Reflective Essay: Social Worker Skills, Ethics, Values, and Strengths

This reflective essay examines the role of a social worker in healthcare, specifically addressing the challenges of caring for a patient with arthritis. The essay begins with an introduction to health and social care, highlighting its importance in providing support for individuals. The main body delves into the analysis and reflection of working skills, emphasizing the need for effective communication, patient assessment, and the ability to understand the impact of illness on individuals and families. It also explores the required ethics and values, such as trustworthiness and social justice, that guide social workers in their practice. The essay then identifies the strengths of a social worker, such as communication and patient linking, and weaknesses, including decision-making difficulties and the need for ongoing training. The conclusion summarizes the key findings, emphasizing the importance of ethical practices, understanding personal and social factors, and the overall commitment to patient well-being. The essay is supported by references to academic sources.

Reflective essay

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Analysis and reflection of working skills....................................................................................3
Analysis of required ethics and values........................................................................................4
Strengths and weaknesses............................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Health and social care term which is related with the services which are available from the
social care providers in the UK. It is undertaken as a generic term which is useful to refer the
whole Health Care provision and infrastructure. The health and social care undertake an
organisation that provide Healthcare support to the people who are living Independent and
healthier life (Hughes and et. al., 2019). The health and social care sector are flexible and
undertake various roles as these are designed to promote various career paths. The following
report is based on a woman who is facing severe condition of arthritis and unable to care for
herself. Due to this, a social worker visit their home regarding her care from the social work
department. Therefore, the report leads to cover reflection over the working skills of social
worker and required ethics and values considering their strengths and weaknesses.
MAIN BODY
Analysis and reflection of working skills
Having Arthritis leads to cause loss of function pain and fatigue as it is hard to predict how
a patient is feeling. It leads to cause major changes in the emotional social and physical well-
being of an individual (Navarro‐Millán and et. al., 2019). I worked as a social care worker in the
Healthcare and an expert regarding the impact of illness on individual and family. My working
skills include the ability to assess how the patient and supported persons are coping up with the
illness and problem. I need to provide proper care to the person which is the integral Concept for
me as a patient centred care. Along with this, I need to effectively focus on understanding the
personal impact over the illness and treatment of my patient and also identify ways to effectively
coping up with the problem.
I also need to understand the social and personal factors that lead to influence the health of
an individual including financial resources insurance status and understanding of their condition
and the treatment. These factors are helpful for patient in order to being able to follow the
treatment plan and managing medication. I also need to develop effective relationship with
patient that leads to open the doors for communication because I can help in developing the
comprehensive care plan that includes the requirements and overall condition of patient in their
voice. Besides from this, I also need to provide education and support to the patient regarding

their illness and issue and also motivate the informed decision making in the multiple difficult
choices and task.
Analysis of required ethics and values
Ethics and values are important at the time of treating a patient as these ethics are
important to the great community in order to recognise and identify the core values. In order to
develop better understanding the prominent factors of ethics and values are important to become
a social care worker at the time of treating patients (Pedraz-Marcos and et. al., 2020). For this,
the social worker needs to focus on helping people by addressing and overcoming their social
issues. They also need to elevate public services above the self-interest. Social care worker tends
to facilitate successful relationship as this need to be trustworthy.
Social care workers are helpful by considering the progress of their career competency and
the progress of their patient as well by creating the best value to the people they can serve. Social
care workers should value the Social Justice as among the health care professional they explicit
the Social Justice commitment by addressing the inequalities which are based on race ethnicity
sexual orientation disability and many more (Hammam and et. al., 2019). The profession of
social care worker focuses over the health disparities and also leads to create culturally
responsive health care system in order to address prominent issues. Therefore, a social care
worker should be trustworthy and also uphold the mission values ethical principles and
Standards of their profession.
Strengths and weaknesses
The primal core strength of a social worker while treating a patient who is dealing with
arthritis and carrying severe condition is communication. With the help of optimal
communication process it can be said that social healthcare specifically improves the overall
medication process considering empathy. Another strength point of social health care worker is
linking with patients. At the time of treating patient with arthritis it can be said that the complex
cases might come in front. In this situation high patients can help social health care worker to
effectively empower himself or herself in order to effectively understand the overall situation of
patient and take right decisions without any sort of frustration and this will automatically lead to
reduce the risk of any errors and also improve the chances of giving right treatment to the patient
in correct time (de Azevedo Branco and et. al., 2019).

Difficulty in decision making or lack of self control are said to be the two crucial
weaknesses that can be identified in a health care worker while delivering medication to the
patient. In order to provide high quality service to a patient dealing with arthritis, sometimes a
social worker may get into too much work and this may result into negative outcomes because of
the difficulties faced by him or her while taking decisions. Another weakness of a healthcare
worker is directly linking with training. At the time of treating a patient with arthritis it can be
said that a social worker needs to be trained because failure into this may lead the patient dealing
with arthritis to go through different range of difficulties and this may also result into high risk of
fatality (Raimundo and et. al., 2019).
CONCLUSION
Considering the aforementioned information, it is summarised that following all the
prominent factors of values and ethics in help a social care worker to effectively treat the patient
dealing with any severe condition in correct time. Including this, it is also summarised that it is
necessary for social care worker to effectively learn about personal factors and social ones
because these may lead the arthritis patient to go through different range of difficulties.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
de Azevedo Branco, L.G and et. al., 2019. Oral health–related quality of life among individuals
with rheumatoid arthritis. Clinical rheumatology, 38(9), pp.2433-2441.
Hammam, N and et. al., 2019. Physical activity, sedentary behavior, and long-term
cardiovascular risk in individuals with rheumatoid arthritis. The Physician and
sportsmedicine, 47(4), pp.463-470.
Hughes, D.A and et. al., 2019. Cost-effectiveness analysis of adalimumab for the treatment of
uveitis associated with juvenile idiopathic arthritis. Ophthalmology, 126(3), pp.415-424.
Navarro‐Millán, I and et. al., 2019. Perspectives of rheumatoid arthritis patients on electronic
communication and patient‐reported outcome data collection: a qualitative
study. Arthritis care & research, 71(1), pp.80-87.
Pedraz-Marcos, A and et. al., 2020. Living with rheumatoid arthritis in spain: a qualitative study
of patient experience and the role of health professionals. Clinical nursing
research, 29(8), pp.551-560.
Raimundo, K and et. al., 2019. Rheumatoid arthritis–interstitial lung disease in the United States:
prevalence, incidence, and healthcare costs and mortality. The Journal of
rheumatology, 46(4), pp.360-369.