Becoming a Professional and Reflective Practitioner Report

This report delves into the critical role of reflective practice within the health and social care sector, emphasizing its significance for professional development. It explores the purpose of reflection, highlighting its contribution to improved service delivery, the development of new working methods, and the enhancement of practitioners' self-awareness. The report examines various reflection models and tools, including the Gibbs Reflection Cycle, John's Model of Reflection, Kolb's Learning Model, and Rolfe's Model, detailing their application and benefits. The report also discusses the use of practice themes to underpin reflection, the link between these themes and performance indicators, and methods for gaining evidence of effective reflective practice. Furthermore, it outlines the creation of a portfolio of evidence, improvements in personal and professional development through reflection, and the setting of targets for career advancement. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of continuous learning and adaptation in healthcare, while references provide supporting evidence for the arguments presented.

Becoming a
Professional and
Reflective Practitioner

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
P1) Purpose of Reflection in Health and Social Care Practise...............................................1
P2) Description of Models and Tools Used for Reflection in Health and Social Care Practise. 1
P3) Use of Practise Themes to Underpin Reflection in Learning and Practise......................2
P4) Link Between Practise Themes and Other Performance Indicators................................3
P5) Methods Used to Gain Evidence of Effective Reflective Practise in Own Area of Work
Practise...................................................................................................................................3
P6) Portfolio of Evidence of Reflection Using Practise Themes as Framework...................4
P7) Improvements made in Personal and Professional Development by Reflection.............5
P8) Producing Targets for the Development of Own Professional Career Pathway..............5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Health and Social Care can be defined as the practise in which those services are included
which are provided by the health care practitioners to service users (Bager-Charleson, 2018). The
following assignment will make its focus on purpose of reflection by using models of reflection
in health and social care along with the impact of personal as well as professional development
of any person. The focus will also be made on Practise Themes which is used to underpin
reflection in learning and practise, link between Practise Themes and other indicators. Further,
the explanation of methods used to gain evidence of reflective area, portfolio of reflection using
Practise Themes, reviewing own portfolio and the production of targets for the development of
own professional career pathway.
MAIN BODY
P1) Purpose of Reflection in Health and Social Care Practise
Reflection refers to the process by which an individual comes to know about his own
strengths and weaknesses in relation to a specific area. It provides an individual with the chance
to make their self-evaluation so that they could deliver better services in their own area of
specification. So the description of purposes of reflection in health and social care practise is
provided as under:
Increase in Experiences: It is among one of the main purpose of Health and Social Care which
makes an individual to use his/her past experiences in order to take decisions in future and to
make it safer and brighter. With increased experience, the quality of services will also improve.
Provide new Ways of Working: By making comparison in between past and present, it will be
possible for health care practitioners to develop new ways of working on the basis of findings,
weaknesses and strengths to provide with better services to users (Gale and Molla, 2017). It will
be possible to know for an individual to know about their own areas of strengths and weaknesses
so that they could work on strengthening the strengths and reducing the weaknesses of an
individual.
Understanding own values and attitudes: Through reflecting what an individual has done, it
will prove helpful in identifying the attitude and values, because it plays major role in giving out
a desired performance. This would help in turning negative value into positive, that requires to
work professionally in healthcare and other association.
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Recognise the importance to work in a team: By recognising the importance of working a
team-member, a person can contributes more efforts in accomplishment of a task, in set period of
time.
P2) Description of Models and Tools Used for Reflection in Health and Social Care Practise
There are different models and tools which are used for the purpose of reflection such as
Gibbs Reflection Cycle, Atkins and Murphy, Johns Model of Reflection and many other models
could be used for preparing reflections. But with the help of Gibbs Reflection Cycle, it will be
possible to do more deep analysis about the concept, strengths and weaknesses of an individual.
There are different tools which are used in order to make the reflection. These are index cards,
sticky notes, journals/notebooks, handouts/forms and students' heads that are used in order to
make effective reflection. With the help of this reflection cycle, it will be possible to explore
more about own self qualities and dis qualities and the reasons behind good performance and
even bad performance (Hanson and Appleby, 2016). This model is being applied in case of
health and social care at the time providing health care services to the users with the help of
which improvements could be made in the health and well being of an individual. As such, a
health care practitioner could know about his feelings which he came across at the time of
providing health care services to their patients. In addition to this, it will also be possible for him
to know about his own strengths and weaknesses at the time of providing services to their users.
This will help the health care practitioner in order to know about the possible improvements to
be made in the ways of delivering services to their patients. In this way, the following model of
reflection will help health care practitioners in improving their performances.
Gibbs Model of Reflection
Description: This is an account of the care which I provided to an elderly person
admitted into the hospital as he was suffering from a prolonged and serious disease. I decided
that I will keep the patient calm by talking to them in the initial phase.
Feelings: I went through a rush of feelings while doing the care . I felt nervous as he was
an elderly person, then I felt excited as I wanted to perform the care effectively so that the life of
patient could be successfully saved. However, after the execution of care , the patient died and I
felt guilty for not being able to save his life.
Evaluation: I evaluated that the whole experience consisted of positive and negative
things. The positive thing was that I learnt new things about care and gained knowledge about
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how to practically apply the things learnt during internship. Apart from this, what was adverse
about the situation was that I got emotional at the time of failure of care and started cursing
myself for his death.
Analysis: I have analysed that it is important for me to keep my emotional state calm and
composed even in case of failures as they are the stepping stones and lessons to achieve growth
and success in health and social care sector. I should have realised that I tried my best but maybe
the condition of patient was too critical to even be improved after undergoing the operation.
Conclusion: It can be concluded that health and social care sector is an industry
involving a number of risks but the main role of mine hereby should be to ensure care and
welfare of my patients in any of the worst instances.
Action Plan: On the basis of above analysis, it can be said that I will exercise control
over my emotional state while in operation theatre as this would ensure delivery of performance
in a sensible manner without being vulnerable owing to any of the worst situations.
The description of some other models that could be used in case of health and social care practise
are provided as under:
John's Model of Reflection: The following model was introduced by Christopher Johns in the
year 2006. The following model has made its focus on five cue questions which makes it
possible for you to break down your experiences and reflect on the process and outcomes. The
different questions which are answered in the following model are provided as under:
 Describe the experience and what were the significant factors?
 What was I trying to achieve and what are the consequences?
 What things like internal/external/knowledge affected my decision making?
 What other choices did I have and what were those consequences?
 What will change because of this experience and how did I feel about the experience
 How has this experience changed my ways of knowing
Empiric – scientific
Ethics – moral knowledge
Personal – self awareness
Aesthetics – the art of what we do, our own experiences
The following model of reflection could be used in case of health and social care as with
the help of this model, it will be possible for the individual to describe his own experiences with
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the help of which it is possible to know about the areas of strengths and weaknesses of an
individual so that it could become possible for him to make improvement in the areas of
weaknesses and strengthen the areas of good points. This will make it possible for the individual
to improve the level of their services and provide their customers with the best quality services
which will impact positively on their health and well being and provide them with the best
positive results from the services of health care practitioners.
Kolb's Learning Model: The following model has been developed by David Kolb in the year
1984. The author has provided with four stage learning cycles and four separate learning styles.
The four stage of learning cycle has been provided as under:
Concrete Experience - another experience or circumstance is experienced, or a reinterpretation
of existing experience.
Reflective Observation of the New Experience - of specific significance are any irregularities
among experience and comprehension.
Abstract Conceptualization reflection offers ascend to another thought, or an adjustment of a
current dynamic idea (the individual has gained from their experience).
Active Experimentation - the student applies their idea(s) to their general surroundings to
perceive what occurs.
Further the explanation of different learning styles has also been provided as under:
Diverging: These individuals can take a gander at things from alternate points of view. They are
delicate. They want to observe instead of do, tending to assemble data and use creative mind to
take care of issues. They are best at survey solid circumstances from a few distinct perspectives.
Assimilating: The Assimilating learning inclination includes a compact, coherent methodology.
Thoughts and ideas are a higher priority than individuals. These individuals require great clear
clarification as opposed to a viable chance. They exceed expectations at seeing wide-extending
data and sorting out it in a reasonable, consistent organization.
Converging: Individuals with a combining learning style can take care of issues and will utilize
their figuring out how to discover answers for down to earth issues. They lean toward specialized
undertakings, and are less worried about individuals and relational angles. Individuals with a
meeting learning style are best at finding viable uses for thoughts and hypotheses. They can take
care of issues and settle on choices by discovering answers for questions and issues.
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Accommodating: The Accommodating learning style is 'hands-on,' and depends on instinct as
opposed to rationale. These individuals utilize others' investigation, and like to take a down to
earth, experiential methodology. They are pulled in to new difficulties and encounters, and to
doing plans. They ordinarily follow up on 'gut' intuition as opposed to coherent investigation.
Individuals with an obliging learning style will in general depend on others for data than do their
own examination. This learning style is common inside the overall public.
The following model of reflection could also be used in case of health and social care
practise with the help of which it will be possible to make improvement in the overall process of
their working. As with the help of past experiences it will be possible to make evaluation of the
processes which are used and where the issues are going. So with the help of this, it will be
possible to provide the services users with improved quality of services for betterment in their
health and well being.
Rolfe's Model of Reflection: The following model of reflection was presented by Rolfe.
According to this model the focus is made on three different questions with the help of which
reflection is provided and that can be used in order to provide with the group or individual
reflection stages to get learners to think about what they have done and how the things could be
improved for the future was well.
What? Description of the activity or event
What happened?
What did I see/Do?
What was I trying to achieve?
What actions did I take?
So what? Analysis of the event
How did I feel at the time?
What were the effects of what I did (or didn’t do)?
So what could/should I have done to make it better?
What is my new understanding of the situation?
Now what? Proposed actions following the activity
What are the implications of what I have described or analysed?
How can I modify my practice?
What can I learn or develop to move forwards?
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In this way, the tool can be applied in order to make improvement in the overall process
of reflection. As with the help of answering the above provided questions, it will be possible for
the health care practitioners to know about the areas of improvement in their services so that they
could be made according to the needs and preferences of their services users or in the way that
could provide the service users with the best possible service and treatment for the health and
well being of their service users.
Schon Reflective Model: According to this model, there are two different reflections which are
prepared, ons is before and during the event and the other one is prepared after the event or
completion of the activity.
Reflection-in-Action is reflection during the 'doing' arrange (that is, pondering the
occurrence while it can in any case advantage the learning). This is done during the exercise
instead of considering how you would do things another way later on. This is an amazingly
proficient technique for reflection as it enables you to respond and change an occasion at the
time it occurs. For instance, in the study hall you might be showing a point which you can see
the understudies are not understanding. Your appearance in real life enables you to comprehend
why this has occurred and how to react to conquer this circumstance. Reflection-in-Action
enables you to manage amazing occurrences that may occur in a learning domain. It enables you
to be mindful and clever, drawing individually information and enabling you to apply it to new
encounters. It additionally takes into consideration customized learning as, instead of utilizing
assumptions about what you ought to do in a specific circumstance, you choose what works best
around then for that one of a kind encounter and understudy.
Reflection-on-Action, then again, includes considering how practice can be created after
the exercise has been educated. Schön perceives the significance of reflecting back 'so as to find
how our knowing-in real life may have added to a sudden result' (Schön, 1983). Reflection-on-
activity implies you consider after the occasion how your insight into past educating may have
guided you to the experience you had. Reflection-on-activity ought to energize thoughts on what
you have to change for what's to come. You do reflection-on-activity outside the homeroom,
where you consider the circumstance once more. This requires further idea, for instance,
regarding why the understudies didn't comprehend the theme. It urges you to think about causes
and choices, which ought to be educated by a more extensive system of comprehension from
inquire about.
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P3) Use of Practise Themes to Underpin Reflection in Learning and Practise
Every individual is not born with same characteristics and traits, there is a lot of different
in between different people on different basis as in their nature, colour, tastes, preferences and on
many more concepts. These are based on the Practise Themes in which many things are taken
into consideration for proper application and improvement in knowledge. Practise Themes
includes many themes as given below, that will help in improving learning process and
development of personal and professional practise of the individual –
 Disciplined Working theme: The following theme says that an individual must work
disciplined which will help in making his good reputation, timely completion of work,
increase in dedication, motivation and many other benefits for an individual. So it makes
health care practitioners to deliver best possible services to their users.
 Team working theme: By working in team, coordination is established with the help of
which, more improvement in the performances of employees will be possible. The
relationship in between the employees as well as the managers and employees of the
company will also be improved. As coordination will help in developing a helping
environment in the organisation, promoting not only the formal relations in between
employees but also the informal relations as well.
 Communication strategies: The implementation of communication strategies will also
help in proper transfer of messages and information from one person to another which
will reduce the overlapping of work (Horton-Deutsch and Sherwood, 2017). Also, it will
help in reducing the errors and omissions from the work of their employees and will be
able to achieve efficiency in the work they are provided with.
 Equality and diversity: These theme will help an organisation in introducing talented
workforce and gain their high commitment in enhancing the performance of workplace.
Along with this, creating equality in diverse workplace, also helps in retaining workers
for longer period of time.
 Risk management: The achievement of goals and objectives of the organisation will also
be possible with the help of proper implementation of risk practise theme. This would
help in minimising the risk that may impact on business performance adversely.
 Personal development: The Practise Themes are not only important in the professional
life of an individual but also in the personal life as well as it is good for an individual to
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have good feeling for each other so that they could work coordinated and help in the
achievement of goals and objectives which will help in future career growth and
development.
The use of Practise Themes is important at the time of conducting reflection as with the
help of these themes, it will be possible to make the working of an individual or their members in
a coordinated and disciplined way so that they could they could also include basic things in their
improvement process and for the betterment at both the personal and professional level. There is
a link in between practise themes and reflection due to which they are used. With the help of this
it is possible for the health care practitioners to develop some basic knowledge and way of
working in them. So Practise themes are of great importance for both the personal and
professional level of development in an individual.
P4) Link Between Practise Themes and Other Performance Indicators
Key Performance Indicator and Performance Indicator refers to the tool which is used in
order to measure the performance of an individual in comparison to past and present. This will
help in knowing about the degree of improvement and efforts which have been made by an
individual in order to overcome their weaknesses. The use of this tool is not only used to
measure the performance of an organisation but can also be used to measure the performance of
an individual as well. Along with performance of individual, it is also used in order to make the
assessment of an individual as well (Huda and Teh, 2018). Through practising the equality and
diversity at workplace and team working themes, it will aid organisation in bringing talented
workforce and earning their loyalty in enhancing performance of business. In such area, if
workers belong to different background and still work in collaboration, then it shows the good
performance indicator of maintaining positivity at workplace. Similarly, improvement in
workers' skill, enhancement of their performance and high contribution in achievement of
business objectives, shows that the company works on the theme of personal development also.
Due to this reason, it has been said that performance indicators and the Practise Themes
are linked with each other because both of these tools provides the user with the facility to assess
themselves and make improvement in their performances as well for the betterment and
development of their future as well. Applying these performance indicators or Practise Themes
on me, it will be possible for me to know about the difference in between the time taken by the
patients in understanding the time dialogue which I want to communicate with them. The
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services which are provided by the health care practitioners are considered not only in the
performance indicators but as well in the Practise Themes also. The link in between Practise
Themes and Performance Indicators could be defined from the level of control which it provides
and the improvement which it makes in the working of an individual. As the practise themes
provides the individuals with the area of their working, ways of their working and make them to
perform their activities by being in the area of their limits.
P5) Methods Used to Gain Evidence of Effective Reflective Practise in Own Area of Work
Practise
Reflective Practise refers to the methods and techniques with the help of which an
individual or group reflects on their own experiences and actions in order to engage in the
process of continuous learning (Trede and McEwen, 2016). There are different methods with the
help of which it will be possible to have evidences of effective reflective practise in the area in
which an individual in working so that proper understanding of strengths and weaknesses could
be gained by an individual. The evidences of proper information will clear from the outcomes
and improvements that has been made by the individual in its performance. One of the most
important methods is reflective journals which can also be said as reflective journal in which
reflection is made through documenting ideas, feelings, observations and many more so that
focus could be created on thoughts and develop your ideas, develop your voice and gain
confidence, experiment with ideas and asks questions, development of conceptual and analytical
skills (Jackson, 2016). Another method used to gain evidence in effective reflective practise is
with the help of making peer groups and Co-operative Inquiry in which meeting is conducted on
regular basis in order to enhance the learning process and knowledge of individuals or group of
individuals. This also helps in knowing about the improvements which have been made by an
individual in their performances and the improvements which they have to made in their working
to make the delivery of services in better way. Co-operative Inquiry is another method of
reflective practise in order to provide support the reflective practise of participatory researchers.
P6) Portfolio of Evidence of Reflection Using Practise Themes as Framework
Practise Themes Use in Reflection
Disciplined Working The following practise theme is used in reflection as with the
help of this practise theme, it is possible to make improvements
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in many aspects of an individual such as time management,
behaviour, maintaining proper working environment and many
more things which are not only important in professional lives
but also in personal as well (Markauskaite and Goodyear, 2017).
Communication Strategies The importance of this practise theme is also indispensable in
reflection as application of this practise theme has given a lot of
change in my mature and the ways in which I deal with others.
As such the improvement in my tone of speaking with the help
of which patients are now able to speak more and explain in
more good manner their issues and problems with me.
Additionally, there has been much betterment in the
interpersonal relationships in between me and my colleagues.
P7) Improvements made in Personal and Professional Development by Reflection
With the help of implementation of different practise themes in the reflection, it has
become possible for me to make improvement in my personal as well as professional skills. The
application of disciplined working in organisation has become a habit for me which is not
applicable in professional life but is also applicable in the personal life as well. So due to this
reason, the portfolio not only helped in the improvement at professional level but also helps in
creating good habits at personal level as well. Likewise, the implementation of communication
strategies also helped a lot in the improving my tone of speaking which was earlier very rude but
not there is improvements in my speaking styles also. Further, the improvements are also related
to positive mindset, relaxation and many other things with the help of it has been possible to
attain development in career and also the achievements of goals and objectives of future is also
accomplished in a well defined way (Redmond, 2016).
P8) Producing Targets for the Development of Own Professional Career Pathway
Skills Long term\Short term
goal
Objectives Targeted Period
Interpersonal Short term goal The reason behind The targeted period
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