Benefits of the Holistic Approach to Care

Zekiye Hamit

M1: Review the benefits to the individuals and professional staff of taking a holistic approach to planning support.

D1: Analyse reasons for working with professionals from more than one agency when planning support for individuals

Introduction

In this assignment, I will interview a health and social care professional practitioner to review the benefits to service users and practitioners of taking a holistic approach to planning support. I will create ten questions to ask the professional practitioner and evaluate her answers by providing the strengths and weaknesses of their responses. In addition, in this assignment, I will examine in depth the reasons for working in a multi-disciplinary team when planning support for service users. I interviewed 42 year old Lisa who is a manager at star primary school.

Interview Questions:

1. What types of service do you offer to service users?

As an early years practitioner I work with children from the ages of three to five. I plan, prepare and carry out activities that meet the requirements of the early years foundation stage (EYFS). Essentially this consists of developing work schemes and lesson plans to encourage and inspire young children, while using resources and techniques to aid a stimulating environment. I help to enhance young children’s physical, intellectual, emotional and social development according to age appropriate milestones, while also providing a secure environment for young children to learn and develop. I build and maintain relationships with children and their families as well as working an in multi-disciplinary team to ensure the needs of each individual’s child are met. Lastly, I record independent observations of each child’s progress and reaching of particular millstones, in which enables me to communicate this with families of their child’s progress.

2. How long have you been a health and social care practitioner?

I have an early year’s practitioner for the past 11 years and have been promoted to the manager’s role for the past 6 years.

3. What responsibilities do you have?

As an early years practitioner my day to day responsibilities entail;

• inspiring and stimulating children’s learning skills
• providing pastoral care and support to young children and providing them with a safe environment to learn and develop
• developing and producing visual aids and teaching resources
• organising learning materials and resources and making imaginative use of resources
• supporting with the development of children’s personal/social and language abilities
• encouraging children’s skills and intellectual development through stories, songs, games, drawing, imaginative play etc
• developing children’s curiosity and knowledge
• working with others practitioners to plan and coordinate work both indoors and outdoors
• sharing knowledge with other professionals and children’s families
• observing, assessing and recording each child’s progress
• attending in-service training
• making sure the health and safety of children and staff is maintained throughout activities, both inside and outside the setting through risk assessments
• keeping up to date with any changes in the curriculum and developments in early years practices

4. How do you define holistic care?

Essentially the holistic concept considers the whole person rather than just aspects for example, physical development. The different aspects that need to be considered include; physical, intellectual, emotional, social, cultural and spiritual.

5. Do you use the holistic approach?

As a manager I must ensure that I reinforce to the staff within the setting, the importance of providing holistic care to meet individual children’s needs. As regular staff meetings take place, we discuss a child’s case and ensure that we consider all aspects that can affect a child. These elements are; physical, intellectual, emotional, social, cultural and spiritual. Using the holistic approach to meet children’s individual needs enables service users to feel positive about the services offered and enables practitioners to fulfil their job role effectively.

6. How do you apply this approach to your services?

The planning of daily schedules is differentiated to meet the needs of all children. Early years care workers are highly likely to operate a key worker system in which each member of staff being responsible for a certain number of children or individual. These duties include taking notes specifically about the child/children and communicate these parents/family members and to add to the records. In addition, early year’s staff may use a wide range of activities to encourage learning and development. These activities are based on the government requirements which meet the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) of the National Curriculum, they include different themes to develop all stages of development which are physical, intellectual, emotional and social and link these to expected age milestones. Creative activities/themes encourage acquisition of knowledge and skills of children.

7. What are the benefits of using the holistic approach?

When professional staffs apply the holistic approach to their daily practice, there are a number of benefits. The holistic approach enables practitioners to understand and meet the requirements of service users, as they consider all elements of one’s health (physical, intellectual, emotional, social, cultural and spiritual). As a result, they will analyse care plans more efficiently. Practitioners will ask service users to develop their concerns, to enhance their understanding and meet their needs holistically as well as have a relationship based on trust. By practitioners having an understanding and having recognition of the holistic approach enables practitioners to put into practice and meet service user’s needs holistically. As a consequence, this promotes holistic care, reinforces that individuals differentiate from one another, reinforces and promotes laws, policies and codes of practice, enables staff to apply the care value base and provide effective outcomes within their practice. Moreover, practitioners fulfil their job role by, meeting the requirements of the curriculum, laws, polices and codes of practice, developing their personal knowledge and skills (effective communication and team work skills), have a positive influence on service users growth and development. Having years of experience enables practitioners to feel more confident and comfortable when delivering services and helps them to develop and maintain good relationships with service user’s based on trust.

When professional staffs apply the holistic approach to their daily practice, there are many benefits to the service users. By professional practitioners applying the holistic approach to their interaction with service users, an outcome service user’s feel empowered to make decisions as they feel they are being listened to. Therefore, close relationships based on trust and a general interest is developed between practitioners and service users, in which service users feel less vulnerable. Service users receive individualised care, have their needs met holistically, children will develop speech, language as well as the main developmental areas (physical, intellectual, emotional and social milestones). Furthermore, service users are more likely to have a positive experience when accessing the service provided, if a positive relationships is developed with the staff service users will feel more comfortable as they are in ‘experienced hands’. Also, service users feel more confident about asking for support if they feel that they will receive support in a non-judgmental and productive way. When service users receive holistic care, they have access to many opportunities and recourses available, which all contribute to developing their identity and individuality and results in a faster recovery as their individual needs are met holistically.

8. How do you define a multi-disciplinary team?

Multi-disciplinary teams refer to a number of professional practitioners from different agencies combining their skills and expertise to meet the needs of a service user. For example, early years practitioners may work with a speech therapist who treats speech defects and disorders, if I child is experiencing these symptoms within the nursery setting.

9. How does working in a multidisciplinary team benefit service users?

Professional practitioners combine their skills and expertise to meet the needs of service users, when service users require special needs or is experiencing difficulties, they will need to work with external agencies. For example, early years practitioners may work with a speech therapist who treats speech defects and disorders, if I child is experiencing these symptoms within the early years setting.

10. What are the benefits for professional staff of using different professionals when providing holistic care to service users?

There are a number of reasons for working with other professionals from more than one agency when planning support for service users. Essentially, the implementation of legislations and policies have increased and promoted multi-disciplinary teams within health and social care organisations. The aim of these laws and policies were to break down barriers faced within working practices. Statistics suggest that working in teams have decreased the overall stress than individuals working alone. Also, health and social care practitioners are less likely to leave their job, as they are supported by other professional staff within their team and essentially motivate them. Working in teams prevents duplication of roles and conflict of duties, as team work allows and promotes effective communication and in conciliation of effective job roles. Multi-disciplinary teams provide effective social support for all professional staff within the team, as they have the ability to support each other practically and emotionally during stressful and complex periods. Furthermore, multi-disciplinary teams enhance co-operation within the health and social care practices. As a result this promotes positive attitudes and co-operation when interacting with other staff and service users. Teams can safeguard professionals from negative effects that may occur in their working practice. When multi-disciplinary teams consist of diverse professional practitioners, this enhances the different views from each team member, that are required to be discussed and results in effective decisions to be taken to support service users needs at a higher quality. Multi-disciplinary teams that have clear aims, objectives, high levels of involvement, stresses on quality and support for alteration, give high quality patient care. Essentially, teams establish innovations when providing patient care. The feature of meetings, communication and combination processes within health care teams, adds to the beginning of new and enhanced methods of providing patient care. Clear leadership i.e. managers role within teams add to effective team processes, to effective quality patient care, and to innovation.

Conclusion

Within health and social care there are a number of advantages and disadvantages to both professional practitioners and service users when taking a holistic approach to planning support. It is vital that health and social care practitioners are aware of the disadvantages and try their best to reduce these. This will ensure that both the practitioners feel positive about the service they offer and the service users feel positive about the service they have accessed. Furthermore, the reasons that I have analysed within this assignment therefore recognise and promote the benefits of working with a number of professionals from different agencies to support service users. Health and social care practices consist of health care teams to ensure the contribution to effectiveness and innovation and their daily practice delivery and add to the each members of the team’s well-being in a positive way.

Bibliography

Health and Social Care Book 1 BTEC National LEVEL 3 Series Editors: Beryl Stretch and Mary Whitehouse (Published 2010) Unit 9 Values and Planning in Social Care (pages 1-11)

PDF Team working and effectiveness in Health Care [Online]

http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/jeanc/DOH-glossy-brochure.pdf [Accessed: 1st December 2014]

CommunityCare Inspiring excellence in social care (2008) Multidisciplinary teams [Online]

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2008/06/19/multidisciplinary-teams/ [Accessed: 1st December 2014]

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