Self-Reflection and Professional Development in Health and Social Care

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Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................................1
WHAT IS RELFECTION?................................................................................................................................1
MODELS OF REFLECTION.............................................................................................................................1
HOW SELF REFLECTION ENHANCES PRACTICE?...........................................................................................3
BARRIERS TO REFLECTION...........................................................................................................................4
COCLUSION..................................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................................5
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INTRODUCTION
Reflection is a process where an individual evaluated own self in front of a mirror,
specifically speaking the self-evaluation of own practice in health and social care is
known as reflection (Cottrell., 2017). This assignment focuses on how reflection is used
as a development tool in health and social care and the importance of reflection in
health and social care practice. The assignment will also highlight different models of
reflection that are used by the health care provider’s for reflective practice. The barriers
to reflection that challenges the process of reflection and disabled the individual from
growing in right direction will also be identified in this project.
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WHAT IS RELFECTION?
Schon defines reflection as the practice through which the practitioner becomes aware
of the strengths and weaknesses they possess, and the implicit knowledge they
possess for the experiences they have faced (Glasb., 2017). He also mentions that
reflective process includes the art of acting by knowing the action. Self-reflection in
health and social care is important practice to challenge and improve the practice done
by the professional to attain better skills for future. It is perceived that reflection also
provides health and social care workers a path to deal with the sensitive and critical
issues that can otherwise ruin their practice and question their competency for the work.
Reflection can also be referred as the ability of an individual to reflection an action with
the aim of learning continuously (Glasby., 2017). By providing reflection of own work
and practice the individual becomes competent to identify own mistakes, weaknesses
and strengths and is able to work on the aspects identified that requires improvement to
enhance their practice and provide better services in future (Cottrell., 2017).
MODELS OF REFLECTION
Reflection has been in practice since decades and different theorist and developers
have created different models of reflection to be used as a guide during the process of
refection (Delany and Golding., 2014)). These models are used by the health and social
care employees to reflect on their own work repeatedly and enable them to evaluate
their practices to develop their career more. Different models of reflection include Gibbs
reflective cycle, Kolb’s reflection model, Schon reflection model, O’Discroll reflection
model etc. These models each are unique as it uses different schema to develop the
reflection plan that a person can utilize to reflect on own experiences. Some of these
models are accepted widely and used in health care more and are effective than others.
Each of these Models has different benefits for the user as well as limitations that
constrict some areas of the process.
Gibbs reflective cycle is a six staged cycle developed by Graham Gibbs in 1988 (Ghaye
and Lillyman., 2014). This model is widely accepted in the industry and used by different
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health care professionals due to its versatility to be used in different settings with
generalized use. The model initially contained six stages to develop the reflection on
that were description, feeling, analysis, evaluation, conclusion and action plan (Husebø
et al., 2015). Later to modify and concentrate the model for easy durability the stages
were merged and five staged model with merging of evaluation and analysis was
created. This model provides explanatory questions for each of the stage to be
answered and framed. Description stage includes a wide description of the incidence or
experience that includes detailed discussion of what happened to whom it happened
and when it happened, it also includes description of minute details of the incidence that
will help in later evaluating it. Feeling stage is described by how the individual felt
during, before and after the incidence too place, this stage is crucial as it highlights how
the emotions and feeling of an individual play a role in presenting a reaction towards
any situation. It allows individual to identify his emotions and feelings regarding the
process and how it can be handled in future. Evaluation is the stage where the detailed
critical analysis and evaluation of the experience is done by reviewing the details of the
incidence as well as focusing on what went well and what was the barrier during the
incidence. This stage allows the practitioner to analyze on the aspects that are strong
for his practice and areas that can be worked on. The next stage is conclusion that
enables one to conclude the findings of the whole overview and prepare for
improvement (Husebø et al., 2015). The action plan is the last step that makes the
individual prepare the goals and direct the resources for achieving those goals in order
to enhance the practice.
Gibbs reflective cycle is a multidimensional model that describes, evaluated, concludes
and prepares the individual for better practices and learns better skills. It allows the
individual to develop his skills and enhance his knowledge. The model is created with
the view that instead of repeated use the model still remains generalized in the manner
that it does not show any similarity in practice. Although there are some limitations of
this model for reflection that includes the questions of the stages provided for help are
narrow and do not include details from in depth evaluation (Schipper et al., 2017). Other
than the question the stage two requires detailed introspection of own abilities that may
be intimidating to some individual and they cannot perform it progressively. The analysis
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stage also may be responsible for overshadowing the critical details of the experiences
that the individual does not follow to expose. These limitations are challenges that
weaken the model in order to be able to provide effective reflective piece.
HOW SELF REFLECTION ENHANCES PRACTICE?
Reflection in health and social care not only provides theoretical knowledge and
enhancement of skills related to clinics but the main aim of reflection is to cover the
multidimensional sector of health and wellbeing where the practitioner should have
multiple abilities like communication, working in partnership, ability to use different
technology and awareness regarding new trends in disease and treatment. The three
major advantages identified in health and social care with respect to reflection is it
allows the practitioner to learn better and faster, it improves mindfulness and good
practice, Improves memory, critical thinking and provides evidence for the situation
(Ghaye and Lillyman., 2014). Reflective practice enables one to rethink about the past
experiences and evaluate them to make new recommendations for future. It enables the
individual to learn from the failure and mistakes and create action plan to achieve the
goals. It enables individual to enhance their knowledge by using evidence based
practice and evidence here are from real life sources and experiences.
BARRIERS TO REFLECTION
Barriers according to Schon are defined as the factor that provides challenge in path of
smooth working of something. In this case reflection f own self is a critical aspect and
not easy to be followed as it requires overcoming various self-imaginary feelings and
ego to be able to evaluate own self to learn better. Boud and Walker defined barriers of
reflection to be of two types internal and external. The internal barriers are the facts that
comes within the individual that stops him to reflect on own practices like ego, self-
image, emotions, fright, personal awareness etc. (Boud and Walker., 1993.) The
external factor that present as barriers for reflection are the ones that affect from outside
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like culture values, stereotyping, negative thoughts from people, assumption of others,
judgment by others, factors from learning environment and classicism. These barriers
according to Boud reduces the ability of the person to think critically and disables one to
reflect on own practice for better development (Greenwood et al., 2015).
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COCLUSION
Self-reflection as discussed in health and social care is an important tool that is used to
enhance the skills and knowledge of the individual. It is highly effective mechanism hat
will help the individual to enhance their practice and improve the aspects that are crucial
for development of future practices. It helps the professionals to learn from their errors
and develop plans to improve in future and achieve the competency required for the job.
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REFERENCES
Boud, D and Walker, D 1993. Barriers to reflection on experience. In D Boud et al.
(eds) Using experience for learning. Buckingham, SHRE and Open University Press
Cottrell, S., 2017. Critical thinking skills: Effective analysis, argument and reflection.
Macmillan International Higher Education.
Delany, C. and Golding, C., 2014. Teaching clinical reasoning by making thinking
visible: an action research project with allied health clinical educators. BMC medical
education, 14(1), p.20.
Ghaye, T. and Lillyman, S., 2014. Reflection: Principles and practices for healthcare
professionals 2nd edition (Vol. 1). Andrews UK Limited.
Glasby, J., 2017. Understanding health and social care. Policy Press.
Greenwood, N., Habibi, R., Smith, R. and Manthorpe, J., 2015. Barriers to access
and minority ethnic carers' satisfaction with social care services in the community: a
systematic review of qualitative and quantitative literature. Health & social care in the
community, 23(1), pp.64-78.
Husebø, S.E., O'Regan, S. and Nestel, D., 2015. Reflective practice and its role in
simulation. Clinical Simulation in Nursing, 11(8), pp.368-375.Knott, C. and Scragg,
T. eds., 2016. Reflective practice in social work. Learning Matters.
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Schipper, R., Silvius, G. and van den Brink, J., 2017. Reflection and Conclusion.
In Sustainability in Project Management (pp. 105-120). Routledge.
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