1

Unit HSC 31

Personal development

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Level 3 Health and Social Care Diploma

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Personal development Unit HSC 31

Understand what is required for competence in your own work role within the sector (learning outcome 1)Duties and responsibilitiesThe specifi c duties and responsibilities of your job will vary depending on your role and the employer you work for. If you work for a large employer, whether in the public, private or voluntary sectors, you will probably have had a period of induction, where you will have learned about:

• the policies and procedures of the organization • how the structures work • the people who are your managers and supervisors.

Key term

Induction – a formal briefi ng and familiarisation for someone starting at an organisation.

Working for smaller private or voluntary organisations, or working as a personal assistant directly employed by the person you are supporting, may mean that your initial induction was less formal and you learned ‘on the job’.

In each case, you will have been given an idea of the duties and responsibilities of your job and what your employer expects of you, and what you can expect in return.

However, the duties and responsibilities required by your employer are not the only requirements of working in social care. The regulator in the UK country in which you work will require that you follow the Code of Practice (see page XXX) that lays out the duties and expectations for everyone who works in the sector.

Key terms

Regulator – someone who ensures compliance with laws, regulations and established rules.

Code of Practice – a set of guidelines and regulations to be followed by members of an occupation or organisation.

Having Codes of Practice is important in social care, because in this sector you work with some of the most vulnerable people in society. They have a right to expect a certain standard of work and a certain standard of moral and ethical behaviour.

In order to be employed in social work anywhere in the UK and in social care in some parts (soon to be all) of the UK, there is a requirement to be registered. This means having, or working towards, a certain minimum level of qualifi cation and agreeing to work within the Code of Practice that sets out the required behaviour. Employers have to ensure that everyone who works for

them is registered and eligible to work in social work or social care.

Standards for doing your jobYour job may have come with a job description, but while that tells you what you need to do, it does not usually tell you how you need to do it. To fi nd that out, you need to look at the Standards that apply to your work.

Standards, as with Codes of Practice, will vary depending on the UK country in which you work. Each UK country has National Minimum Standards that are used by inspectors to ensure that services are being delivered at an acceptable level (see page XXX).

Key term

National Minimum Standards – these are used by the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) to inspect the quality of care in services.

Finally, and most importantly in terms of how you carry out your work, there are the National Occupational Standards (NOS). These apply across the whole of the UK, and explain what you need to know and be able to do in order to work eff ectively in social care. The National Occupational Standards form the basis for all the qualifi cations in the social care sector, and are divided into units of competence. Some of these are mandatory, and everyone should be able to demonstrate competence in these areas. Other units are optional and you should be able to demonstrate competence in those units relevant to your job role.

Key term

National Occupational Standards – UK standards of performance that people are expected to achieve in their work, and the knowledge and skills they need to perform effectively.

Activity 1

National Occupational Standards

Each of the units of assessment in the Level 3 Diploma is based on units of competence from the National Occupational Standards.

1. Choose any three of the units of assessment from your Diploma qualifi cation and fi nd the relevant units of competence.

2. Look at how the work you are doing for your Diploma links to the units of competence. Create a table showing these links.

3. How can you show that you have met the requirements set out in the National Occupational Standards?

CompetenceIn performing your job role, competence means that you have been able to provide evidence that you can demonstrate the skills and the underpinning knowledge contained in the National Occupational Standards. It is important to understand that competence is not only about doing the job; it is also about understanding why you do what you do and the theoretical basis that underpins the work.

Key term

Competence – demonstrating the skills and knowledge required by the National Occupational Standards.

Case study: Esme and Joanne

Joanne works as a personal assistant to Esme, who lives in Cardiff and has cerebral palsy. Esme is a regional organiser and fund-raiser for a large charity; she has a very busy and active life. She needs support workers to accompany her during all her business time in order to support her personal needs and to take notes at meetings. Esme has recruited a team of support workers and they work in shifts. Several months after Joanne started working for her, Esme noticed that items were going missing from her house. Initially this was just small things like CDs, then larger items, and money also started going missing from her purse. It always seemed to link in to when Joanne had been working. Esme confronted Joanne,

who initially denied any involvement. Eventually she broke down and admitted that she had been stealing the items because her boyfriend had a drug habit and he kept demanding more and more money.

Esme dismissed Joanne from her post and reported the matter to the police. She reported Joanne to the Care Council for Wales, where she was interviewed by a disciplinary panel and was banned from working in social care for three years.

1. Do you think that Esme took the right actions?2. What else could she have done?3. What would have been the consequences of these

other courses of action?

Getting ready for assessment

This assessment is knowledge-based. You are likely to have to prepare an assignment that shows how your job role is linked to the relevant standards, and how the

duties and responsibilities of your role are refl ected in the standards. This could be a written assignment or it could be in the form of a presentation.

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Level 3 Health and Social Care Diploma

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Personal development Unit HSC 31

Qualitative researchA qualitative approach looks at the quality rather than the quantity of something. It could be used, for example, to investigate the feelings of people who have remained on the waiting list for treatment, or people’s attitudes towards residential care, or the relationships between those in residential care and those who care for them. Generally, qualitative data is produced in words rather than fi gures and will consist of descriptions and information about people’s lives, experiences and attitudes.

Activity 3

Quantitative and qualitative research

Find two pieces of research (one quantitative and one qualitative) carried out within the past two years using any of the following sources:

• newspapers • journals • reports • television • the Internet • textbooks.

Read the results of both pieces of research and make a note of the differences in the type of information provided.

Your work practice should be updated and improved as a result of reading research articles, watching TV programmes and attending training days. It is o� en diffi cult to fi nd time to keep up to date and to change the practices you are used to. Any form of change takes time and is almost always a little uncomfortable or unusual to begin with. You will need to make a very conscious eff ort to incorporate new learning into your practice. You need to allocate time to updating your knowledge, and incorporating it into your practice. You could try the following ways to ensure that you are using the new knowledge you have gained.

Doing it well

Applying new skills and knowledge in practice

• Plan out how you will adapt your practice on a day-to-day basis, adding one new aspect each day. Do this until you have covered all the aspects of the new information you have learned.

• Discuss with your supervisor and colleagues what you have learned and how you intend to change your practice, and ask for feedback.

• Write a checklist for yourself and review it at the end of each day.

• Give yourself a set period of time, for example, one month, to alter or improve your practice, and review it at the end of that time.

New knowledge is not only about emerging theories. It is also o� en about day-to-day aspects of your practice, which are just as important and can make just as much diff erence to the quality of support you provide. It is also about taking your practice forward by developing your knowledge across a range of situations.

Refl ect

Think about an occasion when you have been able to look at an area of your own practice or knowledge that needed improvement, and the steps you took to make the changes. What did you do, and what factors made you choose a particular course of action? Consider where you looked for help and what you found to be the most and least useful actions you took. Finally, think about how you can use this experience to make future changes and improvements to your practice. Has looking back at a previous occasion made it easier to plan for the future? What does this tell you about how you work best?

Do you get the best from supervision by preparing well?

Welcoming feedbackYou will need to be prepared to receive feedback on your performance, It may be from your supervisor, your manager, your colleagues or the people you support. It is not always easy to welcome it and to use it to improve your practice, but you will need to work hard until you can do just that. While it is best for feedback to be given in a positive way, this does not mean that it will be uncritical. Many people have considerable diffi culty in accepting criticism in any form, even where it is intended to be supportive and constructive. If you are aware that you are likely to have diffi culty accepting criticism, try to prepare yourself to view feedback from

any source as valuable and useful information that can add to your ability to refl ect eff ectively on your work. This is not easy, but it is essential if you are to develop into a refl ective and eff ective practitioner.

Activity 4

Constructive criticism

1. Ask a colleague, or a friend or family member, to offer some constructive criticism on a task you have undertaken –for example, a practical activity such as cooking a meal, or work you have undertaken in the garden or in the house.

2. Work hard on accepting the criticism as constructive and helpful. Try to make a positive response.

3. How did the constructive criticism make you feel? If you found it hard to deal with, why do you think this was?

If you are able to practise receiving feedback on something that is relatively unthreatening, you are likely to be able to use the same techniques when considering feedback on your working practices.

Your response to negative feedback should not be to defend your actions or to reject the feedback. You must try to accept and value it. A useful reply would be: ‘Thank you, that’s very helpful. I can use that next time to improve.’ If you are able to do this, you are likely to be able to make the maximum use of opportunities to improve your practice.

On the other hand, if criticism of any kind undermines your confi dence and makes it diffi cult for you to value your own strengths, you should ask your supervisor to identify areas in which you did well. Use this positive feedback to help you respond more constructively to the negative feedback.

Exploring your values, interests and beliefsEveryone has diff erent values, beliefs and preferences. What you believe in, what you see as important and what you see as acceptable or desirable is an essential part of who you are.

The way in which you respond to people is linked to what you believe in, what you consider important and what interests you. You may fi nd you react positively to

Case study: Opportunities for self-directed training

Olesya works as a care worker at a big, busy day centre and meets many of the families of people who have chosen to use the centre as part of their support plan. One day she was chatting to the son of one of the older people using the centre and they ended up discussing the issue of teenage drug use and crime. Olesya was critical of the young people taking drugs until the man she was talking to mentioned that his son was an addict. He explained how it had taken a hold on his son’s life, but he was trying to get better through a local drug programme. Olesya felt embarrassed, and decided she needed to know more about the drugs issue. She got in touch with the local drug programme and spoke to the manager, explaining that she would like to learn more about the drug rehabilitation services available to young

people. She arranged to spend some time on a self-directed ‘work experience’ placement at the centre, and is now a volunteer there, helping to run the coffee bar. In her refl ective diary she writes:

‘Really tired tonight. All day at work and then two hours

at the centre. Spent half an hour with a young girl who

was crying because her dad has threatened to kick her out.

Helped her fi ll in some forms and arrange to see social

services. All this is making me more aware, and I hope a

better all-round support worker.’

1. What benefi ts do you think will come from Olesya’s self-directed training?

2. Who will benefi t from her new experience?3. How can training help to overcome prejudice?

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Level 3 Health and Social Care Diploma

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Personal development Unit HSC 31

areas for development is during training opportunities. On a course, or at a training day, aspects of your practice and areas of knowledge that are new to you will be discussed, and this will o� en open up avenues that you had not previously considered. This is one of the major benefi ts of making the most of all the training and education opportunities that are available to you.

Are you getting the most out of training days?

Using informal networksInformal support networks are likely to consist of your work colleagues. These can be major sources of support and assistance. Part of the eff ectiveness of many teams in many workplaces is their ability to provide useful ideas for improving practice, and their provision of support when things go badly.

Some staff teams provide a completely informal and ad-hoc support system, where people give advice, guidance and support as and when necessary. Other teams will organise this on a more regular basis, and

they may get together to discuss specifi c situations or problems that have arisen for members of the team. These are o� en called Action Learning Sets and provide excellent opportunities to share issues and good practice with colleagues in similar roles to you. In order to develop and improve your practice eff ectively, you need to be sure that you are making maximum use of all opportunities to gain support, advice and feedback.

Do you have any informal networks to support you?

Key term

Action Learning Set - a group of between about four and seven people, who meet regularly to support one another in their learning in order to take purposeful action on work issues.

Activity 7

Formal and informal support networks

1. Identify the formal and informal support networks in your workplace.

2. Note down the ways in which you use the different types of network and how they support your development.

3. Think about an occasion when you have used a network to improve your practice. How did you feel about being supported by colleagues? How useful was it? If you can, makes some notes so that you can use the network again in the future. If you do not have access to a network, think about starting one.

LearningWhen you have identifi ed skills and knowledge you would like to improve, the next step is to set about learning. There are many theories about how people learn, and being able to understand how you learn is o� en helpful to the process of learning. A useful theory is the Lewin/Kolb cycle of experiential learning, as shown in the following diagram.

Reflectiveobservation

Activeexperimentation

Concreteexperience

Abstractconceptualisation

Kolb’s cycle.

Basically, this cycle means the following.

• Concrete experience: something happens to you or you do something; it can be an unusual event or something you do every day.

• Refl ective observation: you think about it. • Abstract conceptualisation: you work out some

general rules about it, or you realise that it fi ts into a theory or pattern you already know about.

• Active experimentation: next time the same situation occurs, you apply your rules or theories.

This will make your experience diff erent from the fi rst time, so you will have diff erent factors to think about and diff erent things to learn – and this means the cycle continues. You never stop learning.

Imagine that you are working with a man who has a learning disability that means he does not speak. It is the fi rst time you have met him and you are off ering him a drink at lunchtime. You off er a glass of orange squash by placing it in front of him. He immediately pushes the glass away with a facial expression that you take to express disgust.

Within Kolb’s learning cycle you have had a concrete experience.

Case study: Identifying opportunities to improve practice

Palvinder is a support worker in a unit for young adults with disabilities, run by a leading charity. He was aware that his knowledge of disability legislation was not as comprehensive as it ought to be. He felt uncertain about answering some of the questions that the young people put to him.

Palvinder raised this issue with his line manager, who immediately found that training days were provided by the local authority that would help Palvinder to learn about the relevant legislation. Following his training days, Palvinder felt far more confi dent, as not only had he

learned a great deal during the course itself, but he had also been given some handouts and been informed about useful textbooks and websites.

1. How will Palvinder benefi t personally from taking this training?

2. How will the individuals Palvinder works with benefi t?

3. Are you confi dent about your knowledge of legislation relating to your own work? If not, what steps are you taking to improve it?