Supporting People In Social Care (Byte Size Skills Course).

Supporting People In Social Care (Byte Size Skills Course)

This Social Care - Skills Course has been structured so that students can choose exactly the area they need to develop by setting their own learning priorities. These courses can be used by qualified social workers in practice as a source of professional updating, as well as by trainers, lecturers and practice teachers as a source of learning material.

They can also be used by individuals who are eager to learn more about a particular area of Social Work.

The aim of this course is to encourage you to explore the theory and practice of supporting people. This apparently straightforward concept is often taken for granted in social work, but in fact both the meaning and practice of supporting people are complex.

There are many concepts and practices which are sometimes in apparent contradiction but which are fundamental to social work intervention - for example the sometimes conflicting requirement to both care for and exercise control over people who are subject to statutory intervention under the Mental Health Act (1983) or Children Act (1989).

Nonetheless they have to be understood and integrated in order to promote effective practice.

By the end of this unit you will be able to:

• Identify what support means
• Describe three sources of support - personal, community and institutional
• Identify the factors which influence the sources of support people choose
• Explain why some forms of support are stigmatised while others are not
• Explain the social, psychological and practical implications of receiving institutional support
• Understand the potential powerlessness of people receiving institutional support from social work
• Describe how to provide social work support in partnership with service users so as to balance the power in the social work relationship
• Describe three social work methods which can support people without disempowering them.