Supporting Significant Life Events

This article discusses the impact of significant life events on health and social care workers, palliative and community responses, organisational policies and procedures, social networks, and external sources. It also highlights the importance of providing emotional support to the family members of terminally ill patients and establishing policies and procedures for providing diverse types of interventions.

Supporting Significant Life Events
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AC1.1 Impact of the significant life event: Main goal of medical and nursing services is to
avoid death of an ill patient. Death has impact on patients, family members and friends. Few
of the studies established that death and bereavement impact health care providers; however,
it would not produce significant impact on the healthcare providers. However, dying person
like Mrs Garry would experience whether it would be good or bad death. In case of Gary, it
was evident that she was experiencing bad death. Prior to death she was experiencing lot of
pain and sufferings. Moreover, she was not getting emotional support because her son was
away from her. Her son joined her at the end of her life. Her son, George was most
vulnerable due to her death. He was emotionally disturbed and confused. He was not able to
decide whether he need to take care of his mother or he need to look after his family
(Gallagher and Krawczyk, 2013).
He was stressful and frightened because he was not having prior experience of dying person.
However, he should accept death of his mother and should carry out all the activities
necessary after her death. Death of Garry would produce significant long-term impact on
George. It would produce depression in him. It would not affect his personal life but also
affects his professional life (Burge et al., 2014). He went to hospital to take car e of his
mother by taking leave from his job. It would impact on his financial condition because he is
the only earning person in their family. George would get separated from his mother after her
death and it would be the most significant personal loss for him. Traumatic experience of the
Garry’s death on George would be persistent grieving process and disruptive yearning. Other
people who worked with George would also feel empty in their life because during her
working days she had good association with people around her (Kentish-Barnes et al., 2016).
AC1.2 Palliative and community responses: Professionals working in the palliative care
would use their personal and professional experience during the bereavement of Garry.
Palliative care professionals experienced meaning of death and bereavement more
purposefully. Palliative care professionals need to give more attention to the care of Garry
and they also should give moral support to George. However, it was evident that these people
were not bothering about the condition of the Garry and George because they were too busy
with other work. This act of care providers was not according to ethics; however, these
people understood that Garry was going to die and they were helpless. In reality, palliative
care people need to invest more amount of time in supporting family members of Garry.
Moreover, they also should work towards building community capability, capacity and
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recommendations for taking care of both Garry and George and supporting them (Moon,
2013).
Palliative care people need to provide care to Garry and George according their needs and
requirements. It can be either exaggerated or less. Provision of palliative care without
considering needs and requirements of bereavement people like Garry, would be neither
effective nor affordable (Thomas, 2014). Palliative care people need to perform assessment of
Garry by implementing multiple approaches and they need to discuss with multiple
professionals. They need to use both subjective opinion of care providers and validated
screening tools for risk assessments in Garry. It would be helpful in understanding accurate
health condition of Garry. Hence, they could plan her care accordingly. Community people
like her friends and relatives need to extend helping hands for Garry because in the initial
period of her admission to the hospital her son was not there to take care of her. Help from
the community people is necessary because palliative care providers also need assistant and
support from the people who knows Garry. Palliative care persons and community people
need to work together to provide moral and emotional support to George. It would be helpful
for George to get rid of his grief and to fulfil her last wishes (Abel and Kellehear, 2018).
AC1.3 Impact on health and social care workers: Healthcare and nursing professionals need
to be emotionally strong to provide care to terminally ill patient like Garry. Moreover, they
should give moral and emotional support for Garry and George. It is difficult to provide care
to terminally ill people because these people might not respond to treatment and these people
might not be willing to take treatment. Hence, healthcare providers need to be more skilful to
provide care to these people. It would be beneficial to give training to healthcare
professionals, those working for terminally ill patients. It is evident that training to healthcare
professionals in medical and social aspects of care proved more successful in providing care
to people like Garry. If healthcare professionals provide care to patients like Garry only for
medical conditions; it would be difficult to control mental and psychological deterioration of
patient (Davis et al., 2015).
Development of psychological and mental illness in patients not only exaggerate
deterioration of health condition of patient but also potentiate grief in family members like
George. Healthcare professionals need to recognise and accept bereavement condition of
Garry and should take responsibility to inform George about her exact current health
condition. It would be helpful in establishing open communication among George and
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healthcare professionals. Hence, George would freely discus with healthcare professionals
about his mother’s condition and he would be ready to accept it and be prepared for her loss.
Healthcare and social workers need to consider social and cultural aspects of Garry to
establish relationship with Garry and George. It would be helpful in understanding sensitivity
of patient and family members and to provide emotional support to them (Price et al., 2013).
Healthcare professionals can only help terminally ill patients in coping of their grief because
health of such patients get deteriorated in such a way that it is difficult to reverse it. Hence,
genuineness, professional competence and consideration for the patient are necessary for
healthcare professionals. Since, different types of professionals are involved in the care of
terminally ill patients’, coordination and cooperation among all these professionals are of
prime importance (Simpson, 2012).
AC2.1 Organisational policies and procedures :
Organisational policies and procedures should be well established for giving support to
terminally ill patients. From the given case study, it is evident that, there is no established
policies and procedures for taking care of Garry. If there would have been effective policies
and procedures, in this organisation, suffering to Garry and George would have been
minimized. Mutual support approach is one of the well-established methods for providing
care to bereavement like Garry. This method would have been more successful in case of
Garry because in this method support to the bereavement people usually provided by
laypeople in the community. This type of support is necessary in case of Garry because in the
initial period of her hospitalisation there was nobody to take of her. However, according to
organisation policies, most of the organisations are reluctant to implement this model for
providing care to people like Garry (Friedrichs et al., 2014).
Organisations need to implement policies and procedures to provide diverse types of
interventions. Established procedures for different types of interventions would be helpful in
providing more effective care to patient and family members. Medication, psychological and
social intervention would have been more effective to Garry and George. With medication,
her deteriorating condition would have extended for certain more duration. Psychological
intervention to both Garry and George would have helped them to get psychological stability
and minimize the chances of depression and anxiety in case of George (Hudson et al., 2018).
Social intervention would have been more effective for both Garry and George. Social
network would have helped Garry to arrange social workers to spend with her when she was
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alone in the initial period of her hospital admission. Social network would have proved more
beneficial for George because he need company of somebody who have experience of
bereavement people. Social network helped George after the death of Gary also. With the
help of social network, George could fulfil the wish of Garry. Organisational policies and
procedures need to be established in such as way that there should be enough people and
resources for carrying out care of bereavement. Established procedures need to be
implemented for data collection and feedback which would be helpful in effective evaluation
(Cooper and Gosnell, 2014).
AC2.2 Social network : Members in the social network include partners, family members,
friends and colleagues. People in the social network provide care to the bereavement people
in different ways like informational, instrumental and emotional. Informational support
means to provide guidance and advice to the people for improved well-being, instrumental
support means to provide tangible support for goods and services and emotional support
means provision of warmth and empathy. People in the social network need to provide care
based on their grief experiences, patient’s emotional experience and communication patterns.
Moreover, different people in the social network need to divide their roles and responsibilities
for provision of care. Usually, bereavement people lose their connection with other people
due to their health deterioration. Social network is helpful in establishing relationship of
bereavement person with the other people (Breen et al., 2017; Jacobson et al., 2017).
Social network is helpful in providing culturally specific care to the bereavement people.
Social network proved helpful in improving behavioural characteristics like helpless,
vulnerability, and frustration. These people also improve engagement of bereavement people
in their own care. They promote cheerfulness in bereavement person by diminishing feeling
of bereaved. Research indicates that, bereavement people have individualised experience of
grief. This individualised grief can be effectively minimized through people in the social
network. There is possibility that, multiple people with bereavement condition might be there
in the social network. These people could be helpful in minimizing emotional suffering of the
bereavement. People with similar health condition are able to understand physical and
psychological health condition of bereavement people in more effective manner. Hence, they
are capable of resolving their problems. Establishment of communication is important for
providing emotional and psychological stability for bereavement people. Bereavement person
can establish effective communication with other bereavement person which would be
helpful in providing emotional and psychological stability to the person. Person with the
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similar conditions can present himself/herself as an example for another bereavement person.
It would be helpful in minimizing pain and suffering of the patient (Li and Chen, 2016).
AC2.3 External sources : External resources like policies and guidelines by national and
international agencies would be helpful in implementing care for bereavement people.
Different agencies like national health service, Alzheimer's Society and Royal College of
Psychiatrists proved helpful in providing care to bereavement people. Specific theories and
models are available for the management of bereavement people. Application of these
theories would be helpful in reducing errors and improving outcomes in the management of
bereavement people. Theories and models for Grieving process include Kübler-Ross,
Worden, Stroebe & Schute, Klass, Silverman, & Nickman theory. All these theories are based
on the different criterions of grief process. Hence, these theories would be helpful in
providing individualised support to bereavement people (Wimpenny and Costello, 2013).
Multiple organisations are available for supporting bereavement people. Moreover, these
organisations are providing care to the specialised case like parent, window and children. In
this case, it would be difficult to select organisation because there are no specific
organisations are available to support the people like George. George is an adult who lost his
parents. It is necessary to augment community’s capacity for providing effective care for
bereavement. Improvement in the community capacity would be useful for Garry because
George was not able to look after in the terminal phase of illness during her hospital
admission. Public health approach would also have proved beneficial for Garry because it
would have supported her in daily activities. Social support would have helped George during
his uncertain situation. George was unable to decide whether he should take care of his
mother or his family. Also, he was not confident to take care of mother because he never
experienced terminally ill patient prior to this. Moreover, healthcare providers in the hospital
were not communicating properly with him. It is evident that social support, would establish
both verbal and non-verbal communication between recipient and healthcare service provider
to reduce uncertainty (Strada, 2013; Walter and McCoyd, 2015).
AC3.1 Organisational response:
Head of the organisation need to extend full support for Garry. Head should establish all the
policies and procedures in the organisation for providing effective support and care to Garry.
Role of head of the organisation is very important to support patient like Garry because head
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is usually responsible for all the decision making in the organisation. He needs to establish
effective communication and relationship with Garry. It would be helpful in reducing
psychological distress in Garry and George. It was evident that, healthcare providers in the
hospital were not extending full support to George. Intervention and monitoring by the
organisational management would have improved co-operation from the healthcare providers
to George. Knowledge and skills are the important aspects to support Garry. Hence,
organisation need to provide education and training to all the relevant employees (Levick et
al., 2017).
George would have communicated in more effective manner to the healthcare providers; if
organisation would have provided training to these employees. Necessary education and
training for providing support and care to the bereavement people comprises of medical,
psychological and social training. Organisation need to establish open communication with
the patient and family members of the terminally ill patients. In this case also, hospital
authorities informed George that his mother has very less time. Hence, he could spend more
time with his mother in her last stage (Snaman et al., 2017).
If hospital authorities would not have informed him about her health condition, he would
have experienced sudden death of her mother. It would have given more grief and it would
have been more stressful for him to manage shock of his mother’ death. Organisation need to
implement specific guidelines, policies and procedures for providing care to bereavement. It
is evident that hospitals providing general services to the bereavement people without
specific policies and procedures proved as blanket approach. Health condition of the
terminally ill patient like Garry would be usually very complex. Moreover, requirements of
patient and family members would be diverse comprising of medical, psychological and
social. Hence, Garry and George would have received more effective support, if
multidisciplinary team would have employed in her care (Lynes et al., 2016).
AC3.2 Reflection as social worker
As a social worker, it was my first responsibility to identify needs and requirements of the
Garry and George. It would be helpful in providing necessary support and care to both Garry
and George. I realised that, important requirement for Garry was to have good death and for
George to gain enough strength to tackle loss of his mother. I would have arranged people
from the health community to take care of Garry; since, she was alone when she was
admitted to the hospital. I would have coordinated with all the healthcare staff to provide
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effective support and care to her (Mowll, 2017). I would have arranged care for her at her
home also because due to age and her illness condition, it would have been difficult for her to
shift to the hospital. Emotional support was essential for George because he was in state of
confusion to choose between his mother and his family members. With the proper rationale, I
would have made him to be with his mother prior to her admission to the hospital. Loss and
suffering always go hand in hand and suffering is a very personal aspect in every individual’s
life. I would have provided George with counselling to minimize his sufferings. George was
not able to understand exact health status of Garry. I would have facilitated effective
communication between nurses and George to provide accurate information related health of
his mother to George. Loss and grief can impact significantly personal losses (Boerner et al.,
2017). Hence, his mother’s loss would have negatively impacted his daily routine and his job.
I would have assisted him and helped him to improve his moral to lessen the impact of his
mother’s loss on his job. George took leave from his job to be with his mother in her last
stage. It would have disturbed his financial condition. I would have arranged financial
support for him to make up this loss. I would have assisted George to acknowledge the truth
of his mother’s loss, to work with sufferings and emotional distress, to live meaningfully and
to continue to embark new life. I would have helped to improve decision making process of
George because he was not able to make proper decisions because he didn’t have previous
experience of terminally ill patient. I would have established proper social network for
George to seek support prior to and after death of Garry. I would have fulfilled values and
expectations of Gary and George. I would have identified gaps in the provision of care to
Garry and put efforts to reduce these gaps (Kramer, 2013).
AC3.3 Recommendations
Guidelines, effective policies and procedures for bereavement need to be established at the
national and international level. It should be mandatory for all the hospitals and healthcare
centres to follow guidelines and implement policies and procedures in the respective
organisations. Government need to set assessment measures to evaluate effectiveness of
procedures for support and care of bereavement. Assessment of procedures would be helpful
in alteration and modifications in the procedures for its improvement. There should be
effective coordination among different departments of hospital like medical, administrative
and accounts for effective implementation of bereavement care procedures. Roles and
responsibilities of all the people involved in the care of bereavement should be properly
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demarcated because form the case of Garry, it was evident that George was not getting
required information (Ghesquiere et al., 2014; Kristensen et al., 2012).
Recipient of the services should know about the person to whom they can contact for health,
social care and bereavement services. Healthcare and social workers allocated for
bereavement services should be provided with proper training to care and support
bereavement. Multidisciplinary training needs to be given to all the healthcare and social
workers. This training should comprise of different aspects like medical, psychological and
emotional. People who are coming in contact with bereavement on daily basis should also be
given training. Societies and communities need be more compassionate to support
bereavement people. Promotional strategies need to be implemented to improve knowledge
and information of society about bereavement care (Ahluwalia et al., 2018).
Reflection:
Sample - Student Critical Self-Reflection Tool (D1 Criteria)
Name: Date:
UNIT:
The steps I have completed in this piece of work include:
In this work, I studied case of Gary with significant life event of dying and bereavement. I
applied knowledge of significant life event for elucidating different aspects of Garry. For
elucidating different aspects of Garry’s case, I completed three tasks. Task 1 was related to
understanding of significant life events impacts on individuals and their social work. Task
2 was related to understand support available for individuals experiencing significant life
events. Task 3 was related to analysis of responses made by health and social care services
to support individuals experiencing significant life events.
Something I did not understand about one or any of the assignment tasks were:
I understood all the tasks mentioned in this assignment. I was able to elucidate all the tasks
in effective manner.
Something I am going to change/correct/add/remove in the future that I have
learned from this piece of work is:
I learned that every organisation or hospital need to implement individual policies and
procedures for providing effective care and support to bereavement. However, I would
like to change this strategy because I would like to implement national strategy for
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bereavement people in all the hospitals with little modifications which are suitable for
individual hospitals.
One concept I have learned from this task is:
From this task, I learned that it is necessary to work in co-operation for providing support
to bereavement. Bereavement is a complex condition. Care and support need to be
provided for bereavement considering different aspects like medical, psychological,
emotional and social. Hence, cooperation among different professionals like medical,
psychologist and social worker is necessary for providing care and support to bereavement.
This piece of work demonstrates that I can (list the criteria):
 As an individual and in a team, I can provide effective care and support to
bereavement.
 I can bring co-ordination among different professionals like medical, psychologist
and social workers.
 I can work confidently with a person with terminal illness.
I can improve my work by:
Even tough, my performance was considerably good in the completion of this assignment;
I can see lot of opportunities to improve myself. I can bring improvement in me through
evidence-based nursing practice. I would go through relevant literature to understand
process of bereavement care. I would read case studies of patients with different
conditions. I can work with a greater number of patients to get exposure to different
patients. I can discuss with senior members of the team to improve skills and knowledge
related to bereavement care.
After reviewing this assignment, I would now like to achieve (define revised goals):
In this assignment, many facts were given related to role of different professionals in the
support and care of bereavement. However, these facts could have been given with data
from the literature.
I would like to do this because (explanation):
I would like to do this because validity of the facts can be improved effectively through
numerical data. Data from the literature can be considered as the valid data because this
type of data is usually based of evidence.
What would be the difference to the outcome (if any) if I had prepared more
carefully / taken it more seriously?
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I am confident, my prepared assignment is fulfilling all the requirements.
Where can I go from here in my academic development?
After the completion of this assignment, there would be improvement in my competency
for taking care of bereavement person.
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