4.2 Talking about gender Think about the health or social care service you know best, as either a worker, carer or service user. Think of times in the recent past when gender 3.10 Working with difference If ‘racial’ or ethnic differences are produced as part of a process that ‘racialises’ certain groups as ‘other’, how should services respond to the issue of difference? What practical steps can service providers take to ensure all members of the population, whatever their assumed ethnicity, have equal access to services and can participate fully? Lena Robinson is a psychologist and social work educator who has written extensively on issues of cross-cultural communication for Acknowledgements The content acknowledged below is Proprietary (see terms and conditions) and is used under licence (not subject to Creative Commons licence). Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission: Figure 1 (top right, middle left and bottom left): www.britainview.com; (top left): John Birdsall Photography; (bottom right): BBC, BBC London Live and BBC London Live Chatroom word marks and logos are trade ma Introduction The unit you are about to study is exciting and stimulating. Working with adults in the community is changing at a pace that can sometimes feel bewildering. Practitioners are being asked to review what they are doing in a critical way and to adopt new approaches. For example, the word ‘community’ is one that we all use quite readily and is at the heart of many social work policies. However, we tend to take it for granted that everyone means the same thing when they talk about a com 2.2.2 Treatment regimes As well as asylums which housed people with mental illness and learning difficulties there was a turn towards a style of mass provision generally. Development of special schools for disabled children began in 1750 when the first private schools for blind and deaf children were opened in Britain. The earliest public institution, run on a charitable basis, the London Asylum for the ‘support and education of the deaf and dumb children of the poor’, was opened in Bermondsey, south Londo 3: The five giants At this point let us examine the idea of the ‘five giants’ (Want, Ignorance, Disease, Squalor and Idleness). Beveridge, remember, was not just writing about income protection; he had a vision of social reconstruction and social progress. The five giants represented the key areas of need for all of us – the areas where we should pool resources to tackle our needs collectively (see the box below). 1.4.13 Defining a ‘good death’ 1.2.7 Margaret Margaret was in her thirties when she learnt she had breast cancer. Some three years later, after the removal of the affected breast, she was leading a very busy life working full-time at the Open University, studying part-time for an OU degree and running a family. Fitness activities such as jogging and various sports had become very important in her life. She was also very involved in cancer research fundraising activities. She described the impact of her brush with death in this way: Learning outcomes After studying this unit you should be able to: outline how encouraging people to talk about the past can be a way of helping them to manage change in their lives and establish identity in the present; demonstrate an understanding of the basic principles in life story work which could apply at any age or stage of life; appreciate that life story work is as much about dealing with the present and preparing for the future as it is sorting out feelings 3.1.1 Update: A move towards patient-centred care? David Lee of Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, commenting on recent changes towards patient-centred care, said ‘The modernisation agenda stemming from the National Health Service Plan (Department of Health, 2000) is requiring major shifts in organisational and cultural thinking. The patient is increasingly being placed first and at the centre of every aspect of health care. In essence, health care and indeed ward routines are now expected to be driven by the needs of patients and users of Introduction This unit considers the type of care offered in hospitals, using Leeds General Hospital as a case study. The unit looks at the people who have roles within the hospital, how they interact with each other and patients and what they consider to be 'care'. The different approaches and contributions to care by doctors and nurses are explored and patients give their perspective on the care they receive. This material is from our archive and is an adapted extract from Understanding Health 1.8.2 ‘Props’ to support a performance Heller leaves no doubt about the horror and panic produced by a situation where action was urgently called for, yet there was no framework within which to construct action. He found himself desperately casting around for things to do, falling back on his trusty stethoscope as a way to ‘play doctor’, but finding it inadequate for the circumstances. He was clearly relieved when the drip equipment arrived, giving him a structured role. And even in this desperate situation he was concerned to 1.5.4 The patient’s role The patient is entirely passive in this scene. Does that mean that she has no role and is unimportant to the scene? Does her silence 1.5.1 Agreeing who to be So far I have focused on one-to-one interactions. Yet ‘defining a scene’ is often a group effort. Goffman says this involves teamwork, with all participants, in effect, agreeing to act and speak within an overall frame of reference. He suggests that it works like a theatrical play in which everyone has taken on a part within the scene. To play your part means setting aside all those aspects of yourself which are not relevant to your role. The scene works only because everyone plays their 1.2 Defining the scene Let us first consider what kind of ‘scene’ the home help was proposing that she and Reg should play out together. When the home help asked, ‘What do you want me t 1.3.7 Models of adjustment Here we have talked about changes of place as having a particular impact on an individual's sense of well-being or self-esteem. Relocation and separation from familiar places just like separation from loved ones can be experienced as a form of loss which can have devastating effects for some people. Some authors have seen changes in self-esteem as the key to understanding how people cope with change. For example, Hopson and Adams (1976) suggest that any transition, whatever triggers it, sets 1.3.4 Change on a daily basis: Day unit care The importance of maintaining continuity of people and places is important in both cases. Many people attend day care services and find that the change is a stimulating experience, widening their daily contacts and allowing them to become part of another group. The issues of continuity of experience raised here will be familiar to day care workers. Click below to hear an audio clip describing Redwood Day Unit. 1.3.1 The impact of surroundings Thinking about attachment to places leads us to think about just the opposite: how do people feel when they have to change places and move from one situation to another? Some people are always on the move while others seem to stay put for long periods of their lives. For children and adults receiving care services moving between places may be a common occurrence. These moves may be:
daily, part of a shared pattern of care where a person Acknowledgements The content acknowledged below is Proprietary (see terms and conditions) and is used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence.
Text: 'Dream parents': courtesy of Anastasia Lee- 1.5.4 Networks The way Katrina's story is presented leaves out others who may be involved with the family. This is because the story was part of a campaign by Community Care magazine to highlight the plight of young carers. It made sense to emphasise Katrina's role and omit information which might detract from the impact of a single-issue campaign. The discovery of young carers is an interesting example of what happens when the official spotlight is turned on a particular group in society. Ther
Activity 13
Illustrations
Author(s):
Activity 8: The passive actor
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources:













