Monday 14 February 2011

Code of practice 5: As a social service worker you must uphold public trust and confidence in social services

So, in particular we must not:

  • Abuse, neglect or harm service users, carers or colleagues;
  • Exploit service users, carers or colleagues in any way;
  • Abuse the trust of service users and carers or the access you have to personal information about them, or to their property, home or workplace;
  • Form inappropriate personal relationships with services users;
  • Discriminate unlawfully or unjustifiably against service users, carers or colleagues;
  • Condone any unlawful or unjustifiable discrimination by service users, carers or colleagues;
  • Put yourself or other people at unnecessary risk; or,

  • Behave in a way, in work or outside work, which would call into question your suitability to work in social services.
This headline appeared in a recent Health Service Journal:

"Hundreds of care home deaths caused by dehydration"
The article went on to reveal that new statistics show that more than 650 elderly residents in care homes have died of dehydration in the past five years.

Do you think that those working in home were aware of code of practice 5? And what do you think that the care workers could have done to ensure that their service users were not neglected or harmed ?

Tuesday 25 January 2011

So we're like penguins are we?

A few weeks ago communitycare.co.uk reported that outspoken Birmingham councillor Len Clark, executive member for children's social care, allegedly described children's social workers in the city as having a "penguin mentality".

Cllr Len Clark's comments use a 'penguin mentality' analogy that made us reflect on the film 'March of the Penguins' narrated by Morgan Freeman.

This film shows penguins as having a strong protective ethic towards their vulnerable and as having clear, tried and tested behaviour patterns to meet the challenges of their environment - they form a huddle and turn their backs when they are vulnerable in their environment:

The Care Council for Wales Code of Practice underpins the aim to provide quality, safe care services that show dignity and respect.

If the penguin analogy is to be used by Cllr Clarke maybe what should be asked is:

1) Are social workers feeling vulnerable in their roles?
2) If they are, how can we help and support their roles?

Saturday 1 January 2011

Code of Practice 4: As a social care worker, you must respect the rights of service users whilst seeking to ensure that their behaviour does not harm themselves of other people

Happy New Year readers! It's 2011 at last and we're still examining the code of practice and what it might mean to us - as social care workers or the people who recieve social care.  Code 4 includes:
    1. recognising that service users have the right to take risks and helping them identify and manage potential and actual risks to themselves and others;
    2. following risk assessment policies and procedures to assess whether the behaviour of service users presents a risk of harm to themselves or others;
    3. talking necessary steps to minimise the risks of service users from doing actual or potential harm to themselves or other people; and,
    4. ensuring that relevant colleagues and agencies are informed about the outcomes and implications of risk assessments.

CASE STUDY
    Angela is 18 years old and has a mental health problem. She is also on strong pain relief medication for her arthritis. She is not supposed to drink alcohol whilst taking this medication.

    Whilst attending a live gig Angela asks her support worker to purchase a beer for her. The support worker refuses and Angela is angry as she regards this as her choice. Later, the support worker and Angela use the Code of Practice for Social Care Workers, and in particular point 4:
     "As a social care worker, you must respect the rights of service users whilst seeking to ensure that their behaviour does not harm themselves or other people", to discuss their different perspectives.

    Do you agree with the way this situation was handled? Have you experience of a similar situation, what did you do?