The health and social Care Sector are undergoing radical change. Developments in frontline Health and Social Care means there is a demand for well-trained and Multi-skilled people across a range of rewarding employment opportunities. Work shadowing different professional, over a few days can be used as part of a professional development portfolio (PDP) and to aid career development. This is because observing specific procedures, as appropriate is again useful in understanding a role. A shift handover between staff, or the sharing of information between professionals demonstrates agreed way of working effectively (Jackson and Thurgate 2011).
Choosing Luton Borough Council for my work observation also comes with certain expectation from me at workplace. The expect that I will behave professionally. This means that I dress in a situatable way for the work to be done or my dress accordance with the code of conduct of the setting. I should also be aware of the care principles of values and responsibilities to ensure confidentiality. This means that I should not discuss information about my service users to anybody and should not upload videos and pictures of the service users on social media. I should also be aware of my limitations and my boundaries of my roles. This means that any task that I will be instructed to do should not beyond my physical or psychological capacity and not involves harmful exposure to hazards. I must also be aware of safety issues for myself and others by making sure I have read and understood all the health and safety policies and that I know how to demonstrate them. Further, I should be aware how
My Career choice is social worker after graduation. Going on work observation can inform my career choice and help me prepared for employment in the health and social care sector by working with different age groups and service users. Working as social worker you work with children with special needs, adults with acute physical or mental illness or older people with dementia. Therefore, being offered work observation by Luton Borough Council to observed how different service users needs are being met can be beneficiary. The work observation will equip me with certain soft skills and commercial awareness, all of which are sought after by employers, especially at a level tremendous when it comes to making myself employable.
Having the opportunity to do work observation them helped me to develop professionalism. I was able to learn about myself, my strength and more importantly areas for development. I learnt that developing professionalism involves aspects of behaviour, dressing appropriately, effective communication, punctuality and situational awareness and judgement of what is appropriate in different contexts. More importantly, treating people equally and having a positive attitude and willingness to learn and communicate with people in a way that respects their religion, culture, and beliefs. I am very shy person and struggle to engage conversation with strangers, work observation has given me the opportunity to develop the ability to listen and asking question during a my experience with staff dealing with angry service users with changes of their services.
Secondary, reflecting on my own skills and attributes and areas for development, I learnt that having organisation skills is particularly important in health and social care sector. If I want to be a social worker, I need to have the ability to organise myself by effective time management and prioritising tasks, is essential if work is to be done and allows me top feel control, rather than being stressed and worried about dead line. For example, I should always do assessment before meeting the needs of service user. Because it is important to omit unnecessary movement in workplace by listening carefully so that I do not need to come back to ask the same question. Besides, reflecting on my own skills and attributes and areas for development, communication and interpersonal skills are among the main tools used by health and social care professionals. I learnt that most of the service user I observe during my experience have different and most of them have difficulties in conveying communication. Therefore, appropriate verbal and nonverbal communication will allow me to find out what problems an individual is experiencing and allows me to explain the option for care. Interpersonal skills will help me tune in to Person’s feelings. Whiles developing empathy will also help me to meet individuals care and support needs by being able to understand what the individual may be feeling.
Before the work observation I came to realise that, I had the desire to attend to others, but was poor at listening. Observing people at work observation place and how easy they deal with difficult customers. I have realised how easy it can be to communicate and understand others much better.
My personal goal is to improve my communication skills, confidence, time management, IT skills and writing skills. For the case of personal development, a personal development, a person frequently operates as the principal judge of improvement. Corroboration of objective improvement requires an assessment which has be carried out using a standard criterion (Johns, 2005). These frameworks comprise of benchmarks or goals that define the strategies, endpoints, or plans for achieving goals, appraisals and evaluation of progress, levels that describe milestones, and finally a feedback mechanism that provides information on developments. Poor communication is an inexorable cause of stress (Moss, 2008). One area of communication where I am worst at is listening. It is through the significant impact of personal development that I can grow and improve my relationships and careers. According to Burnand, (1997), listening and attending are by far the most vital aspects of being an effective health care professional. Most times I feel I am obliged to talked and do only a little listening. However, overtalking on the part of health professional is normally considered to be less productive (Burnand 1997)
I will develop in my listening skills so that I can be of help to other people. It is important to understand the difference between attending and listening to a person. Attending generally involves, a true direction of focus on the other person is saying and what he or she is trying to communicate. Listening, on the other hand, is the process of hearing the other person you are communicating with. it requires one an individual no to only note what the other person is saying, but also the other many, aspects of communication (Burnand 1997). Therefore, my personal development plan will enable me to show to my employer the range of transferable skills, teamwork, writing skills, problem solving, communication skills and critical thinking skills.