This UK College Safeguarding health social care assignment answers the various aspects of given case study, with this scholar is able to understand the criteria of HND marks and all.
TASK 1 Article Review
Q1 Explain why particular individuals and groups may be vulnerable to abuse or harm to self and others.
A particular individual and a group may be vulnerable to abuse or harm to self and others because these people are dependent or need help of others to complete their daily routine tasks. These are the people who are under a continuous vigilance of care-workers as they may hurt themselves or others. A set of individuals is vulnerable to abuse because they are not able enough to safeguard themselves from the actions of the care-workers. They are being abused by people who understand this fact and try to take advantage from these people.
There are different categories of persons and groups who are vulnerable to abuse. It is mainly divided into 4 different categories. The first category is of “vulnerable individuals”, which consists of elderly people or the small kids who suffer from any kind of mental or physical disability (Baldock et al, 2011). This category also consists of people who are homeless, addicted to drugs etc. The second group consists of “vulnerable groups”, which consists of people from specific religion like Jews or the group of people who are brought to some place with force like jail. In jail the individuals (prisoners) are vulnerable to abuse by the jailors or the other officials of the jail. There are a number of researches going on people suffering from mental disorders and hence all the patients are vulnerable to abuse, if their privacy is not maintained in a proper way. It is the duty of the research team to ensure that the confidentiality and privacy of the patients will be maintained properly. Explore solution of Unit 14 Employability skills and professional Development Assignment
Abuse, harm or danger are the terms which are interrelated to each other. Abuse is defined as an inappropriate action which is repeated by a trustworthy person again and again. Due to such action, the victim faces a lot of psychological strain tension (Curtis, 2012). The impact of the abuse depends on the kind and intensity of the abuse. In some cases the level of abuse is so high that the victim is forced to harm himself or others in order to overcome the tension caused by it. Self-harm or self-injury is the easiest ways for them to overcome the problem as it helps them to get relief from the internal agony and anxiety. Self-harm can be in any form like the extreme step of suicide which causes an immediate effect on the body or like excessive smoking or drinking which causes harm to an individual in the long run. Both the kinds of the abuse are dangerous for the patient, but it is the only way through which they can express the pain or stress which they are facing of faced.
Response to the abuse including harm to self should be very calmly and patiently dealt with. Usually there is always a need of emotional support to these kind of people. It is very important to be in touch with these people and to make sure that they are busy in some creative work so that they do not get time to think to harm themselves. A regular contact also gives them emotional support and confidence that there is someone to protect and safeguard them. It is very important to handle these patients with love, affection and care (Green et al, 2011).
In the scenario given, it can be seen that the patient is an aged person who is suffering from the neurodegenerative disease. Being an old patient with such a disease, she needed a lot of care and support from the care-worker. Hence, there is always a need of person who can take care of her. It is very important that the care workers should be reliable enough on whom the responsibility of the patient can be left upon. Hence as per the discussion above, the person in the scenario falls under the category of “vulnerable individual” as she is an elderly individual who needed supporting living all the time.
Q2 Using the article above review the risk factors associated with the incidence of abuse and /harm to self and others.
There are different kinds of risk factors associated which cause the cases of abuse and harm. There are certain factors on which the risk factors are dependent. For example, the risk factors will vary for aged people and for children. From the case scenario above, the risk factor associated with the abuse and harm to self and others will be one which will be related to the aged people. The aged people are incapable of doing their duties and tasks on their own and hence due to this reason they need someone who can take care of them and assist them to doing their daily activities. The main reason of abuse in these cases are due to the fact that the care taker is not patient enough to handle these patients (Johansson et al, 2002). The care takers used to get irritated with the number of demands of the aged people which ultimately lead to abuse. In the scenario given too, the care worker is sure that the aged will not be able to identify the reason of money getting disappeared from her pocket. The act of the care worker completely disturbed the patient and hence she will not be able to trust anyone else as the care worker. Similarly for children there are number of risk factors like stress in the parent’s relationship, joint families with large number of people, violent nature of the parents or the personality of child itself.
The various risk factors associated with the incidence of abuse and harm to self and others can be categorized as below:
From the above table it is clear that there are different groups of risk factors and hence these various risk factors causes different abuses and harms. The risk factors are mainly categorized under Social and Cultural factors. The social factors are like poverty and unemployment. Those who are poor and do not have money are ill-treated by others. The next factor is health. As mentioned earlier the patients or the old aged people those who are not able to take care of their own are vulnerable to abuse (Leathard, 2013). The next factor is social isolation. It leads to abuse because individuals who are socially isolated do not have the required emotional factor. The other social reason for abuse can be housing. If the aged people in the family are dependent on other younger members for money, they can be abused as and when ask for some money.
The cultural factors are like ethnicity. This includes the usage of products like drugs or alcohol, which causes harm to the body but due to the culture and status, individuals consume these products and harm their body. The next cultural factor is discrimination which can be based on any factor like sex, colour or race. The other cultural factor is religion. The religion in which the number of individuals is less are more vulnerable to the abuse.
The different risk factors causes different kinds of abuses. The most common abuse is physical abuse and the other abuses are like intellectual abuse and sexual abuse (Levin, 2004). The next is isolation. When an individual, is completely left all alone, he is more vulnerable to the abuse. Different types of abuses are associated with the different to types of harms and self-injuries.
The above figure clearly indicates that how different categories of the risk factors are associated with the different kind of abuses. For example the risk factor housing which falls under the category of social abuse causes physical abuse within the family. For example a son can beat his father on asking money. The other factor poverty leads to self-injury and usually suicide. Similarly the cultural factor discrimination causes the emotional abuse for the individuals.
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TASK 2 Case Scenario
Q3 Explain how you will minimize abuse by referencing existing working practices and strategies health care professionals’ employ. Evaluate the effectiveness of these working policies and practices suggested.
In order to safeguard the service users at health and care centre, there are various policies and practices which are being designed by the legislation. These policies play a significant role in the safeguarding users at health care centre. For example in the case number 2, in above given cases, the child faces the issue of bullying. To prevent children from such kind of issues, an “Anti-bullying Ordinance” is passed. According to this ordinance, anyone who will be found bullying will face the punishment under this act (Munro & Hubbard, 2011). This ordinance was very useful to prevent children from various physical and sexual harassment. The ordinance even instructs parents to be careful and ensure that their child is not involved in any kind of bullying act. According to this law, if any kid of kindergarten would be found guilty, then the parents need to face the punishment. The strength of this law is that all the discriminated and minority kids got something to safeguard themselves from bullying act, but the weakness is that the act is done by kids and hence instead of punishment they should be given warning and a second chance in order to improve.
The other such law was for the case scenario 3 i.e. the youth worker case. This is clearly a case of sexual harassment. To handle such kind of situations, these is a “Sexual Offences Act 2003”. The law is applicable for everyone who is working at various places and hence anyone can make use of this aspect of contract law for their safety at workplace(Pike et al, 2011). The strength of this law is that it can be applied to anyone who is found guilty even if the victim is not in a situation to explain the incident. The negative of this law is that there is no demarcation line for the level of intimacy during the cure. This is risky for the mental patients as they do not have capacity to understand the right level of closeness.
Similarly there are many other laws and policies given by legislation to prevent the service users. One of such law is Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act (SVGA) 2006, the law protects the vulnerable people from those who are not entitled to work at care centres. With the help of this law, no wrong person can get a chance to work with the patients. The drawback of this law is that the people working at homes cannot be inspected. Another law which prevents abuse in mental patients is section 127 of Mental Health Law 1983.
In order to ensure a successful implementation of these laws and policies, there are various roles and responsibilities of the professionals involved. The roles vary depending on the level of the worker but the most important factor is that at all the levels mutual agreement should be there. The various levels are as following:
Operational Level: Workers at this level recognize, inspect and solve all the queries regarding the cases of abuse.
Supervisory level: The workers at this level guide the operational level workers and keep a continuous check on them so that all the guidelines are followed properly (Reeves et al, 2011).
Senior Management: The employees at this level designs and formulates the policies and rules.
Chief Officers/Executives: These people look at the roles and responsibilities at national level and hence contribute at national level.
All the rules and policies formulated by the legislation will be helpful only if they are implemented properly at the care centres. It is the responsibility of the workers to ensure that all the policies are known to the employees as well as the service users so that at the time of need they can approach to the management and explain the abuse which happened with them. All the employees and patients must work in coordination and cooperation to avoid any kind of abuse within the premise.
Explore all solutions of Health and Social Care CourseQ4 As a health care professional, you have been invited to a staff Meeting, on tracking abuse. Using the two case scenarios selected, discuss you recommendation for improvement you will suggest with other members of staff to minimize abuse.
There are a number of existing strategies which are being practiced in order to control the abuse at every level in the organization. As per the case scenarios chosen, in the second case of bullying, to prevent it, the main strategy is to encourage imparting knowledge regarding this in the schools and colleges. The kids and students spend most of their time in school and colleges and hence, the teaching at schools and colleges will be of great help to reduce the abuse (bullying). Also, the other strategy is to teach children about stress management and situation handling so that even if by chance some bullying takes place, the child is aware about the ways to handle such situation (Reece, 2010). The same should be followed for the college students too. They should be told more about the ill-effects of drugs and smoking. The students must be under vigilance after school and college timings as that is the time, when maximum crimes happens as the students are free to do whatever they want in that time. Education and knowledge play a significant role in the reducing the cases of abuse. Even in the case scenario provided, if the students are well aware about the problem of autism, they will not abuse someone who will have such problem. The other strategy is to talk to the people who are the most vulnerable targets like the child in the case, who is suffering from Autism and hence cannot communicate properly. There must be some provisions so that the abuse of these people can be minimized. For the case of youth worker the strategy to handle can be with the help of community centres where the youth can stay and be safe. One of the other strategies which is very helpful in controlling and minimizing abuse is by increasing the bonding amongst the family members. The support from the family members is one of the most important and powerful support (Pike et al, 2011).
All the strategies which are being followed and regularly practiced are performing well at various levels. Any policy or rules would be helpful only if they are being implemented and executed properly. All the existing strategies are good and capable enough to reduce the abuse only if everyone understands its importance and follows them rigorously. The strategy under which imparting knowledge to the students is done is an excellent strategy to avoid any kind of abuse in the schools and colleges. The students and kids are the most susceptible group for any kind of abuse and hence it is a very good strategy to tap them for giving knowledge regarding abuse and harm. Similarly the strategy to safeguarding people at high risk is a good one as it prevents them from being abused by others. The strategy of strengthening bonding among family members is excellent as it helps the patients to gain confidence and hence safeguard them from any kind of abuse (Munro & Hubbard, 2011).
In spite of the fact that the current strategies and policies are doing well, there are always options for improvements. For example, for the bullying case or the child abuse scenario, the training to the parents could also be helpful in reducing the abuse. The parents must be given knowledge so that they can counsel their child and understand specific needs them in a better way. The next recommendation is that there should be some public alertness programs so that the general public is also aware about the consequences of the abuse which are done by them or others. If public is aware about the consequences, they can play a significant role in reducing the abuse and its effect.
References
Baldock, J., Mitton, L., Manning, N., & Vickerstaff, S. (Eds.). (2011). Social policy. Oxford University Press Curtis, L. (2012). Unit costs of health and social care 2012. Personal Social Services Research Unit Green, J. M., Wood, A. J., Kerfoot, M. J., Trainor, G., Roberts, C., Rothwell, J., & Harrington, R. (2011). Group therapy for adolescents with repeated self-harm: randomized controlled trial with economic evaluation. BMJ, 342. Johansson, P., Oleni, M., & Fridlund, B. (2002). Patient satisfaction with nursing care in the context of health care: a literature study. Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences, 16(4), 337-344 Leathard, A. (Ed.). (2013). Interprofessional collaboration: from policy to practice in health and social care. Routledge