University Health and Social Care Placement Reflective Report

This report presents a reflective analysis of a health and social care placement undertaken by a student at the care agency H&M. The report provides a detailed overview of the student's experiences, focusing on various aspects of the placement, including the mentor-mentee relationship, induction and orientation processes, teamwork skills, the development of professional boundaries, the acquisition of job-related skills, and conflict management strategies. The student reflects on the practical application of theoretical knowledge, the challenges faced, and the personal and professional growth achieved during the placement. The reflection is structured using Gibbs' Reflective Cycle, providing a framework for examining experiences and planning for future improvements. Key topics include the mentor's guidance, the importance of induction programs, the application of Tuckman's team development approach, the significance of professional boundaries, and the development of essential job skills such as communication and empathy. The report highlights the practical efficiencies and skills that were developed during the internship and their significance in the health and social care sector.

HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE
(PARAPHRASING)

Table of Contents
Table of Contents.............................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
Mentor and Menteeship...............................................................................................................1
Induction and Orientation-...........................................................................................................2
Skills in teamwork-......................................................................................................................3
Developing professional boundaries-..........................................................................................3
Building job related skills-...........................................................................................................4
Address conflict...........................................................................................................................4
Reflection on the placement........................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Health and social care defined as to develop knowledge, understanding of professional
personal development and provision towards health issues that affects quality of human life
(Attree & et.al., 2011). Therefore, qualification designed under it are equipped with skills and
knowledge that are needed to care for others in broad range of health and social care setting.
Firstly, this report will provide a brief introduction to the placement and its importance for
students, mainly in the field of health and social care. A critical discussion of the knowledge,
skills and values achieved due to the participation in the placement will be presented in a
reflective manner.
Therefore, assignment cover academic research on following subjects as Mentor and
Menteeship, induction and orientation, teamworking skills, addressing conflict and developing
professional boundaries. This reflection is based on the personal experience of participating in a
service evaluation project during the placement.
MAIN BODY
Mentor and Menteeship
The placement was carried out in a care agency named H&M. At the beginning of the
placement, I was very excited about working in an actual care agency and to gain professional
experience. I understood the importance of placements in career development as it develops
depth core of intelligence.
During the internship, I was guided by mentor who was well experienced in medical
services. My mentor has helped me a lot to get over with doubts and to develop practical
knowledge throughout the internship. He used to conduct my test so that he could get idea about
my learning and find out the areas that required depth focus. He has set areas within H&S
services and that has helped me to improve and excel my learning in significant manner.
Thus, I have found the core strength of my mentor is that he was very well experienced
and had good basic understanding. He has depth knowledge about the heath and social care
practice and also, he was having experience of 20 years in the same field. Henceforth, the
weakness of my mentor is that, at times I felt he has short tempered attitude. Due to this, he used
to get angry on me as I was slow learner. Thus, weakness I have felt is that he was not having
calm attitude and this thing has affected me a lot throughout the journey.
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I felt that I have worked effectively and tried to develop effective practical efficiency. I
have noted each and every learning during the internship and kept recalling my self during free
time. This technique has helped to have better memory retention towards learning about Health
and social care practices.
Mentor could have arranged theoretical sessions twice in a weak that would help to get
over with doubts. This technique would aid more efficient and better learning as learner could
get a chance to develop practical as well theoretical knowledge in H&S care services. Thus, this
internship has helped me a lot as I got chance to develop practical efficiency of my academic
learnings.
Induction and Orientation-
In my daily practices, I have identified wide areas that can aid to develop the efficiency.
This induction and orientation program has helped me to translate the theoretical knowledge into
the real workplace experience. This would lead to the development of a number of skills which
will be very useful in my employability and future works. This induction has improved my
practical learning in many areas of health and social care.
Henceforth, this implication would be helpful to provide effective care practices to patients
in health sector. Thus, this program has developed my core skills as communication, problem
solving, time management and creative thinking skill as I came thorough number of aspects.
Thus, this induction and orientation program towards health and social sector has helped me to
groom overall personality and increased the level of confidence. This will be helpful for me in
my future career development. This internship has helped to develop the efficiencies and skills
and enhancement in skills could help to have better and improved learnings.
Sometimes, I felt that learning could have provides in more better manner, if they would
have conducted training for the fewer group of candidates. Henceforth, this induction program
has helped me to improve my core competencies in the field of health and social care. So, it will
be assistive for me to conduct the job practices at the high standard. This would be more
effective as Mentors can put depth focus on requirement of training and lacking areas of each
learner. Therefore, induction and orientation planning aids to prevent from small difficulties
during the programmed of the study.
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Skills in teamwork-
Teamwork is one of the crucial part of the induction programme as it aids to achieve
work goal. Effective team tactics can foster the team orientation. I have identified that good team
work skills aids to build better and effective working environment. This leads to bring systematic
advantage. During the learning in induction program we were following the Tuckman team
development approach and this method was very effective towards to improvise the better
learning within the candidates.
Stage 1: forming- I was placed as intern but after seeing my capabilities I played the role as
guider of other team members. Therefore, I have assigned roles and responsibilities to my co-
workers and prepared the lot of question to get overcome from doubts. At this stage, we all have
worked as to set the clear aims and objective so that effective actions can be carried out.
Stage 2: Storming- This is the stage at which team becomes close knit and members of team are
gaining each other trust. Thus, individual personalities of team members emerge as they work as
to confront each other ideas and perspectives. Therefore, team members have guiding role in
difficult transition stage and that encourage team members to speak freely and be open minded.
At this level, we used to resolve the conflicts by themselves.
Stage 3: Norming- At this we worked as to be open to each other’s ideas. This must be
constructive and task oriented towards the desired goals. Hence, we set rules, values, method and
standards. It can enhance the efficiency of team and this could get improvise the overall work
efficiencies.
Stage 4: Performing- At this stage, we all have worked as per the desired aims and objectives.
All team members allotted specific task and all worked together to achieve goals and objectives.
Team members must be capable making decision independently and autonomously.
Stage 5: Adjourning- The team can be dissolved as it’s have crucial disclosure as well
recognition for work to get accomplished. Thus, member to the team can be replaced and focus is
needs to be given on efforts and results of team members.
Hence, it can be concluded that team building plays crucial role to undertake all activities in
effective and efficient manner. I have worked within team manner by focussing over this method
and it has helped the overall efficiencies of team members to get desired goals.
Developing professional boundaries-
It plays vital role in social care services and in terms to provide well developed services to
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patients. This is must to have professional boundaries so that all work can be conducted in better
and proficient mode. During the induction and orientation programme I have learned about
professionalism and how much it is crucial to provide better services. I have understood the
responsibility to delineate and maintain the boundaries to work within the therapeutic
relationship. Thus, during the induction program I got to know about the professional skills that
are must to undertake the working practices effectively. Henceforth, professional boundaries
develop beneficial relationship that improves the quality and experience of care. I came to know
that strong relationship between health and social worker and patients would lead to frequent and
quality information.
Building job related skills-
Personal and professional development is crucial to undertake the better activities at health
and social sector. During the journey of induction, I went through various things that has helped
me to develop core skills as journey, team player, empathy, time management, self confidence
and dealing with criticism. I have analysed that communication with patients required the both
listen alternatively and explain clearly. I have learned it throughout the course of journey o
induction programme. Thus, once I had offer to play the role of doctor and this has helped me to
develop skill that requires most at time of handling patients. I got number of chances to talk with
patients and I have also tried to understand their problem these skills have helped me to develop
empathy and team player skill and this also helps to undertake the responsibilities effective and
efficient mode. Prior, I was not good in managing the task at time manner but after undergo
through induction programme in became efficient in it. Hence, I must say effective building of
job related skill could help to develop future employability skills.
Address conflict
After getting replaced as intern in health and social services, I have also realised that the
health sector also needs to face number of conflicts. During my journey, I also came towards lots
of issues that leads to affect my confidence level. Thus, to handle the patients and communicate
them is one of the major things that can arise the conflict situation. Henceforth, conflict
management plays crucial role as it prevents conflict among the individuals. Thus, conflict is not
easy to control, an individual need certain skill to them. I came through the issue while my
mentor was engaged in some other work, that day I handled the patients who had come from
different background. Thus, major issues I have faced while I was handling with him was
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communication skill. Therefore, I could not able to understand that what’s the problem he was
dealing. After this incident, I told this issue my mentor and he suggested me to enhance
communication skill so that I can able to deal with people who comes from diverse background.
Henceforth, I have given major focus over to improve communication skill and this leads me do
my things properly.
Placement and its importance
Placements can be defined as a real experience of work acquired by an individual through
works in an actual working environment. In the case of student placements, these working
environments are complementary and supportive to the degree qualifications of the students
while providing mutual benefits to the student as well as the employer (Guile & Griffiths, 2001).
Student placement is considered to be highly important for the successful development of the
career of an individual as they transit from the academic environment into a working
environment. In most of the placements, the mentors are assigned to help the students during
their placement. They need to fulfil their responsibilities of maintaining an effective relationship
with students and facilitating the learning of the students.
Reflection on the placement
A reflection on the placement experience of working in a service evaluation project of a care
agency is conducted below on the basis of Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle. This is a model developed
by Graham Gibbs in 1988 which provides a structure for the learning to be derived from
experiences. A framework is provided by this model for an examination of the experiences and
allows individuals to learn from the experiences as well as plan further improvements. It covers
six stages, namely description, thoughts, evaluation, analysis, action plan and conclusion in
relation to the experience which is being reflected. Such a framework will help the report to
follow a structured pattern and allow a critical analysis of the placement experience (Cumbria,
2016).
Description
Thus, placement in health and social care mainly focuses on providing home care for assisting in
the personal habits of the clients that may be difficult to be handled for the clients. It provides
support, assistance, home care, dementia care, personalized dementia care and other health care
services for enabling the clients to live an independent and meaningful life. It is a fast-growing
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health care organization of London and has the provision of a wide range of home care and
health care services, mainly targeted at the elderly and vulnerable population.
It provides high-quality services through a team of friendly, skilled and experienced
domiciliary care staffs (NHS, 2018). In this placement setting, I was mainly involved in a service
evaluation project for this caring agency. I had to work in this project for the evaluation of the
quality of services provided by H&M so that the areas for improvement could be identified and
further effectiveness of the service could be increased. The experience of completing a
placement in this agency has helped me to translate the theoretical knowledge into the real
workplace and led to the development of a number of skills which will be very useful in my
employability and future works (Paloniemi, 2006).
Thoughts About the Experience
At the beginning of the placement, I was very excited about working in an actual care
agency and gaining professional experienced. I understood the importance of such placements in
career development and was determined to leverage this opportunity. But when I learnt that I
should be conducting a service evaluation project, I was quite uncertain if I would be able to
conduct it successfully. I was really nervous in the initial days of the service evaluation project
as I had never conducted any surveys and was completely new to this method of data collection.
I tried my level best to learn as much as possible about the methods of surveys and ways to
complete them successfully. There were a few times when the issues raised during the survey,
such as time management and funding that made me feel distressed about the placement.
Regardless, I completed the placement successfully by solving all the problems. With the
progress of time, I started feeling confident about my capacity to conduct the project
successfully. At the end of this placement experience, I have an increased level of confidence,
which will certainly be useful in my future career development.
Evaluation and analysis of placement
On an evaluation of the placement period in the care agency, I have realized that the
responsibility of working in the service evaluation project for the agency has allowed me to
progress my level of knowledge as well as different skills that will be beneficial in terms of my
employability as well. This placement was an opportunity for me to gain experience of working
directly with the service users and understanding their opinions about the quality of services
which will certainly to be useful in my career development. A significant knowledge that I have
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acquired due to the placement is about research methods and data collection through surveys.
Research projects are important in the health and social care setting as it is about finding new
knowledge that can bring improvements in the policies, care or treatment. It can be useful to
gather evidence about the opinions of our services among its users, assess their effectiveness and
bring the essential improvements (NIHR, 2019).
This placement has helped me to develop a number of skills, such as problem solving skills
(Butterworth & Thwaites, 2016). There were several problems that I faced during the project, but
I learned to solve them with patience and effectively. For instance, I had encountered a problem
in conducting the survey as the service users of the agency were not cooperating in terms of the
time set for the survey. Though they were ready to be participants of the survey, they were
having a problem with the time set up for the survey. So I solved this issue by finding the time
when the service users would be comfortable for completing the survey. I talked to them about
the time they would be free and managed to complete the surveys on time. I had to be very
persuasive and communicate in a friendly manner to convince them to take time out from their
schedules for the completion of the questionnaires. This experience during the placement
provided me with problem solving skills, which will certainly be useful for my future
experiences as well. Problem solving is a highly desired skill by the employers as this gives the
individuals an ability to handle unexpected or difficult situations in an efficient manner. I have
realized the importance of problem solving first hand through my placement, and it will be useful
in other areas of life such as day to day decision making and relationship building as well
(Zaccaro, 2006).
Another important skill which I have acquired as a consequence of this placement are the
interpersonal skills such as good communication, teamwork, self-esteem and self-confidence.
According to Skills for Care, communication skill is one of the major requirement for successful
health and social care professional as it helps to develop a working relationship, exchange
information about the services, give clear information and provide emotional support to the
service users. This skill includes verbal communication, non-verbal communication, as well as
written forms of communication (Tuhovsky, 2015). I realize that I have acquired all of these
skills as an outcome of the placement. A large part of working on this service evaluation project
was to interact with the service users in a professional but efficient manner. Though I did not
have any experience of working directly with service users prior to this, different questionnaires
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that I prepared for the survey helped me to have an efficient interaction and increased by oral
communication skills. The sharing of verbal information with other team members and my
mentor was a significant aspect which helped in the development of my communication skills.
As I was involved in the service evaluation project, I needed to maintain records of the data
collected in an ordered manner and document all aspects of work. This helped in the
development of my information storage skills, personal skill in terms of written communication
as well as computer literacy. I am now able to articulate the findings and ideas in a coherent and
clear format such that confidence to present my work has been developed.
Self-confidence is an important interpersonal skill in order to prepare for the workplace
environment as it provides recognition as well as the demonstration of positivity, improving the
ways people view me in the workplace. This will be useful in every stage of my career and
enable me to deal with challenges in an effective manner (Lee, 2018). I have also realized that a
number of qualities were developed in me as a result of this placement such as stress tolerance,
independence, willingness to learn and adaptability. In addition, time management skills and IT
skills were also my outcomes from the placement completion. As there was a deadline for
completing the project within 4 weeks, I learned to work under the deadlines and manage my
tasks in a timely manner so that I could achieve the deadline. The professionals of health and
social care sector are considered to face crucial problems in the control and management of time
due to the increased demand for service. It can also take a toll on the health of these
professionals (Sheridan, 1988). But as I now have the experience of working under deadlines and
managing the time accordingly, I expect that this experience will be beneficial in my future
works which might be bounded by restricted deadlines.
However, it is also crucial to note that there are certain skills and knowledge which are
inadequately developed in my case, and I will have to work further for its development. The
skills of emotional intelligence and decision making are the primary skill gap which I will have
to develop to ensure that I will be successful in my further employment opportunities. There is
also a gap in skills of negotiation and leadership that can only be developed through further
practice and continuous learning (Hess & Bacigalupo, 2013). A personal plan to develop these
skills in the future so that I can work successfully in the future roles has been presented in the
next section of this report.
Action Plan
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As stated earlier, this reflection on the placement experience has made me realize that there
are a number of skills and knowledge which are insufficient in the context of my professional
development. So, I have a plan to take part in different trainings and workshops relevant to the
skills development in health and social care. In order to develop my decision-making skills, I
will learn different academic materials and case studies related to the health and social care
sector (Russell, 2015). I will also be acquainted with the legislation and standards relevant to the
professionals involved in care so that I can make legal and ethical decisions. I will take part in
the leadership training programs within the next one year so that I can develop my leadership
capabilities. In addition, I will also work to enhance my current communication and
technological skills. I will learn about different software that are frequently used in professional
settings while also participating in the courses related to the operations of these software. I will
try to incorporate the active listening and clear communication aspects that I have learned
through this placement in my day to day interactions with my colleagues, friends and tutors
which will further sharpen my communication abilities (Mahajan, 2015). In this way, I will
continue to work on the development of skills and look forward to it so that I can become even
more confident about my abilities and grab better job opportunities in the future.
CONCLUSION
Hereby, it can be concluded that Health and social care is term that defined as services that
have equal access to high quality services. To conclude, the experience of working in the care
agency during my placement was a rewarding as well as challenging experience. Understanding
the health and social care services is crucial in order to deal with each conflict arises within
enterprise. Therefore, this report has covered experiences related to differed background such as
Therefore, assignment cover academic research on following subjects as Mentor and
Menteeship, induction and orientation, teamworking skills, addressing conflict and developing
professional boundaries.
This placement, conducted as a part of the coursework, has been a source of valuable work
experience that will be crucial in my career development. An understanding of the functioning of
care agencies and real-life work environments was gained through this placement. Involvement
in the service evaluation project was a different experience which provided knowledge about
survey research as well as quality considerations in health and social care.
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Though there were few challenges such as funding and lack of initial knowledge about the
research, with the progress of time and considerable personal effort in understanding the
processes, these challenges were overcome. On reflection, it is realized that different skills such
as communication, technological operations, problem solving, time management and teamwork
have been gained as a consequence of this experience.
Additionally, values such as respect, dignity, cross-cultural working manners and ethical
conduct have also been acquired as an outcome of the placement. However, there are a few skill
gaps, such as lack of emotional intelligence and effective decision-making ability that will have
to be developed over the course of time. Overall, the development of these skills has led to a high
level of self-confidence that will certainly help in the achievement of personal as well as
professional goals.
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