One of the K101 Five Principles of Care Practice Is ‘Support People in Having a Voice and Being Heard’. Why Is It Important for Care Workers to Do This and How Can They Do so?

1339 Words6 Pages
This essay will focus on one of the K101 five key principles of care practice “Support people in having a voice and being heard”; firstly this essay will define the statement “Support people in having a voice and being heard”, secondly I will then explain why it is important for care workers to put this principle into practice, by using Goffman’s “Total institution” and Lennox Castle hospital as comparison and former patient Margaret Scully, (K101 block 2, unit 7), as examples of when voices go unheard and unsupported, then lastly this essay will show how carers can empower service users to have a voice, using research from Howard Mitchell and Lennox Castle. I would define “Support people in having a voice and being heard” as the carer empowering the individual to express their needs and wishes in improving their quality of life and wellbeing. To ensure the individual are being supported, the carer must learn to develop a good supportive relationship with the individual, allowing them to voice their choices and opinions without prejudices, (K101, Unit 4 pg. 184), however in contrast Lennox castle was on the opposite side of the spectrum, the “inmates” voices’ remained unheard for many years, “ …the philosophy of care was much about control, discipline and segregation… the individuals were not treated as individuals or members of wider society, or that they had any choice about their lives.”(K101, DVD Unit 7, Activity 3). Lennox castle was built in the 1920s and took it first “ Inmate” in 1936, the hospital was set up to care for people with “mental defectives”, the patients were put in categories: “ imbeciles”, feeble minded persons” and “moral imbeciles” (Block 2 DVD, unit 7, Activity 3) and lived a very ridged and institutional way of life. Erving Goffman’s model of “Total Institution”, (The reader, Jones and Fowles, 2011, pg. 103-106) could be used to
Open Document