Individual Skill Development Report - Social Policy, Semester 1

This report analyzes individual skill development within the context of social policy, drawing on sociological concepts and practical skills. It explores the processes of socialization, community care, and social exclusion, providing insights into how individuals integrate into society and the challenges they face. The report also examines writing and presentation skills, including critical analysis of essays and articles, as well as the importance of effective communication. The report further delves into specific areas of social policy such as end-of-life care and the evolving concept of fatherhood, offering critical perspectives on policy developments and their motivations. The author discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the chosen research and articles, providing a comprehensive overview of the chosen topics.

Running head: INDIVIDUAL SKILL DEVELOPMENT
INDIVIDUAL SKILL DEVELOPMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Table of Contents
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
Concepts of sociology............................................................................................................2
Socialization.......................................................................................................................2
Community care.................................................................................................................2
Social exclusion.................................................................................................................3
Writing skills..........................................................................................................................3
Strength of the essay..........................................................................................................4
Weakness of the essay........................................................................................................4
Discussion of the research......................................................................................................4
Presentation skills...................................................................................................................5
Critical analysis......................................................................................................................6
Strength of the article.........................................................................................................6
Weakness of the article......................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................8

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Discussion
Concepts of sociology
Socialization
From a general perception, socialization refers to the process of introducing an
individual into the society to acquire skills, which will help the individual to function like
other members in the society. Interaction with others helps the individual in learning and
developing the customs, beliefs, traditions, attitudes and values of the society. From
sociological perception, socialization means that the every child born in a society is
responsible for learning the norms and culture of the society.
The process of socialization begins from the birth of an individual, the first step being
imitation. The infant imitates the behavior of the adults in the surrounding. The next step,
pre-operational stage, children has ability to differentiate between symbols and real objects.
In the last stage, adolescents have the ability to use critical and logical analysis for solving
moral problems and reasoning ability.
Family, peer groups, religion, educational institution and media can be referred as the
social agencies, which transforms a child into a reasonable and respectable individual.
Community care
Community care refers to the process of providing support to people over the age of
65 or having any physical or mental disability. These are non-institutional services therefore,
it varies from country to country and their welfare policies. Community care enables people
to live independently and with self-dignity. Instead of providing services in some residential
institution, community care provides home care services to people thus preventing their
social isolation. The local authorities provide the community care which involves daily
chores of a person such as shopping, bathing and rising up from bed, domestic help such as
cooking cleaning of the house, helping the person when any adaption is made in the home

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such as stair lift, handrails and kitchen modifications, providing meals daily or weekly or
monthly supply. Along with these facilities, the community care engages people in
recreational and cultural activities. Several legal provisions such as the National Health
Service and Community Care Act 1990 were made on community care to enhance their
services of care and support.
Social exclusion
Social exclusion refers to factors such as lack of education, transport, health services,
income and possession of assets and denial of human rights, which restricts a person from
participating in the social life. Exclusion from society can also be due to social status, race,
religion, political opinions and relationships of a person. Exclusion also results from a
person’s disability, drug addiction and people shifting from the standard social norms. The
contributors of social exclusion involves:
 Social welfare policies can restrict individuals from receiving their basic needs and
other support programs. Organization are becoming machine oriented from man
orientation thus resulting in job security in the employees, contributing to the increase
in the rate of poverty. With the rise in immigration, individuals are denied
employment, health care and security benefits.
 The European Union shows unemployment being the main cause for social exclusion.
Nowadays work has become a social identity of individuals. The main reason for
social exclusion are poverty and homelessness, which directly depends on the income
of an individual.
Writing skills
The essay illustrating the improvements made in end of life policies and determining
the motivation for this sudden development has been chosen for analysis of the strengths and
weaknesses.

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Strength of the essay
 The essay provides real life evidence and records to prove that the end of life policies
are genuine and the policies are worthy for the clients.
 The objectives mentioned in the thesis statement about the changes made in the end of
life policies and the cause for these changes has been properly addressed in the essay.
 All the evidence and statistical data relating to the two end of life policies have been
properly backed by valid references.
Weakness of the essay
 The essay analyzes only two life policies, which are End of life care strategy (2008)
and the National gold standards framework, for examining the developments of every
end of life policies.
 The second end of life policy, National gold standards framework, seems vague
because it lacks evidence and effect of the policy on the people.
 The essay contains several grammatical errors.
Discussion of the research
Fatherhood has become a hot topic for debate and arguments for different theorist and
the media. Nowadays the concept of fatherhood is growing more rapidly as it is observed that
men handle both the task of being the breadwinner of the family as well as parenting their
children (Dermott, 2014). This research makes a qualitative analysis by conducting structured
interviews of the fathers involved in parenting their child along with managing their
professional life. This research shows how equality is achieved between men and women as
both of them are equally involved in parenting as well as doing a job. Another research from
Lamb and Sagi (2014) illustrates the factors, which prevented men from parenting their child
in the traditional times and how these factors have changed in the modern times, as now men
are equally involved in parenting like their wives. Lastly, the authors illustrates how these

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traditional and modern forms of parenting have effects on children, women and men. The
research approaches all the contemporary social policies relating to fatherhood so that people
from different professions such as law, journalism, psychology and sociology can find their
interest to read this article. Provenzi and Santoro (2015) illustrates in their research work how
the father of infants have parenting experience in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. The care
Centre engages both parents in caring for their child and it is seen in the results that fathers
experience some coping strategy from the care unit for parenting. Another research work
shows that the welfare regimes supports balance between personal and professional life and
gender equality. These states have some family policies which states equal time use by men
and women for parenting young children (Neilson & Stanfors, 2014). The research shows
that men are more involved in parenting their child in Germany and Canada. According to
Lewis and Lamb (2007), fatherhood has been in practise for the past few decades and it is
constantly increasing. Young fathers help their wives in parenting their children along with
performing household chores. This research brings out complex issues involved in fatherhood
and also uses three innovative approaches for collecting data rather than using the traditional
survey and interview method. The research work of Habib (2012) reviews the concept of
parent’s involvement in children upbringing and change to fatherhood. Being a father for the
first time becomes a new identity and social status for the men.
Presentation skills
The main important skill of presentation is to have the ability of being a public
speaker if an individual lacks this skill it can be backed up by presenting unique data,
providing useful contents and presenting it with a lot of enthusiasm. Presentation will be lot
better if practiced effectively thus the person would not get nervous while presenting in front
of the audience. The speaker should have clear understanding of the mindset of the audience
and present accordingly so that the speech resonates with the audience. The presentation

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should be concise delivering all the required topics and within the time frame. The message
conveyed to the audience should be specific with the proper style , content, visualization and
structure. The content of the presentation should also be clearly understood by the audience.
The slides in the presentation should not be overloaded with information or the number of
slides should not be too much . The speaker should be specific about the information.
Audience participation helps in gaining the attention of the audience and through it the
speaker can understand which type of information the audience prefers, thereby modify the
speech accordingly. Hence, the speaker should actively engage the audience by asking
frequent questions or taking feedbacks and information from them.
Critical analysis
The article by Steve Field on perspectives about how to lead healthy life has been
chosen for the analysis of strengths and weakness. The articles by professor sir Michael
Marmot on ignorance being the cause for obesity and by Iona Health on the inequality
treatment, done towards people hailing from lower socioeconomic section, during health
issues has been used as evidence to criticize the article of Steve Field.
Strength of the article
 The article has recognized a sensitive issue, health awareness among individuals and
their children, because there has been an increase in health problems such as obesity,
diabetes in the youth.
 The article addresses all the possible causes, which has given rise to all these health
problems.
Weakness of the article
 The article has criticized government by stating that the government is ignorant
towards the health issues in the country however, in the other article it is observed that
government takes measures to reduce these health problems.

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 The article has blamed technology as the cause for laziness among people, which
increases the obesity among people, however in another article it is mentioned that the
living conditions of people impact their health conditions.


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References
Dermott, E. (2014). Intimate fatherhood: A sociological analysis. Routledge.
https://content.taylorfrancis.com/books/download?dac=C2010-0-30454-
3&isbn=9781134100637&format=googlePreviewPdf
Habib, Cherine. (2012). The transition to fatherhood: A literature review exploring paternal
involvement with identity theory. Journal of Family Studies. 18.
10.5172/jfs.2012.2606.
Lamb, M. E., & Sagi, A. (2014). Fatherhood and family policy. Routledge.
https://content.taylorfrancis.com/books/download?dac=C2009-0-02730-
9&isbn=9781317769552&format=googlePreviewPdf
Lewis, C., & Lamb, M. (2007). Understanding fatherhood A review of recent research.
LayerthorpeYork YO31 7ZQ: York Publishing Services Ltd. Retrieved from
https://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/default/files/jrf/migrated/files/understanding-
fatherhood.pdf
Neilson, J., & Stanfors, M. (2014). It’s about time! Gender, parenthood, and household
divisions of labor under different welfare regimes. Journal of Family Issues,
35(8), 1066-1088.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0192513X14522240
Provenzi, L., & Santoro, E. (2015). The lived experience of fathers of preterm infants in the
Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: a systematic review of qualitative studies.
Journal of clinical nursing, 24(13-14), 1784-1794.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jocn.12828