multitude of things. I will be exploring several things within my role as part of the youth offending team such as; the qualities of being an effective leader, the importance of both active participation and positive risk taking and, the importance of collaboration with others. Finally, I will explain why social services matters. I hope to give an insight into my duty as a leader within the youth offending team and will be referring to an old service user, Amy whom I worked with for just over a year. As it stands, I have monthly meetings with Amy to ensure she is keeping out of trouble and attending school. I will use Amy’s case as an example In order to answer the questions I have been set in Essay style.
With social care comes challenges for both service users and social care workers. A major challenge faced by care workers and organisations over the country is the financial constraints. As expected, money is of a limited source and therefore makes it difficult to fund things such as extra activities such as a day trip for the elderly. This causes problems for not only the elderly as they will be demented staying in 24/7, but also for carers who must deal with the repercussions of the strain on money and limited resources. Another major challenge is the expectations that continue to grow. Care workers are already pushed to their limit but the rising need for care means the demand for care workers and the services they provide are also increased. Ultimately, this puts pressure on care workers, pushing them to not only deliver more services, but also in new ways. (Gov.scot, 2018)
To ensure the best outcome for all service users, including Amy I must be an effective leader. In doing so, communication is key. This is pivotal in any leadership scenario, especially working with young people at risk. I must both effectively and successfully communicate with Amy, who is priority by listening to her and allowing her to address her concerns and explain herself clearly. Once I’ve listened to Amy, I must explain that there are things I must share with both her Mum and her head teacher, making sure she understands that not all she is telling me is completely confidential and ensuring she is okay with this. This is another task which will require exceptional communication skills and help deliver a plan which will benefit all parties involved (especially Amy long-term). Another quality that will allow me to successfully lead Amy out of trouble and back on track is commitment. Obviously, being 13, Amy is just learning to trust and to lead her in the correct direction, which would be to trust me, I must show her full commitment. This doesn’t just include showing up. This includes simple things like eye contact when she speaks, empathy and complete understanding. Constant commitment in all aspects will ensure Amy knows I am truly trying my best to work and engage with her. I will be sure Amy knows that I am not just committed to her, but her future. A point I will continue to make is that if she reoffends, the next worker she is paired with will not be so understanding and so, she must not take my understanding for granted. I will do this as firmly and as fairly as possible. The third and final personal quality I will explore is integrity. To be an effective leader, I must be a suitable role model. When Amy is concerned, I like to remind her that her actions now don’t have to determine her future, but if she does not stop, they will. I ensure I am a qualifying role model by honouring the rights of my service users and by keeping my morals high and my feedback to service users like Amy honest.
An important part of active participation is its ability to demonstrate flexibility and positive risk taking. Active participation is defined by Edexcel (2010), the body that sets the specifications for the Levels 2 and 3 Health and Social Care Diplomas, as recognising an individual’s right to participate in the activities and relationships of everyday life as independently as possible; the individual is an active partner in their own care or support rather than a passive recipient. (Freedomtoteach.collins.co.uk, 2018) With Amy, this would include letting her decide her own relationships and giving her control of her daily activities whilst also keeping in mind her age and her tendency to follow the crowd. For example, although there are members of Amy’s friendship groups who are a cause of concern, I would discuss this with Amy and if by the end of our discussion, Amy was adamant she wanted to stay friends with them, I would need to remind Amy of what she could become if she takes the same path as these individuals. There are two members of this group who are closer to Amy’s age and are not a risk to her and so, I would fully encourage Amy to stay friends with these two which would demonstrate both flexibility of active participation and the flexibility and freedom Amy is still in power of. This would also tie in with its ability to demonstrate positive risk taking as although these friends are not ideal, Amy feels comfortable around them and so, it would be in Amy’s best interest to keep in contact with the more suitable members of the group as consistency is key for any teenager especially a troubled team rebelling. It is all part of promoting positivity, even in risk taking. This approach contributes to demonstrating flexibility and positive risk taking, all whilst empowering the service user regardless of things like in Amy’s case, her age. Furthermore, when discussing Amy’s shoplifting, she referred to the local corner shop as the ‘paki shop’ obviously, this is by no means acceptable and so, I actively challenged Amy and had her call the store to not only apologise for her shop lifting, but her racial slurs.
Discrimination is defined as one person or a group of people mistreating another. Prejudice and stereotyping is closely linked to this and can also relate to my case study as, as a youth offender, Amy is often disregarded by her school as I quote ‘they do not know what to do with her’ this is a clear form of discrimination against Amy and has led to her just not turning up for class the past four months. There is no definite way to challenge discrimination or promoting meaningful values however, as Amy’s care worker, I decided to challenge this by arranging a meeting with Amy, her Mum, the head teacher and of course, myself present. It was important to reiterate the fact that we all want what’s best for Amy, despite her faults. I went over Amy’s achievements from the year before and reminded her teacher of what a bright and capable girl Amy is when she is pushed in the right direction. Challenging the minor but still hurtful discrimination against Amy proved not difficult at all as when everyone was sat down, and level headed I was able to remind everyone that the priority is and will remain, Amy. Prior to meeting, I sat with Amy and had her write 5 words that she thinks of when she thinks of school. The only rule I gave her was to keep them positive. These words were all personal values which I took to the final meeting which was a real eye opener to her teacher, who apologised for ‘disregarding’ Amy as such. When I see Amy being challenged indirectly or directly, it is my duty to challenge anyone doing so and effectively remind them of quality and fairness. The meeting with Amy, her mum and the school was particularly was effective and reminded everyone, including Amy of who she used to and still can be. (GOV.UK, 2018)
Promoting effective methods, strategies and plans is essential in social care as when correctly done, it will benefit service users. For example, it was important that Amy was kept ‘in the loop’. I was able to keep her updated by ensuring she had access to jargon free information when she needed it. This was a method I used to both empower Amy as a service user and promote choice and control, promotion of this was also enhanced by my sheer patience with Amy. Despite her many tantrums, I never made her decisions for her and always made sure she knew that I would not assume nor force her decisions. This helped build trust between Amy and I whilst showing Amy she was both included and in control. ultimately, this made Amy more confident to effectively communicate her needs which inadvertently promoted person centred care. A method I used to promote health and wellbeing was simply, including Amy in social activities. I was able to encourage her to join the badminton club in light of her return to school which will obviously majorly benefit her health and wellbeing, both mentally and physically. (Freedomtoteach.collins.co.uk, 2018)
With being a leader comes great responsibility, an effective leader has the power to inspire fellow colleagues and lead innovative practice. This can be simplified to innovative leadership. By being a role model and taking accountability for my actions as a leader, I encourage others to do so. An innovative leader will always think outside the box and come up with new ideas, sharing them with colleagues and promoting this style of thought. By sharing my unique ideas, I am promoting innovative practice and allowing room for other out of the box ideas which will help improve the lives of kids like Amy. Within an innovative practice, technology plays an extremely important part. I often use technology to not just inspire my colleagues, but to collaborate and share knowledge. When I promote collaboration, it inspires innovation and I have found that social networking sites allow more for the collaboration as it brings people together. I praise creativity at any given opportunity as, as a leader, my colleagues often seek my approval. Whilst I don’t take being a leader too seriously, I take great pride in the messages I can send to those I work with which is why I often praise creativity. Praising creativity in my colleagues enhances their creative abilities which ensures they too lead an innovative practice.
In order to effectively support service users, collaborative working is key. In the prescribes curriculum for the new social work degree, learning to work collaboratively is a clear expectation. (Ukessays.com, 2018) An example of collaborative working is the work I done with service user Amy’s mum and head teacher. As responsible adults for Amy, we all shared a common goal, ensuring Amy started attending school, accepted her wrong doing and got back in track before the start of the new school year. Collaborative working is an extremely effective way to ensure desired results as it not only brings the team together, it brings the person focused to the team without their presence as a requirement. This is a lot simpler than it seems. Because Amy’s Mum, her head teacher and me all know Amy on different levels, we were all able to bring something to the table about Amy that everyone did not know which was beneficial when deciding how to move forward as a team, including Amy. I collaborated with Amy alone, with Amy’s mother alone and with them both as a team. By doing so, I was able to effectively support both Amy and her mum whilst developing organizational culture. So it goes without saying that collaborative working was an effective method of working when Amy was concerned. However, the work I done without Amy was challenging as I did not have her by my side to correct any errors I made when describing her feelings to both her mum and head teacher, I could not get Amy to work with us all at once which proved difficult as I was effectively a middle man and had to be sure everything I was passing on was as accurate as possible. Although we worked as a team to ensure the best outcome for Amy, there were teams within the team which must have been confusing for Amy which did not work in my favour when explaining the situation to her. I did explain to Amy before I started my work with her that in order to go forward she must fully understand that it is not just her and I and that because of her crimes, I was under obligation to feedback to both her mum and teacher. Amy understood this and agreed so long as her and I met alone after every meeting I had with her Mum which her mum had gave the okay to. A massive benefit of collaborative working was the insight I got into Amy’s life from people who played different roles in her life. I think everyone, including Amy was able to look at the bigger picture. collaborative working, supporting others and developing organizational culture are all closely linked. To simplify it, the collaborative work I done with the service users led to the ongoing support of the person centred (Amy) which ultimately led to a development of organizational culture. I will look more closely at organizational culture in the hope that I can give an insight on it. In definition- Organizational culture is a term that describes the culture of many different kinds of groups. For example, a family unit, a company, a social group, a community or even a society. In this case, collaborative working helped develop some kind of family unit, or at the very least, bring a family that had drifted so far apart back together which was a way for Amy and her mother to find stability and guidance from each other. The development of this organizational culture helped Amy realise that no two families are the same which allowed her to develop a new found, appreciative personality and as a result of the collaborative work, ongoing support and this new-found stability, Amy was able to distinguish herself from others and slowly but surely found herself in the meantime. Obviously, this was a huge benefit and a major improvement for all involved parties.