Understanding Specific Needs in Social Care Practice

Society has created a concept of health which varies with different disability, illness and behaviour in relation to health and social care as individual who are set to believe what has been perceived as the “norm”. A well-known definition of health is given to us buy the world health organisation (WHO). They define health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”. This means that if we don’t possess a disease or weakness this doesn’t conclude that we are not ill. An individual need to be looked upon holistically not just physically. Health is constructed and made up of concepts which help us to come up with ideas to define it. Within the healthcare setting when you are admitted to hospital they are looking at your physical state, they are trying to reach the goal of making the body healthy so that you can be functioning according to society.

Professionals use a model called the bio-medical model, this model looks at how your body is functioning and if there is a presence of disease or if you are showing injury or infections. It purely focuses on biological factors “health constitutes the freedom from disease, pain, or defect, thus making the normal human condition healthy” (medical dictionary) this model of thinking is not beneficial to the service user as it does not look at them holistically. This is essential when treating service users to provide them with decent care we need to look at them holistically. The socio-model is used to look at how your environment and society affect our health and wellbeing. Some of the important factors that can determine ill-health can be an individual’s environment, social class, and poor diet (could add more). “ill health the condition of being unwell”.

As each individual life’s are different as we have different cultures and experiences. The negative concept of health varies from individuals and could be due to those experiences and cultures. If you are a person that regularly visits the hospital or has a disability and your physical and mental needs was not being addressed. This then would affect your perception on health. This can lead you to have a negative concept of health because you are living with a disease or illness or maybe just a disability and you are not receiving the help and understanding of your situation. Research by Baxter found “that when people had a disease they could still consider themselves to be healthy”. This research touches upon the positive concept of health. This concept looks at the fact that if you have a positive concept of health you look at fats like how you eat, if you are exercising enough, what you can do to overcome your barriers, all these aspects lead to having a positive outlook and trying to overcome certain situations. Just because you are in a wheelchair or need daily, this does not mean that you can’t try to do daily tasks that society expects from you. Your outlook on life becomes a different reality to someone that has a negative concept of health.

These models help to explain why health inequalities exist and are persistent this can be due to people’s behaviour. Some examples are smoking, poor diet and excessive alcohol consumption. If users of health and social care services was to change their behaviours and become more healthier and make good personal decisions ill-health could be greatly reduced. (quote backup behaviour)when an individual suffers from illness society see it in a negative way, they are seen as deviant as they are not fulfilling their daily roles. When you find yourself in this situation it is expected of you to visit your local healthcare centre to get treatment so that you can go back to your role within society and not be defiant. Parsons a sociologist created a role that we use when in ill-health it has been named as parson sick role “a functional role adopted by those who are sick and which their peers and society accept their sanctioned deviance from their usual roles” he further explains that they have two rights. They are not responsible for their sickness and are exempt from their normal roles but they do have to try to get better and if this does not work they have to seek medical care and listen to the doctors instructions. I believe that the sick role however partly does not apply to people with disabilities as how society is now they are not seen to have to take on roles within society as they have been labelled as having a “Disability” (quote who defines a learning disability as a state of arrested or incomplete development of the mind” find quote in notes)Users of health and social care services have been put under categories so that society is able to know how they should be treated this is a known part of social construction. Social constructionism is “concerned with explicating the processes by which people come to describe, explain, or otherwise account for the world (including themselves in which they live”.

Social construction relates to individuals’ realities and what our experiences and inaction with others help to shape our view on reality. As a user of a healthcare service and you have a learning disability your reality can be very different to a person that society see as normal when you are being treated. Social construction can be directed intentionally when treating patients with a disability, for example I you have a learning disability which could be that you have a mindset of a child when being treated at hospital staff could assume that you are not able to comprehend the treatment of procedure of your treatment, this then could lead to the staff member directly aiming their questions at your parent or carer. Social constructionism handout “as people we construct our own and each other’s identity through everyday encounters with each other in social interaction”. This backs up the theory that our experiences and interaction with these users with disabilities have been that they were unaware of understanding their rights and procedures which makes you automatically treat them this way. All service users therefore need to be treated as individuals no matter what category they reside in.

Social constructionism plays a part on how all of society is viewed it has two parts firstly is the social process this is how government puts in place laws and policies so that society knows how to categorise people and know how to treat them. The second part is social action this occurs due to the laws and policies and also labelling we form discrimination, stereotyping, and segregation. This occurs quite regularly with people with a disability or illness. This is due to the views of others, and our own experiences, interactions plus labelling and putting people in categories, also how society see these people opinions are formed accordingly. This is the negative side of social action. On the positive side of this process we then can consider that a person’s individual needs and see how we can use those policies and legislations to safeguard or provide services to the user. He broke down social construction into two other parts. Taken for granted knowledge, this happens on a daily basis. This concept shows us that we take for granted simple knowledge that others are not able to do. We need to understand that people who use the healthcare system may have some of that knowledge taken away. this needs to be considered when dealing with service users as their behaviours could be challenging, as it can be frustrating when you need something from a nurse and you are unable to communicate these needs. Behaviours in individuals vary but they can be self-harm, spitting, and shouting. When addressing these issues a holistic view is needed to overcome the issue. When the nature of the issue is found it is essential to adapt the service to the specific need.

All individuals in society come from different cultures, these cultures determine a person’s attitude and behaviour. As different religions vary for example a Muslim lady would not be able to be treated by a man as it is against their culture. This would mean adapting your approach. Also disabilities in some cultures are seen negatively they were rejected and in some others they were outcasts. When you are aware of these factors it is vital to educate about the disability. These views are formed most times from, elders within the family who have learnt from past generations. “throughout Africa persons with disabilities are seen as hopeless and helpless.

In Britain our attitudes towards individuals with a disability or infirmity was extremely negative. In the 1800’s the industrial revolution led to a vast amount of people migrating to cities. This caused a huge change on how communities lived. If you were unable to work due to age or infirmity you were seen as a burden upon society. This caused a political response due to the social pressure. This then introduced the poor law 1834 and they began building asylums. This was the start of institutionalisation. The asylums were supposed to help improve conditions for residents, but they became harsh and inmates were not valued as people, the asylums became overcrowded and as attitudes in society changed in this time conditions worsened. The asylums were supposed to help improve conditions for residents, but they became harsh and inmates were not valued as people, the asylums became overcrowded and as attitudes in society changed conditions worsened. Residents was regarded as dangerous and was draining society. A movement named the eugenics movement was founded in 1903 their core ideas stemmed from evolution which was based on a theory by Charles Darwin. They believed in a pure race, which was free from disability, Mencap explains disability as “contamination of the national gene pool”.

In 1913 in Britain the mental deficiency act came in which also had a negative attitude towards individuals with disability or anyone that fell into the category of Moral imbeciles, feeble-minded people and idiots to be put in the social process of institutionalisation “a person who is a defective may be dealt with under this act by being sent to or placed in an institution for defectives or placed under guardianship” Mental deficiency act (1913) under this law your rights where taken not just by the government but by your guardian or parent.

In the 1930s the IQ was introduced. If you score low on the test you was labelled as mentally defective and you are ineducable. Once the national health service was introduced asylums started slowly evolving into hospitals this saw society seeing people with specific needs with more sympathy and the aim became to treat them. They were still separated from society and their care slightly became better. Further on the care aspect became more stronger and in 1859 the mental health act gave us the view that some individuals within the system do not need to be cared for. This then eventually brought along the concept of normalisation. This concept helped users because the aim was to make available to people with specific needs a life where it was as close as possible to everyday living within their community. This concept was extended by Wolfensberger and Thomas in the 1970’s which came to evaluating human services and human relations, it was a set of approaches created to enable devalued people within society to experience what they believed to be the “good life” these approaches was generally used persons that believed to devalue someone is incorrect. These approaches was called social role valorisation “the application of what science can tell us about the enablement, establishment, enhancement, maintenance of valued social roles for people” this way of thinking wanted people with specific needs to be given a chance to have a social role and to be a part of their community and neighbourhood, this meant that service users would be integrated into society. The community care act 1990 backed up the idea of social role valorisation as it recognised that disabled people should be an equal part of society with total access to support. Such as access to services, adaptions to the home, home helps, and meals.

These laws and policies gave us the foundation of changing perceptions and indeed did give people with specific needs rights but people in this category to the present day are still denied things society takes for granted such as the chance to work. When tony Blair was in government it was decided that patients should be considered when choosing about care and treatment. “it stated that by 2005 all patients would be able to choose where they are treated whether this be local NHS hospital, the new diagnostic and treatment centres, private hospitals, or even hospitals abroad this allowed users to access services that they before where unable to access. The human rights act 1998 agreed with this concept “the act was expected to strengthen claims regarding access to services or the quality of care received. The human rights act touches upon discrimination which enforces the law that service users have rights to services regardless of sex, race, religion, political etc. “the enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in this convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground.

Societies and their cultures had to be considered due to these laws and legislations as they were varied. With different cultures services need to be adapted to the individual’s culture. Some cultures depending on how strong their beliefs are do not allow their women to be treated by males, so under the law they cannot be discriminated by the service it needs to be adapted for them. Although the government has put laws and legislations in place to promote equality. We live in a society with different cultures and ethnicities. Therefore we cannot all be treated the same. Our ethnicities and cultures need to be considered when making available services. When treating people the same it can breed racism and inequality for example while in hospital when providing nutrition a service provider may thing they are providing equality by providing everyone with the same foods. But some individuals may have specific needs, such as non-eating of pork, such as the culture of Rastafarian. Laws and legislations aim to eradicate inequality from society when making available services.

Society and the government have created a foundation for society to use to tackle the issues raised with availability of services for users “traditionally patient, service users and carers have been the passive actors in the health care system they have actively tried to encourage users to be actively involved. Services needed to work alongside each other to discover their preferences and values necessary to maintain a service that is equal and promotes access to view no matter what category they fall into.