3.12 Services for inter-ethnic communications Another way in which services have attempted to respond to issues of inter-ethnic communication is the provision of services for people whose first language is not English. You may remember this appeared to be the key ‘problem’ in the case study which launched the discussion of ‘difference’ in Section 1. As noted there, poor communication in health services can have serious consequences, leading to misdiagnosis, ineffective interventions and, in extreme circumstances, preventable deat
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
2.7.3 Identities have different and changing meanings Aspects of identity may have different meanings at different times in people's lives, and the meanings that they attribute to aspects of their identity (for example, ethnicity) may be different from the meaning it has for others (for example, being black may be a source of pride for you, but the basis of someone else's negative stereotyping).
2.7.2 Identities are dynamic The identities people assume, and the relative importance they attach to them, change over time because of both personal change in their lives and change in the external world (for example, as a result of changing ideas about disability). Consequently, identity should not be seen as something ‘fixed’ within people.
2.5 ‘Difference’ and identity If differences on the basis of gender, ethnicity and disability are socially constructed, how should people view their identities, for example as men, or disabled people, or people of African–Caribbean origin? Where do such identities come from, and how useful are they in explaining people's experience of communication in care services? 2.1 A communication ‘problem’? This course starts by exploring at a general level the relationship between ideas of ‘difference’ and issues of interpersonal communication. In the first activity, you will consider a brief case study that offers a way into discussing these issues, which can at times seem quite complex and entangled. The case study is taken from research into the health and social care needs of black communities in the Brighton, Hove and Lewes area in the south of England (Yazdani and Anju, 1994, quoted i 1. Introducing diversity and difference This course focuses on issues of difference and diversity in a specific sense. Rather than analysing diversity in terms of kinds of communication and relationships, the focus here shifts to diversity in terms the people involved in interactions in care settings. Again, it is simple common sense to state that ‘good’ communication in health and social care services involves acknowledging and responding to the diverse needs and backgrounds of everyone involved, whether service References 8 Establishing boundaries Imagine now that you are Marie's manager and you decide to call in at the unit on your way back from a 7 Unofficial work cultures The whole issue of bodily care and bodily functions tends to be driven underground and then emerges in jokes or crudeness. Picture this scene, a few months after Marie has started, when she has become more settled within the care team. It was quite late on a Saturday night and a group of the younger staff 6 Developing agreed ways of working Although it may be undesirable to cut across the informality of care relationships by making unnecessary rules or regulations, intimate care is clearly one site where things can go wrong. There is a narrow margin of error. The usual social rules and inhibitions have already been broken and it is not always easy to arrive at new ones which are appropriate to the particular context within which you are caring or being cared for. Moreover, receiving or giving care arouses strong feelings which p Learning outcomes After studying this course, you should be able to: demonstrate an understanding of the difficult decisions that need to be taken to improve the quality of interpersonal relationships in health and social care contexts appreciate key moral dilemmas in the provision, delivery and management of health and social care services identify ways in which boundaries can be respected in situations where intimate care is being given. Acknowledgements The content acknowledged below is Proprietary (see terms and conditions) and is used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence. Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this course: Cou References 1.4.3 Beveridge’s insurance model and immigration What has this to do with Beveridge? His insurance model assumed that a man would start to contribute at the beginning of his working life and emphasised that he had paid for and was entitled to the benefits he and his family later received. This required a stable population and failed to anticipate the need to recruit men and women of all ages from outside Great Britain. Although they came initially on their own, it was hardly surprising that newcomers would want to bring families and other d 1.4.2 Racism You may want to question whether the term ‘sexism’ is a useful one to help understand the Beveridge vision, but you can probably agree that there is an idea about the family and about the ‘natural’ responsibility of women to do caring work that kept caring off the public agenda. But this still leaves the theme of ‘racism’ and the idea of the ‘nation’. You caught a glimpse of the importance of this a little earlier in Beveridge's confident remark about women having duties to en Acknowledgements Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce materia 3: Testing the limits Choosing Jim and Marianne as the central case study in the course was a deliberate strategy to enable you to consider conflicts at the very heart of health and social care: the rights of the individual versus the rights of the community the nature of community for people who have no settled abode dilemmas about apportioning limited resources. Following their story is a way of testing the limits of hea 1.4.13 Defining a ‘good death’ Click to view 'The Good Death?'. Read ‘The good 1.4.12 Bad deaths What about the other end of the spectrum? What constitutes a bad death? Is there less contention about what constitutes a bad death? Extreme pain and discomfort, humiliating dependence and being a burden are obvious, but what about being alone? Many people say they fear dying alone but there are others who would prefer it. Sudden, unexpected deaths are clearly bad for those left behind but are they also bad for those who die in such circumstances? Sudden unexpected deaths used to be considere
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Activity 6 Managing the hidden culture
Activity 8
