Social care challenges
Social care entails all aspects of individual and practical care and assistance. As much as social care is linked to medicinal situations, it is particularly focused on means of assisting people in ways that allow them to survive independently. Social care is usually dispensed in respective individuals’ homes as opposed to hospices and doctors’ treatments. However, in the practice of social care, one needs to apply evidence-based practice to solve any problem that is found in the provision of quality care. When confronted with any challenge in the field, a caregiver should formulate a question about either the causation or prognosis, or prevention of the given problem. Secondly, the evidence or information that can lead to answering the formulated hypothesis is sought through research or data collection. Afterward, the data collected is critically appraised to test its validity and usefulness. As the last step, the caregiver then integrates the critically appraised evidence with the social care expertise, the patient’s unique needs, values, and circumstances. Therefore, if any of the steps in applying evidence-based practice is bypassed, then patients’ needs face imminent caregivers’ neglect.
Background to Case Example
The case of Joanna is one example of many cases where the client’s needs have been neglected. As a matter of fact, patient neglect is attributed to many factors but among all problems, multidisciplinary teamwork remains the biggest challenge (Thorlby et al. 2018). This is because communication forms an integral part of multidisciplinary teamwork in social care practice. Effective communication is essential for sharing work duties and coordinating activities that are salient in social care. Patient neglect results from communication errors between the caregiver and the convalescent, failing to recognize and take action on uneven aspects of social care (Thorlby et al. 2018). Social care support research shows that effective communication is important in establishing the social care needs of a patient and quality care. Failure of caregivers to prioritize communication often underlies substandard care (Thorlby et al. 2018). Communication breeds understanding in addition to boosting the caregivers’ relationship with their patients which in turn help the valetudinarian in developing good beliefs about the caregivers and the social care in its entirety (Van Servellen, 2020). Indeed, communication as overriding as it is in social care, works alongside other aspects of multidisciplinary teamwork, to guarantee patient satisfaction.
Language Barrier
The language barrier between Joanna and her caregivers can be analyzed in the context of the resultant relationship that the problem yielded. Without a doubt, Joanna’s inability to communicate in English shaped how the caregivers viewed her and their overall attitude toward her. Consequently, there was a conflict between the caregivers and Joanna, and this explains why at times they would argue with her. Nevertheless, the social care workers could have applied rationing care to balance their attitude toward Joanna and support her physical and social wellbeing. In this case, their attitude overrode their social care practice values and Joanna was categorized as a ‘bad’ patient who was pretentious. Therefore, the poor treatment and neglect that Joanna faced were deemed to be commensurate with her behavior. This is well elucidated by the fact that dispositions such as compassion towards valetudinarians are voluntary and rely on the communication response that a caregiver receives from a patient (Arnold and Boggs, 2020). As evident, the missing link between effective social care services and stakeholders would be the provision of interpreter services for individuals who do not communicate in specific languages in social care practice.
Reference List
Arnold, E. and Boggs, K. (2020) Interpersonal relationships e-book: professional communication skills for nurses. 8th edn. St. Louis, Missouri: Elsevier.
Thorlby, R. et al. (2018) What’s the problem with social care, and why do we need to do better? 3rd edn. London: King’s Fund.
Van Servellen, G. (2020) Communication skills for the health care professional: concepts, practice, and evidence. 3rd edn. Burlington: Jones & Bartlett Publishers.