Professional Portfolio in Health and Social Care

This reflective portfolio provides an overview of a student's professional portfolio related to the health and social care job. It includes reflections on leadership, group project, CV, and self-assessment of strengths against graduate attributes.

Running head: PORTFOLIO
Portfolio
Name of student:
Name of university:
Author note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Reflection on leadership..................................................................................................................3
Reflection on group project.............................................................................................................5
CV....................................................................................................................................................9
Reflection on strengths against NTU graduate attributes and learning outcomes.........................13
References......................................................................................................................................17

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Introduction
Health and social care is a professional field where practitioners are involved in
providing range of support to clients and their families to ensure that all holistic care needs of
client is met. The core responsibility of a health and social care practitioner is to professionally
interact and work with diverse client group to provide optimal health and social care support.
They play a role in fulfilling holistic care needs of client by managing, physica, psychosocial and
rehabilitation needs of client. They may work with client directly or in specific care organization.
The support provided is based on skill related to communication, assessment, planning and
evaluation of a care programe. This report provides an overview about my own professional
portfolio related to the health and social care job. I have worked in semi-independent units,
nursing homes and residential homes to provide support to clients with challenging behavior,
mental illness, learning disability and many other issues. Certain knowledge, skills and attributes
are necessary for job in this field and this reflective portfolio gives an overview about my initial
views on leadership and leadership style and provides. The portfolio also provides an insight into
my development of key skills, knowledge and attributes through reflection on a group project,
details about the CV and self-assessment of my strengths against graduate attributes and my
ability to meet certain learning outcomes for the module.

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Reflection on leadership
As a student of health and social care discipline, I acknowledge the importance of
leadership in this domain. I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on my personal ideas
and viewpoint about leadership. In this reflection I would like to highlight the values, views,
aspirations for my future career, and the role I would like to undertake in this domain.
Leadership is a practical skill that encompasses the ability to lead and guide others
towards a particular goal (White, Currie and Lockett 2014). A leader is a person that is
responsible for initiating actions that others are to follow for getting a work done. Further, a
leader is to play an incentive role in the tasks delegated to the team. In believe that the prime role
of a leader is to motivate group members to act in a manner aligned with the team’s motives and
objectives. I have been aspired time and again by the concept of leadership, and feel that
leadership is crucially important in the contemporary era to achieve success in health and social
care domain. The cornerstone of leadership is self-awareness. This implies that as a leader one
must be working to understand the personal weaknesses and strengths (Moss 2017). In addition,
one must be ready to model the ways in which own values are congruent to the behaviors
(Glasby 2017). In my viewpoint, a leader’s job is not limited to supervising and management.
Such a role entails guiding role that implies instructing the subordinates the way they are
required to act for working efficiently and effectively. Creating confidence among the members
is a crucial factor that can be achieved by understanding their concerns. Health and social care is
a field where success can be achieved, as a professional, by working in collaboration with others
(Martin et al. 2015). I therefore opine that leadership can be the only tool for enabling maximal
input from individuals.

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In future, I am keen on taking up the role of a leader in the health and social care sector.
This could be in any particular discipline. As a leader, I aspire to focus on building morale of
subordinates and followers, and building work environment in the setting in which I would work.
The willing cooperation of the followers towards the work is crucial for managing the work
(Smith et al. 2018). As a leader I would like to act as a morale booster through achievement of
full-corporation. The idea would be to motivate them to work and perform to the best of their
abilities. Coordination would be achieved by reconciliation of personal interests with the goals of
the organization.
The predominant leadership skills that I would like to focus on include fearless agility,
empathy, selflessness, flexibility and humility. Leaders who can think effectively, decide in a
swift manner, and inspire others are able to meet the demands of the working profession. My
future leadership role would revolve around by capacity to build intelligence within myself to
address issues and concerns of others. Compassion and empathy in leadership would be the
cornerstone for bringing individuals together in a team who have mutual trust and respect.

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Reflection on group project
Implementation of an effective leadership in teamwork is crucial in health and social
care. In this paper a reflection is put forward on personal experience regarding group project. It
would describe the role taken, the process and dynamics linked with theory about team work.
The reflection would be done with the help of Gibb’s reflection cycle. The Gibb’s reflective
cycle is a popular reflection model that is divided into six stages; description, feelings,
evaluation, analysis, conclusion and action plan. The reflection would include relevant team
work and leadership theories as applied for critically analyzing the way the group worked, how
effective it was and what could have been done better.
Description
I undertook a group activity to carry out primary research to understand the needs of
health and social care of older patients aged 70 years and above. A group was formed with 6 of
my peers and as a team we were to engage conducting interviews with participants to gain
qualitative data and analyze them accordingly. Based on my understanding I had identified that a
group work or team work is a collective effort of more than one individual who have a common
interest. Group dynamics is the team of people acting in an interdependent manner as they
exhibit good communication skills, different set of knowledge and interaction ability with others
regardless of the shared responsibilities (Weiss 2018). Reflecting on this concept I feel my group
work was a task-focused group work as every member had to delegate separate set of tasks. My
role in the group was that of a leader who was responsible for leading others and guiding them
on how to carry out the research. As a leader, one needs to be focusing on the outcomes of the
group activity, through effective communication and exhibition of intelligence (Becker 2014).

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Feelings
At the initial level, I was confident to be a part of the small group and take up leadership
role as I thought it would give me the opportunity to communicate without major challenges.
Nevertheless, I felt anxious and nervous about exhibiting leadership skills and working in a
group as I thought the approaches of different team members would be different with respect to
the task to be done. Further, I was frightened as to my perception the group was a task purposed
group only. According to Thomson et al. (2015) communication is elementary to human
interactions. Individuals are not able to relate to other without communication while working in a
team. I tried to gather courage to take the initiative and delegate tasks to my team members.
Throughout the task, we were engaged in assessing the task as a group after setting out ground
rules, and standards through interaction and communication (Chan et al., 2017). I was able to
communicate in an interactive manner and conveyed my ideas to the members. According to
Redmon (2017) conflict management is crucial in group dynamics. Each team member is to
convey the ideas and have initiative to resolve personal disagreement. Throughout the task there
were minimal disagreements. However, we decided to meet after our classes to discuss any
challenges emerging so that they could be addressed positively.
Evaluation
We started to work in a connected manner with positive motivation. Team performance
was evaluated in terms of the extent to which members contributed ideas and discussed about
any possible changes that could be made for meeting the goals of the group work. As the leader
of the group I tried to established harmony among the members and build up rapport with them. I
wanted to get the job done in a proper manner and thus my focus was on maintaining a positive

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relationship with all members. However, I was not satisfied with the group formation as though
the members were task focused the members were not satisfied with the specific roles they had to
adhere to. At one point of time the group dynamics began to lose the structure and the members
struggled to function properly.
According to the theory of Belbin, team role depends on behavior, interaction with others
and contributions of each member. Teams that have balance of different personality types are
found to be performing better than those where there is less variation in inputs (Meslec and
Curşeu 2015). Every member in a team is unique and possesses behaviors that are highly
different from each other. When a team functions optimally, the members are known to have
clear responsibilities (Valentine, Nembhard and Edmondson 2015).
Analysis
Following the concept put forward by Belbin (Kadushin and Harkness 2014) in relation
to individual role in a team, the role that best described me in the team was ‘implementer’. This
is because I was primarily given the charge of getting the tasks done in a systematic manner.
Further, I enacted the role of a ‘completer-finisher’ as I had been apprehensive about deadlines
and had the hope of completing the work within the set deadline. I was to reflect on the ideas
emerging from each team member and come up with suitable approaches accordingly. From the
persona point of view, it would be justified to state that the group acted in a close form but there
was a high scope for positive changes in my leadership skills.
Conclusion
In conclusion it is to the said in this account that all members have equal importance in a
team. Though the role of a leader entails greater accountability and responsibility, a team cannot

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function without effective group dynamics. It is important that each individual is delegated a task
that would be the prime focus. Nevertheless, leadership acts as the tool to ensure effective and
successful group task. For this notion our group lacked formality of order. Secondly, though
communication was proper there was some disorganization in the group and initial standards
were not met at every step. The communication was primarily a task-focused one and was not
based on interrelations.
Action plan
Drawing in lessons from the undertaken group activity, I would bring in certain positive
changes in my skills to better act in the role of a team leader. For encouraging collaboration and
participation in a group, I would empower the group to contribute maximal input (Glasby 2017).
I would further communicate with members by providing feedbacks at different stages of the
group work.

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CV
NAME: Christine Jones
ADDRESS: 33 Morton way
Key skills and expertise:
 Strong communication and interpersonal skills
 Ability to engage in effective team work and collaboration with inter-disciplinary team in
health and social care
 Strong understanding about communication and leadership attributes needed for health
and social care job
 Effective critical thinking and critical reflection skills to retrieve and process information
and take good decision
 Good knowledge about professional attitude, ethical behaviour and privacy and
confidentiality requirements in the job
 Clear theoretical understanding about team dynamics and interest in professional
development.
 Ability to take on high level of personal responsibility and autonomy to promote safety of
client
 Good technical skills to process and manage client information
Professionals summary:
 I am a confident and highly motivated lady with consistence desire for success and
achievement. I am generally hardworking flexible good listener and l am able to

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communicate efficiently in all levels and can maintain records appropriate. I have the
ability to work through my own initiative, with minimum supervision and able use my
own initiative and can cope with challenging tasks able to prioritise tasks, and working
under pressure. I also enjoy working as a team is the key to achieve goals so l will put
maximum effort to work as a team.
 I am able to work any shift and complete task I assigned to me at the required time and I
am a good time keeper. Having worked in different organisations I have gained more
skills and ability to deliver my services professionally.
 I have an outgoing personality and flexible but highly professional and motivating
character. I have the ability to motive others and achieve results. I am flexible and eager
to learn new skills and l am motivated by opportunities and new ideas
 I am adaptable to the situation and manage client issues in a professional manner
 I have achieved good appreciation in my past job for good conduct, overall team
performance, client satisfaction and overall job performance
EDUCATION AND QUALIFICATION
Academic qualification:
 Health and Social Care Degree From 2015 to date
 Access to Higher Education Diploma (Nursing and Health Professionals 2014
 NVQ level two in Health and Social Care 2004
IT skills:
 Computer Skills : Information Technology Diploma Word processing
 Advanced knowledge of internet and email, word processing, spread sheets etc

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EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
March 2001 to date
Worked in semi-independent units, residential homes, nursing homes.
1. Worked with various client groups, challenging behaviour, a mental health, learning
disability, live in carer, supported living, nursing homes.
Key job responsibilities
 I worked with various clients as a support worker up to date undertaking duties in order
to provide a home safe environment to the clients. Help ensure that rooms and common
spaces are properly cleaned and maintained. To carry out any other tasks that may be
assigned to you by senior staff. To ensure that high standards of care are offered all the
time, meals or time of sleeping for clients
 And to participate in the daily activities of the clients, which will enhance their quality of
life and to report any significant changes in the health or circumstances of the clients to
the manager on duty. I treat the people l support with dignity and respect and also aware
of the confidentiality required in a care environment and good care practices. I worked as
a volunteer distributing clothes ,food, supporting them to apply for jobs and to give them
as much support as we can to build their lives back.

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JOB EXPERIENCE
Men cap Royal Society 2016 to date
Baker Ross Health care 2015 to 2016
Eden care at Home health care 2014 - 2015
Prime time 2012 - 2014
Freemantle Trust lady Elizabeth care home 2011-2012
He rewards Care Home2007-2011
Lady Astor Care Home 2004-2007
Committed Care residential home 2001-2004
HOBBIES
I enjoy attending community events to gain knowledge of other professional and voluntary
organisations to help vulnerable people. I watch television especially programmes that improve
my knowledge of health care and news developments around the world. I am also interested in
reading books about successful and inspiring people and leadership and learning how I can be
successful too that one day l will be a leader.
REFERENCE
References available on request

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Reflection on strengths against NTU graduate attributes and learning outcomes
I have worked as a health and social care worker in semi-independent units, residential
homes and nursing homes since 2001 and I completed my Health and Social Care Degree in
2015. Through my dissertation and course work, work experience and volunteering and group
work and work experience, I have acquired few NTU graduate attributes and met many learning
outcomes required for effective work in health and social care. In this portfolio, I will provide a
self-assessment of my knowledge, skills and attitudes with examples from my group work and
work experience on the job.
Self-assessment against key graduate attributes:
Health and social care is a demanding job which requires the person on the job to possess key
attributes like leadership skills, problem solving and adaptability skills, communication and
presentation skills and many other graduate attributes. With my work experience so far, I can say
that I have a strong communication skill and professional attitude and team work skills. I
recognized my strong communication skill while participating in group work task.
Reflection on Good communication and team work skills:
Situation: In the module for leadership, the assessment of our professional skills was based on a
group based task.
Task: In a group consisting of 7 members, we were given the task of interviewing older client
above 70 years of age. The main purpose of the interview was to identify health needs of the
client and find out level of support needed by them to maintain a high quality of life. I played the
role of leader in the group and I had to support other members to conduct interview as
professionally as possible.

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Action: As a leader of the group, I had to first delegate and explain the purpose of interview to all
team members. The initial process of team building was difficult as I got a group where team
members had different level of expertise. Some were experienced and confident about the task,
whereas some were newly placed who lacked the interview skills. To keep everyone on the same
page, I focused on sharing goals with team and gave clear protocol for interview to all. For
example, in the initial session, I gave directive on methods to build rapport with client, maintain
confidentiality and privacy during interview, methods to ask question and approach to effectively
respond to client’s answer. Hence, I took shared leadership approach so that all members
approached me regarding any issues and we could immediately solve the problem during the
group work task.
Result: My shared leadership approach and communication skills helped to complete the group
work task smoothly. I received appreciation regarding my communication and team work skills
from my tutor. By means of initial mentoring and briefing session, I succeeded increasing
engagement of the team members in the group work activity. As I gave other members of the
group the opportunity to share their perceptive regarding the task, new members did not hesitate
to approach me regarding any issue. In this way, regular communication was maintained and the
team member’s also felt aligned with the purpose and objective of the group activity.
Reflection: The initial process of team bonding and aligning the team to work purpose was
difficult for me as I got group members with different levels of expertise. However, I managed to
overcome this issue by good communication and team work skills. I ensured that power and
difference in experience did not affected the overall performance of the team.

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Self-assessment against learning outcomes for the module:
As part of my health and social care work, I was expected to demonstrate certain knowledge,
skills and attributes to effectively perform the job of a health and social care worker. In the area
of knowledge and understanding for the job, I can that through my coursework and work
experience, I have developed strong knowledge regarding effective team work and
communication skills. Through my knowledge regarding theories on leadership in health and
social care sector, I could successful complete the group based task. In addition, by working with
various clients in health and case sector, I have developed the attribute of critical thinking and
professionalism.
Reflection on learning outcomes:
Situation: During one of job placement, I worked in a residential care unit and I was given the
duty to look after an elderly client who required support with daily life activities.
Task: The client has sustained many injuries in the past because of fall in the residential care
unit. I was given the task to maintain a safe environment for client. I had to be vigilant all the
time and take care of her dressing and feeding needs. During one instance of care, the patient
was very restless and she denied taking her medications. She was constantly looking around the
room for something.
Action: During this situation, I used my critical thinking and communication skills to effectively
handle the client. I had learnt through dissertation work and course work that many tough
situation may arise during health and social care work, however professionalism and patience is
important to take the right the decision for client. As the client denied taking her medication,
instead of forcing her or getting irritated, I decided to give some time to her and asked with

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compassion whether anything was disturbing her. My calm nature and emphatic way of
communication influenced her and she could finally confide that she had kept her dairy near her
bed, however inability to remember where she had kept it has made her restless. I professionally
told the client that I will surely help you out, but taking medication on time is also important for
her. She agreed and we could finally find her diary after probing her regarding activities she did
within the past one hour.
Result: The final outcome was that I was able to fulfill my duty as assigned and I also felt very
satisfied because the client was happy now and she seemed to be comfortable with me. Gradual
improvement in her health was seen due to my care and support regarding daily life activities.
Reflection: Through my experience in health and social care work, I realized that the theories
that I had learned during my coursework helped me immensely in professionally dealing with
challenging situation. The above situation is one such example. Through my critical thinking and
communication skills, I have been able to take wise decision for the health and well-being of
clients.

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References
Becker, L., 2014. Working with groups. Social Work/Maatskaplike Werk, 43(2).
Chan, L.K., Ganotice, F., Wong, F.K.Y., Lau, C.S., Bridges, S.M., Chan, C.H.Y., Chan, N.,
Chan, P.W.L., Chen, H.Y., Chen, J.Y. and Chu, J.K.P., 2017. Implementation of an
interprofessional team-based learning program involving seven undergraduate health and social
care programs from two universities, and students’ evaluation of their readiness for
interprofessional learning. BMC medical education, 17(1), p.221.
Glasby, J., 2017. Understanding health and social care. Policy Press.
Kadushin, A. and Harkness, D., 2014. Supervision in social work. Columbia University Press.
Martin, G., Beech, N., MacIntosh, R. and Bushfield, S., 2015. Potential challenges facing
distributed leadership in health care: evidence from the UK National Health Service. Sociology
of health & illness, 37(1), pp.14-29.
Meslec, N. and Curşeu, P.L., 2015. Are balanced groups better? Belbin roles in collaborative
learning groups. Learning and Individual Differences, 39, pp.81-88.
Moss, B., 2017. Communication skills in health and social care. Sage.
Redmond, B., 2017. Reflection in action: Developing reflective practice in health and social
services. Routledge.
Smith, T., Fowler-Davis, S., Nancarrow, S., Ariss, S.M.B. and Enderby, P., 2018. Leadership in
interprofessional health and social care teams: a literature review. Leadership in Health Services.

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Thomson, K., Outram, S., Gilligan, C. and Levett-Jones, T., 2015. Interprofessional experiences
of recent healthcare graduates: A social psychology perspective on the barriers to effective
communication, teamwork, and patient-centred care. Journal of interprofessional care, 29(6),
pp.634-640.
Valentine, M.A., Nembhard, I.M. and Edmondson, A.C., 2015. Measuring teamwork in health
care settings: a review of survey instruments. Medical care, 53(4), pp.e16-e30.
Weiss, D., Weiss, D., Tilin, F.J. and Morgan, M.J., 2018. The Interprofessional Health Care
Team. Jones & Bartlett Learning.
White, L., Currie, G. and Lockett, A., 2014. The enactment of plural leadership in a health and
social care network: The influence of institutional context. The Leadership Quarterly, 25(4),
pp.730-745.