, an increasing number of families will feel the impact of these demographic changes (Chandler,2009) [online]. One of the objectives of Putting People First was to champion the rights and needs of older people in their local authority and public services within a policy, which will involve them as active citizens who may or may not need support. However, these expectations cannot be met through traditional approaches to delivering of social care services.

A fundamental change in Adult Social care is required in order to ensure that the needs of each person can be met in a way that suits their personal individual circumstances. Putting people first (DOH 2009), laid out the vision for change in social careaˆ¦ “this vision is of a new social care system that helps people stay healthyaˆ¦aˆ¦ through a focus on prevention, early intervention and enablement, and high quality personally tailored services for those who need ongoing care social care support This new policy is referred to as “personalisation”.

According to Lloyd (2010, p 189), “the term personalisation is very contentious” she further cited Boxall et al (2009) distinguishing between personalisation which focuses on the particular needs of individuals to the preference of one size-fits-all approach of services. The self directed support is about the control that service users can exert over the definition of their needs and the ways in which these should be met. In policy terms, personalisation is both “the way in which services are tailored to the needs and preferences of citizens” and how the state empowers citizens “to shape their own lives and the services they receive” (according to the Department of Health, document Transform Social Care, Local Authority Circular 2008, p4).

Personalisation was introduced in government policy in 2007 when the Putting People First: A shared vision and commitment to transformation of adult care (DOH, 2007) Concordat was published. This outlined the reforms for social care. The key elements in the document where;

Self Assessment,

Individual Budget,

Choice, Control, Independence.

However, because personalisation is only a policy it is implemented differently across social care services. Proponents of personalisation argue that the need to personalise services arise because, services were institutionalised and driven by professional, managerial and economic agendas, rather than those of service users (Lloyd, 2010).

Historically and currently, a person in need of social care services is assessed by a social worker and other agencies. Then they decide the type of support the service user will receive, who from, where and when. For a couple of years now the government has been moving towards changing that system to one which the person in need of social care gets to decide the type of support they need and how, and this is now known as personalisation.

The drivers behind personalisation are found in the Our Health, Our Care, and Our Say White Paper (DOH). It suggests that people will be happier, healthier, and have better prospects for the future if they are put in control of their social care support.

According to Harris & White () a “milestone in the pronounced shift by new labour towards personalisation was the Adult Social Care Green Paper, Independence, Wellbeing and Choice. This saw the introduction of individual budgets as the principle route to personalisation (Harris & White).

The Department of Health describes personalisation as an approach in which “every person who receives support, whether provided by statutory services or funded by themselves, will have a choice and control over the shape of that support in all care settings” Brody(2009) [online]. One key issue identified by Griffiths (2009, p3) is that “individual budgets offers a aˆ¦ a chance to empower ‘service users’ in their dealings with public services and it puts the service user at the heart of public service reform. This is one of the key values of Putting People First (2007), to ensure people in need of social care have the best possible quality of life and the equality of independence living. Griffiths (20009, p2) further argues that individual’s budget will give “service users a greater choiceaˆ¦. by giving money to the service user to purchase services from a plurality of providers”.

However, Forster (2002.p, 85) identified that there is “little or no choice for elderly people. They can only have choice if the cost of their care is within the amount allocated by local Authority (LA) or if social workers agreed that it is suitable”. This was also highlighted by Hudson& Henwood (2008), in the CSCI document Prevention, Personalisation, and Prioritisation in social Care, that the “coexistence aˆ¦ of self directed support alongside the Fair Access to Care (FACS) criteria have create some tensions” while personalisation is concerned about promoting and maximising the choice and control of service users.” it fails to determine how the eligibility of those groups is defined (Dodd, 2009) [online]

The FACS policy guidance was publish in 2002 as a Local Authority Circular LAC (2002) 13. That Provides local authority with an eligibility framework for setting and applying their local criteria with the aim of ensuring fairer and more consistent eligibility decisions across the country (DOH).

As Crawford & Walker (2004), points out this system is failing to distribute resources to people who will benefit from early intervention. For example there are a growing number of old people with lower level needs who are likely to develop higher needs in the absence of responsive support. According to Dodd (2010), “using one of the four levels within the Fair Access to Care services (FACS) banding as a threshold for rationing resources is too rigid an instrument for fairly and responsively allocate social care budget”. He goes on to argue that currently, “people with proven care needs are not receiving the services they need”. Therefore as long as the FACS criteria remains in place as a rationing mechanism, it will be impossible to realise the universal model of self directed support envisaged within the personalisation agenda(Dodd,2010)[online]

The CSCI report argues that as the government is concerned to hold down public spending “eligibility criteria are a key mechanism, serving to regulate service provision in line with available resources and identified priorities”. In the current financial climate were resources are tight, these criteria can be adjusted by the local authority in order to narrow access to care support. Lloyd (2010), policy makers are more focused on the economic challenges than the needs of older people.

The implications for social workers according to Adams (2009, p145) is the amount of time they will have to spend with service users and carers who have individual budgets “to help them gain the necessary knowledge and skills they may need to manage their budgets”. Also, another limitation to personalization and individual budget has been identified by Griffiths (2009) that the current economic climate may pose a threat for individual budgets and may not survive the planned government spending cuts for the next few years.

In order for an individual to receive holistic, high quality health and social care services, effective communication and multi disciplinary working between professionals is imperative (Ashcroft et al, 2005). I will discuss my personal experience of interprofessional working, both in regards to the conference and the on line group work undertaken. I will also explore how the module relates to my own experiences in practice, drawing on literature and policy of both a political, professional and social nature.

The team of which I was a member consisted of students studying adult nursing and medicine. I was the only group member studying social work which initially did create a barrier in respect of the perception held by the other group members of what a social work practitioner’s role is. It was clear, following initial introductions, that some group members held a stereotypical view of social workers and were very dismissive of the work carried out by practitioners. It is essential, when working interprofessionaly that practitioners are mindful of the various methods employed by associated health and social care professionals and vital, therefore, that practitioners become aware of their own possible prejudices, through reflection on their practice. This reflective process assists to ensure potential negative stereotyping does not hinder the outcome of the work carried out by the team and have a detrimental effect on the care provided to the service user ( Fook, 2002).

Through discussion it transpired that much of this stereotypical view had been constructed through the influence of the media’s portrayal of social workers. During the conference group members cited television documentaries in which social workers failings were highlighted. Lombard ( 2009) argues that this type of media attention is damaging not just to social work but to all allied health and social care staff, attributing it to a possible lack of comprehension of the profession. Earlier this year a national advertising campaign was introduced. This aimed to draw attention to the role social workers play in safeguarding children and adults and to achieve a more positive, public perception of the profession ( McGregor, 2010).

The perceived lower professional position of social workers, held by other health professionals, however, is argued by Barbour (1985) as being a source of high anxiety for students studying on social work courses. However, it became apparent as the conference continued and discussions were held, that as a social work student I had gained experience of a wide range of practice settings and of working interprofessionally in order to achieve the best possible care provision for the service user. These practice experiences enabled me to reflect on both positive and negative factors of working with other professionals and to contribute to the group discussion with examples of interprofessional work in which I had participated. An example of which is regarding a case I care managed whilst working within a hospital social work team. In order to facilitate a safe discharge home for an older person with dementia, input was required from various disciplines. Occupational therapy support was necessary to ensure the home environment would still be suitable and assessment from the community psychiatric nurse was also completed in respect of service provision to maintain the emotional and mental well- being of the service user.

Ongoing communication between involved professionals was therefore essential, for an effective outcome for the service user to be achieved. This illustrates the highly significant role of interprofessional education for students studying to practice in the health and social care field. Reeves et al (2009) argue that interprofessional education has impacted notably on patient care in, for example, the improved knowledge and expertise of staff providing care to individuals with mental health issues.

The discussion of practice experience, I feel, added positively to the group and perhaps began to reduce the preconceptions held by other group members of lack of professional competency executed by social workers

(Carpenter & Hewstone,1996). Through the process of exchanging opinions, discussions and working as a group, the potential to overcome stereotypical views and facilitate change was engaged in (Mullender & Ward, 1991). Being a member of a group can determine a sense of familiarity, group members may have experiences in common and this sharing of situations can act as a supportive, cathartic procedure ( Johnson & Johnson, 1994). A fundamental element of effective interprofessional partnership, therefore, is trust. If facilitation and engagement in open debate and sharing of ideas between professionals is to occur, this must be apparent ( Cook et al, 2001).

The example of interprofessional working in respect of facilitating a safe discharge home from hospital, also raised further discussion regarding the role of input from the service user and their carers. They should be seen as part of the group, not externally from it and involved fully in the decision making process. This was challenged by one of the group members studying medicine, who felt that the responsibility to make decisions about care provision should be held solely by the professionals involved. Payne (2000) argues, however, that a focus on the interactions between the professionals can undermine the participation of the people who use the services. Involvement of service users, family and carers and recognition of their role as being experts by experience, may begin to create equality of power between professionals and the individuals they are supporting ( Domenelli,1996).

We explored this further through discussion within the group and I felt concerned by some of the group members attitudes towards the notion of making a decision as professionals, whilst excluding the service user from this process. This is an oppressive way to practice and the empowerment of individuals through maximization of control and choice, should be striven towards in all provision of health and social care services ( Banks, 2006). Respect for the individual choices and interests of the service user should always be paramount throughout provision of health and social care and the assessment process, as detailed in the National Occupational Standards for social work (2009).

Ongoing communication has been actively engaged in during my personal practice experience. However, throughout the module there was very little online participation from the team via blackboard. This was disappointing, as through the proactive exchange of ideas from the varying professionals perspectives, a more cohesive and beneficial learning experience may have been achieved. Indeed, the centre for the advancement of interprofessional education (1997) has documented that there are significant benefits in students from varied fields, learning together.

In contrast to the team work which took place at the conference, my experience of working alongside allied health and social care professionals in practice has been extremely positive. An example of which is in my previous employment within an adult care community team in which I attended weekly meetings with the district nursing team and local G.P’s. enabling effective sharing of information to take place. This communication enabled all involved professionals to gain knowledge of changes in service users health and care needs and provided a forum for any concerns regarding safeguarding issues, to be shared and explored further.

Within the conference team, therefore, further discussion and exploration of the differing views regarding this topic was carried out. The conclusion of which was the establishment of one of the teams sentences as “be open minded and willing to accommodate other professionals values, within a team working environment.”

The ideologies of interprofessional working are not always apparent in practice however, resulting in catastrophic failings in care. Victoria Climbie died after suffering serious abuse whilst under the care of the NHS and social services. Lord Laming (2003) reported a lack of sharing of information between professionals and argued that when practitioners did raise child protection concerns, there was a lack of feedback and little or no further communication between agencies.

The death of Baby Peter Connelly also sadly highlights concerns regarding how professionals work together. The serious case review reports that at a significant case conference held regarding Baby Peter, there was poor attendance from professionals, with neither doctors, police or lawyers turning up ( Laming, 2009). This illustrates that even after the reported failings in communication between professionals in the Victoria Climbie case, interprofessional working does not always appear to be fully engaged in.

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Section 2
Discuss how you would take what you have learnt about Interprofessional working into practice.

Attendance at the conference provided an opportunity to explore the process of working effectively with other professionals. In practice, the active joint working between health and social care professionals and the voluntary sector has become increasingly important with the introduction of the personalisation agenda, as detailed in the social policy ‘Putting people first: a shared vision and commitment to the transformation of adult social care’ (2007). The personalisation of social care services enables service users to take increased control of their own support packages and provides a high level of empowerment.

I will discuss this further in relation to interprofessional working and it’s application in practice.

Service users are now provided with the option to choose from which provider their care is sourced ie, from the private, pubic or voluntary sector. In 2004 the strategic concurrence between the NHS, Department of health and the voluntary sector of ‘making partnership work for patients, carers and service users’ (2004) was formed, which indicated a dedication to interprofessional working and a fully person centered approach to practice. However, the change in government this year and recent significant cuts in funding to the welfare state proposed by the coalition government may impact significantly on the initial goals set out in this policy ( Dunning, 2010).Significant changes in how funding is allocated impacts greatly on social care practice. On qualification as a social worker I will endeavor to carry out effective interprofessional practice, however with increasing reductions in front line staff and higher caseloads it raises concerns regarding how achievable this will be.

My own experiences of working within an adult care management team have been of positive interprofessional working. I have attributed this to the comprehensive, ongoing sharing of information between social work practitioners and community nursing teams, which took place. The desire to strive towards a common goal and achieve the best possible care for the service users, provided an effectual construct for professionals to practice within. The recognition of individual differences regarding ethnicity, culture and relationships by all involved professionals enabled truly anti-oppressive practice to take place (Dominelli 2002).

However, during the conference, team members voiced concerns regarding how engaging in interprofessional working may cause their specific professional identity to become vulnerable. This has been identified by Frost et al (2005), who postulates that the fusion of professional margins can create apprehension and resentment between practitioners. This discussion was an interesting aspect of my personal learning within the group. As a social work practitioner the opportunity to engage in joint working with other professionals is embraced and is essential to effectual, safe practice. The varied perspectives between group members however, has provided a deeper insight into how other professionals may view this method of working and I will be mindful of this in future practice.

Interprofessional working was illustrated further during the conference by a presentation from the Bristol Intermediate care team. The team consists of health professionals working alongside social work practitioners, aiming to reduce hospital admissions, providing a holistic approach to practice and enabling service users to remain in the community and to be cared for at home (Drake & Williams, 2010). I feel the cohesive working style of this team, provides the best possible outcome for service users through application of an anti oppressive, person centered approach. This interprofessional method of practice provides for less of a risk adverse approach to practice which can be present in community care teams consisting exclusively of social work practitioners (Roe & Beech, 2005). This may be due to the presence of multi disciplinary professional opinions being readily provided, enabling a more holistic view of a situation and perhaps also the fundamental ethos of the team which is to promote independence. The ethic of empowering others to achieve independence however, is a core value of social work and I endeavor to implement this within my own future practice.

In order to facilitate change in my practice, I will be conscious of the importance of information sharing with other professionals and engaging in the process of reflection on my previous experiences of working interprofessionally (Payne, 2006). An example which occurred whilst working within an adult care management team is regarding an allocated case concerning a couple, living at home in the community, both of which had multivariate care needs. In this circumstance a wife was providing care for her husband who has dementia, however she has limited mobility and depends on him to support her with some physical tasks. Joint working with other health and social care professionals was imperative in order to safeguard the needs of both service users (Meads & Ashcroft et al, 2005).

Combined assessments were carried out by myself as a social work practitioner, the district nursing team and community psychiatric nurse, enabling all involved professionals to be aware of each others role and involvement. This method of working was also highly beneficial to the service users in respect of limiting the amount of assessment meetings which took place and avoiding repetition of the same information to several professionals, which can become exhausting and create further anxiety ( Walker & Beckett, 2003). I did encounter difficulty in interprofessional working when liaising with the GP regarding a requested review of the couple’s medication. The GP held the opinion that both service users should be placed in residential care due to their age and health problems and was reluctant to engage in any discussion regarding alternative options. Through joint working between other professionals however, funding for a live in carer was secured to support the couple, alongside ongoing support from the community matron to ensure both health and community care assessed needs continued to be met fully and safely, in accordance with the NHS and Community Care Act (1990).

On reflection this was a challenging experience and I felt frustrated by the apparent disregard of the wishes of the service users and the discriminative attitude exhibited in respect of their age, by the GP. The reluctance to engage further with any of the involved professionals following a case conference in which the GP’s opinion had been challenged by myself and others working on the case, highlighted to me the hierarchy which is still in place within health and social care professions. Monlyneux (2001) argues that professionals who are assured in their professional role, are able to explore disparities in opinions and practice outside their own profession’s margin without feeling vulnerable. The importance, therefore, of maintaining focus on the service users wishes rather than difficulties in communication between professionals, ensuring their needs are met fully, is paramount. However, this incident demonstrates the difficulties which can occur when working within a team and the need for respect and equality for all members, in order to ensure effective interprofessional working takes place (Conyne, 1999).

The discussions held amongst the team during the conference have highlighted further to me the disparity between perspectives held by health professionals, who apply the medical model of practice and social work practitioners implementing the social model. As argued by Petch (2002), in order to respond fully and positively the uniqueness of the individuals needs should be identified. Through this process, empowerment and equality can begin to be accomplished. Both perspectives, therefore, are valuable when striving towards holistic health and social care provision. These are issues I will be mindful of in my future practice and I will endeavor to continue to practice with integrity and in an anti-oppressive way in order to implement person centered care provision.

To conclude, as a result of my practice experience and learning achieved from the conference, I feel strongly that a critical part of my future role as a qualified social worker is to facilitate the sharing of information between professionals. When appropriate, to advocate the service users individual wishes and to ensure all professionals are aware of these shared common goals. I feel this will contribute significantly to achieving the highest level of care for the service user and aims to support the safeguarding of both adults and children.

(Word count – 1338 )

Section 3.
References

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Section 4.

The objective of this research paper is to discuss the personal attributes that are required in a physically and emotionally healthy counselor. A healthy counselor has a positive effect on his or her client. The field of counseling is becoming significant part of people’s life. This paper establishes its basis on the conflict of values of counselor and its effects. Another important aspect of the paper is to research about consequence of counselors-in-training interacting with clients prior to their master’s level training. It will highlight the consequences of engaging in practice prior to the training and its effect on capability of handling the client’s issues and queries. This could also lead to issues with the credibility of the counselor. These aspects are studied through literature and case studies done by other writers. Different researches conducted in the past are the major source of information. Foundation of this paper is based on the personal characteristics that a counselor should possess and their values.

Personal Characteristic of Counselors

Counseling is about giving advice and guiding the clients through their difficult times. It relates to the mental health and emotional state of the client. People seek counseling for their careers, jobs, relationships, addictions and general issues of their lives. Counseling is usually used as a synonym for psychotherapy. When in difficult times family and friends are unable to help someone, they seek for guidance, strength and answers from their counselor. Counseling is practices in sessions of an hour or so for once or twice in a week. Counselor and client both play vital roles in the recovery of client. Counselor’s expertise will be of no use if client does not fully share his or her problem. So, both have to be supportive and persistent while conducting these sessions.

Counseling is a field that requires patience, rational thinking and empathy. Counselors make a difference in the lives of other people. It is important for a counselor to feel empathy for the client. As Guidon (2010)describes, a sympathetic person wants to solve the issue him/herself but a person who feels empathy does not mix client’s problem with their own. Counselors lead a demanding life. Their clients require not only their time and advice but also trust and care. Therefore, a counselor needs to have very specific qualities in their personality in order to provide effective service to their clients. Other than the obvious personal abilities like interpersonal skills, counselors require many personality traits to be effective and efficient. Corey (2009) says that there are many characteristics of counselors which seem unrealistic but these are equally essential for any counselor. Before giving advice to clients, a counselor him/herself needs to be sure of their capabilities. Sincerity and honesty are very important in this field.

A counselor needs to be observant, active listener, interviewing, influential and focused. The effective councilor also requires a sound knowledge of theory and ability to put theory into practice (Gregoire & Jungers, 2007). Corey (2009) states that it is very important for effective counselor to maintain healthy boundaries, this way they should be able to maintain a balance between their personal and professional lives. Corey also concluded from his research that counselor should have a good sense of humor in order to lighten the mood. Guindon (2010)believes that clients give a counselor many non-tangible gifts like trust, care and confidence. Corey (2009) also says that the relationship of client and counselor helps both parties. Consolers learn how to admit their mistakes and become open to change in their lives.

McLoead (2011)discusses the qualities of people who are drawn to the field of counseling. Usually people who become counselors believe that relationships are the most important aspect of human life. They are also firm believers in the values that prove the worth of people and they are clear about their role in society and their future goals. Another most important personal trait of counselor is to be honest and keep the privacy of patient. It is their moral and professional obligation.

Values and its Confilcts

Values are the standard held by people about what is desired, proper and acceptable. It gives people a criterion of standards for shaping their lives. Both personal and professional values are important. Personal values affect the way of interaction with the client. Personal values of a consoler are developed as he/she grows up; they depend upon the upbringing and culture in which the counselor spends most of the time. Personal values include honesty, truth, helping others, doing meaningful work and positive influence on others (Corey, 2009). There is always a chance that the personal values of a counselor conflicts with the work values. Busacca (2010) tells that personal values conflict with the work values. If a counselor has a personal belief that a terminally ill person should have the right to end their lives; however, he cannot impose this thinking on anyone else. Studies show that counselors, while training, question their self-concepts with those requires for their field of work. Counselors have appeared to be molding themselves in their professional values after certain period of time. They have to create their own boundaries in which they want to practice.

Research (Sanders, 2003) shows that cultural difference between client and counselor can have a major impact on the relationship and therapy. The personal biases on either side can result in failure of professional values and ethics. High level of sincerity can reduce the cultural barrier among client and counselor. The counselor has to have a non-judgmental attitude towards the client regardless of his/her personal values. Campbel & Christopher (2012)also say that the counselor has to be physically, mentally, emotionally and cognitively on the same level with the client at all times. Mostly, counselors have to deal with grief counseling for their clients. Counselors, who are more self-aware and comfortable in sharing their feelings, are more efficient and effective at their work (Ober, Granello, & Wheaton, 2012).

Professional values determine the role of a person in organization and the ability of balancing work and family. Work values of counselor include taking responsibility, empathies, develop counseling style, share responsibility with client and tolerate ambiguity. The common issues where conflict of values occurs are religion, sexual orientation and someone’s right to die. Serious consequences might occur as a result of these conflicts (Guindon, 2010).

We can conclude that personal values of counselors can conflict with the professional values. However, strong personal values will work in favor of the counselors. A counselor with strong moral and ethical values will have a positive influence on the clients. Whereas if a counselor doesn’t practice honesty, integrity and privacy of others than he or she is more likely to face difficulty in understanding a client with strong moral values. Although a counselor cannot impose their personal values on clients but they can have a very positive effect in influencing and helping the client in their difficult times. If there is a strong disagreement between the values then it might result in referral to another counselor but most of the times this conflict can be resolved with cold-mindedness and rational thinking.

Trainee Counselor

Survey (Busacca, Beebe, & Toman, 2010) shows that practicing counselors show matured level of values than trainee counselors. Yager & Tovar-Blank (2007) also comment that counseling is a profession which is very stressful, tiring and with constant threat of fatigue and burn out. Trainee counselors do not completely practice cognitive counseling and usually under their instructors influence. For students of counseling it is very important to learn the wellness of the client and themselves. The curriculum has to be designed in such a way that they are completely aware of this idea and its implications. Grief counseling is a very important aspect of psychotherapy. If the trainees indulge themselves in practice before understanding the importance of wellness, skill and knowledge required for grief counseling, they are bound to miss lead the client. Without the master’s level training, the trainee counselors are not fully prepared to help the client and understand the delicate nature of the job. At this level, trainees themselves are in conflict with requirements of their profession and their personal moral and ethical values and beliefs (Ober, Granello, & Wheaton, 2012).

Statistics by Gaubatz & Vera (2006)show that only 4-5% trainees enrolled in master’ or doctoral program are prevalent than those in undergraduate level. Statistic also shows that only 10% of students enrolled in mater’s program are suitable for the field of counseling. However, Woodside (2007) says that it is better for trainee counselors to interact with the clients. But, this interaction should be under the guidance of a practicing professional counselor. Internships are a very effective way of learning by example. Yager & Tovar-Blank, 2007 (2007) on the other hand is of the opinion that if an emotionally unstable student is enrolled in counseling program then the course should be deigned in such a way that it should enlighten the student and make him self-aware. If such a student practices before being properly trained, he will not be able to understand the client and might make the situation worse of the client.

The research (Woodside, Oberman, Cole, & Carruth, 2007) shows that the student of undergraduate level is not fully matures and trained. Most of them show signs of anxiety and confusion about converting theory into practice. Those who feel confident are not fully trained and hence experience disanointed clients and they themselves become more confused. There are three basic stages of counselor’s professional development including the helper, the beginning student and the advanced student. Passing through various techniques and training, trainees reach the next level of their professional development. Another research (Busacca, Beebe, & Toman, 2010) shows that at training level counselors-to-be explore their inner values and self-concept. This stage defines who they actually are and what they actually want to be. Being self-aware and knowing personal characteristics is as important as learning the theories of counseling. Once they are clear about their own values, they can determine the bounties in which they want to work. Not everyone can work in a profession that demands occasional conflicts of personal and professional values and ethics.

Hence, keeping the view of the research conducted by various experts, we can say that trainees who start seeing clients before their master’s level training are bound to suffer a shock. They will not be able to handle the clients. Their own values will not be in sync with their professional demands. Being not fully self-aware and lack of proper training might lead them not only to a dissatisfied client but they might also add to the misery of their client. If they give advice according to their personal ethics and values rather than professional values, their clients will doubt their sincerity towards them. All in all, it will not be a good decision to practice before having some master’s level training.

Conclusion

Counseling is not only a profession but also a great responsibility. It is a vast field which includes career counseling, grief counseling, behavior therapy, heath counseling and also covers issues like addiction, mental health and relationship issues. Clients confine everything in their therapist and seek their guidance in various aspects of their lives. To become a counselor, one has to possess certain qualities like theoretical knowledge of personality, empathy for client’s situation, understanding behavior, attentive listening ability and power of deduction.

After studying the literature pertinent to personality and values of a counselor, it can be concluded that both of these are very important for the professional development of a counselor. Their personality not only defines who they are but also determines how efficient they are in their profession. Strong moral and ethical values of a counselor can make the relationship with clients stronger. Clients will rely on the counselor for his/her advice. If in-training counselors try to treat their patients before master level training, they are more likely to have cognitive issues and difficulty in dealing with their own personality and work value conflict. So, it is better to start practicing once you are finished with training so that there is no confusion between personal and work values.