Code of Practice 3: As a social care worker, you must promote the independence of service users while protecting them as far as possible from danger or harm.

So, here are the details of what that means and a case study that shows how it can work in practice:

1. promoting the independence of service users and assisting  them to understand and exercise their rights;
2. using established processes and procedures to challenge and report dangerous, abusive, discriminatory or exploitative behaviour and practice;
3. following practice and procedure designed to keep you and other people safe from violent and abusive behaviour at work;
4. brining to the attention of your employer or the appropriate authority resource or operational difficulties that might get in the way of delivery of safe care;
5. informing your employer or an appropriate authority where the practice of colleagues may be unsafe or adversely affecting standards of care;
6. complying with employers health and safety policies including those relating to substance abuse;
7. helping service users and carers to make complaints, taking complaints seriously and responding to them or passing them to the appropriate person; and,
8. recognising and using responsibly the power that comes from your work with service users and carers

CASE STUDY

Ann is a home care assistant working with older people with dementia. Ann noticed that one of her clients, Mr Hughes, may not be eating properly; he is leaving his meals and drinks half finished.

Ann is concerned that her current work rota means she is not able to give Mr Hughes sufficient time and encouragement at meal times, even though this support is included in the Care Plan.

Ann reports these concerns to her line manager and they agree changes to Ann’s schedule which will allow her to spend sufficient time with Mr Hughes, in particular over the lunch time period.

Also, arrangements are made to monitor the situation in case Mr Hughes’ needs are changing. In discussing concerns with her manager, Ann  was able to draw on point 3.4 of the Code of Practice for Social Care Workers: “bringing to the attention of your employer or the appropriate

authority resource or operational difficulties that might get in the way of the safe delivery of care”.

In responding to Ann’s concerns, her employer draws on point 2.3 of the Code of Practice for Employers of Social Care Workers, “having systems in place to enable social care workers to report inadequate resources or operational  difficulties which might impede the delivery of safe care and working with them and relevant authorities to address those issues”.

Would the code help you in a similar way?

Dare2Care Wales – who are we and how can we help you?

We’ve been asking our Facebook fans, blog readers and Twitter followers to tell us about their experience of care and social work, so we thought it was about time we told you about us!

We want to give Welsh care workers a chance to use websites like Facebook and Twitter to learn more about the industry and share experiences.

Our Dare2CareWales project is a joint initiative across the four Regional Social Care Partnerships in Wales and aims to promote the Care Council for Wales Code of Practice for Care Workers & Employers and get feedback on how the code reflects their day-to-day work. The project also aims to hear about the experiences of carers and those who receive care.

Penny Copner, Social Care Partnership Co-ordinator at Monmouthshire County Council, is one of the team who talks to care workers on Facebook and Twitter.

She said:

“We really want to hear real life issues that affect those who work in and receive care.

“The Care Council for Wales identified an opportunity to use social media to engage with the social care workforce and help with their need to understand their responsibilities.

“Our team is working together, using social media to give us an opportunity to talk to people in places they already visit.  People will be able to contact us conveniently and we’ve tried to make information informal and relevant. 

“We are really looking forward to hearing the views and experiences of those dedicated people who work so hard to care for people in Wales and from the people who they work with.

“We hope anyone with an interest in care will comment on our blog so we can give the Care Council for Wales some real life stories and data that they can use to inform their work.  Also, by sharing experiences we hope that we can all learn from each other and be able to offer each other advice.

"We believe care should be safe, it should show dignity and respect and quality care should be given."

The project is a joint initiative between the four Regional Social Care Partnerships in Wales and has been funded by the Care Council for Wales and is managed and moderated by the Partnership Co-ordinators (Jane Guest (Mid Wales), Annie O’Reilly (SW Wales), Penny Copner (SE Wales), Clare Hughes (NW) and Helen Reynolds the Communications Officer at Monmouthshire County Council.

Please don't be shy - tell us what you think or ask us a question!

TWITTER http://www.twitter.com/dare2carewales

FACEBOOK http://on.fb.me/aZpWoS

Code of Practice 2 : As a social care worker, you must strive to establish and maintain the trust and confidence of service users and carers.

The second code means:

1. being honest and trustworthy;
2. communicating in an appropriate, open, accurate and straight forward way;
3. respecting confidential information and clearly explaining agency policies and confidentiality to service users and carers;
4. being reliable and dependable;
5. honouring work commitments, agreements and arrangements and when it is not possible to do so, explaining why to service users and carers;
6. declaring issues that might create conflicts of interest and making sure that they do not influence your judgement or practice; and,
7. adhering to policies and procedures about accepting gifts and money from service users and carers

　

Here's a case study that illustrates how important these principles can be in practice:

　

Mr Phillips is 24 and attends a work opportunities scheme for people with a learning disability. The work helps Mr Phillips to learn new skills and to use them to do his job.

He works as part of a team and has made new friends, he enjoys the camaraderie of the work environment and during the days he works the team rely on him to perform specific tasks.

His main carer is his mother and on the days he's at his work placement his mum makes arrangements to engage in activities she can't usually commit to because of her caring responsibilities.

On three occasions in the last month, Mr Phillips’ support worker has failed to arrive on time to take him to his work placement at a local supermarket. This meant that. Mr Phillips was disappointed and he felt he had left his colleagues down.  Also his mother had to cancel the arrangements that she had made.

　

Do you think that the carer may have breached some of these codes?

In your experience, do things like this happen often? If you had been Mr Phillip’s social care worker and you knew that you were going to be late picking him for his work placement – how would you deal with the situation?