Personal and Professional development in health and social care
Task 1 – Current Knowledge and Skills
Skills: This is the skills acquired by a person whether its through work experience or education. There are many different types of skills whether academic, gross motor or interpersonal communication skills.
Knowledge: This can mean the confident understanding of a subject with the ability to use for a specific purpose. Whether it’s for practical or mental use, this can be learning, reasoning, communication and association. This is also the understanding that has been achieved during life through either experiences or through studying.
Practice: This is most commonly known as the learning method: this could mean re-enacting an activity over and over again or could be rehearsing behaviour over again. This could be either sports or when learning a musical instrument which both take practice in order to achieve results. This could be working in order to achieve a goal or could also describe the way in which something is done.
Strengths and Areas for Improvement Table
Task Two – Career Aspirations
When I do complete my national diploma in health and social care I hope to go on to university in order to do a degree in hopefully nursing which at present is my aspired career.
I wish to be a nurse as I am sure it will be a very rewarding career to get into. I have always wanted to do a job in which I can help people as ...
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Task Two – Career Aspirations
When I do complete my national diploma in health and social care I hope to go on to university in order to do a degree in hopefully nursing which at present is my aspired career.
I wish to be a nurse as I am sure it will be a very rewarding career to get into. I have always wanted to do a job in which I can help people as it is what I believe I am good at. Within nursing I would prefer to go into a paediatric ward however, as I am definitely better at working with children than any other age range.
Task Three – Care Values
Values and Beliefs – “My Opinion of Care Values”
The main purpose and meaning of care values are to “foster people’s rights and responsibilities”. Examples of this could be the right to be different
Scenarios linked with Care Values
“Jonathon works in a nursery with very small children on the same street as he lives. One of the neighbours met him on his lunch hour at a sandwich stand and asked ‘how is little Jimmy getting on, his mother tries so hard?’ Jonathon replied ‘oh he is doing well, though he is slow at times’.”
In this scenario, Jonathon hasn’t applied the care value of maintaining the confidentiality of information as he is giving out information he shouldn’t about the children he works with which could actually lead to him being dismissed. If I was put in Jonathon’s situation I would have just informed the neighbour that all of the children are doing well as this prevents any personal information getting out by not actually singling out one particular child thus respecting the care base value.
“Alice is 26 and is in hospital recovering from a miscarriage. Her best friend Paula is a nurse on the ward. When Alice’s boyfriend visits her in hospital, he asks Paula about Alice.”
Paula mustn’t give out any information about Alice’s condition to Alice’s boyfriend although she may feel awkward being in this situation as this will be breaking the “maintain confidentially of information” rule. If she did tell the boyfriend and someone found out she could be put in a situation that could jeopardize her career. If I was in this situation I would tell Alice’s boyfriend that I wasn’t allowed to tell him even though I wanted to as it would risk my job. Then I would advise him to ask a doctor in order to get the information he was seeking.
“Justine is 16 years old and she has a very close relationship with her parents. Recently she has visited her GP and asked to go on the pill. Her mother saw her coming out of the surgery. Justine’s mother went in and asked the receptionist why her daughter was there. The receptionist told Justine’s mother why she had come in as she knew that Justine would tell her parents anyway.”
I believe that this was definitely the wrong thing to do and was an extreme breach of the confidentiality of information care base value. This could have resulted in the receptionist losing her job as she is not allowed to give out any personal information to anyone even the parents. It is not acceptable to just assume that Justine would tell her parent this information so it would just be advisable to not give any information out. In this situation I would tell Justine’s mother that you understand that as her parent she would be worried about why her daughter was visiting the surgery but that I’m not actually allowed to give out any patient information because of confidentiality laws and that you could get in a lot of trouble for telling her. I would advise her to ask her daughter herself about the reasons for her visit.
Task Five – “Inside I Am Dancing”
Inside I Am Dancing is a British film about two disabled people trying to get out of a care home in order to gain independent living. Michael Connolly (Steven Robertson) is a young man in his early twenty and has lived in residential care his whole life due to his cerebral palsy. He is perfectly happy living his life in Carringmore Home peacefully under the watchful eye of the matron Eileen (Brenda Fricker). However this peace is soon disrupted by the arrival of the troublemaking Rory O’Shea who is determined to undermine the care home system in an attempt for independence.
Throughout the film there are many situations where care values are completely disregarded for example when Rory arrives at the care home the matron Eileen complains about him playing his loud music. This shows that she is not acknowledging that different residents are different and which to express their selves differently. By doing this she could be breaking the foster people’s rights and responsibilities code. Another example is where she treats Rory as different to any other resident by treating him cruelly and not giving him a chance. She doesn’t recognise the differences in people and so believes that everyone should behave in the same way.
All Rory wants is to live independently away from a residential home but because of his Muscular Dystrophy it is very hard for him to do things by himself. He also comes across as very irresponsible and so repeatedly gets rejected for the independent living grant he needs. Eventually he persuades his new friend Michael to try and get a grant which because he is responsible enough he gets. Michael then employs Rory as his speech facilitator so they can both leave the home and live independently. This is another breach of one of the codes this time the fostering equality and diversity of people code. This is because the members of the council have accepted Michael’s request of independent living however how constantly refused Rory when he applies for the same grant. This however may because Rory comes from a poor working class family where as Michael’s father is very high up and very influential so this may actually be what indeed got Michael the grant.
The residents in the care home in this film have barely any freedom as many of them are immobile and mentally ill anyway. However this is not the case for everyone as some of the people enjoy for example watching children’s television however others may prefer something a little more intellectual. In other words the care home doesn’t meet everyone’s need and this need to be done for it to be enjoyed by all. This therefore is a breach of the foster people’s rights and responsibilities.
If I ran this care home I would do many things differently than Eileen. I would firstly make sure that all individual needs are catered for. For example with the television I would perhaps put one on a children’s channel and another on a more intellectual one. I would also let the mobile residents use their independence and allow them to go out as long as they are back by a reasonable hour. I would arrange activities and outings to do during the day so that the residents don’t get too bored and try to add variety to their lifestyle too. This way the residents would feel like they are more normal than if they just sat around doing nothing.
Action Plan – Task Four
For this task I am required to produce an action plan showing my self development and also if and when I have achieved my personal goals. It will include short term and long term goals, skills that I wish to have and it will also have three columns so I can review my progress.
