How is anti-discriminatory practice is promoted in health Essay Example

regular basis to make sure that they are supporting their service users in the correct way. Empowerment is often an element of this as they are able to say what they would prefer regarding to their care. To support them in doing so, workers can look into things further for them and put points across when appropriate. This includes informal and formal discussions and sometimes case conferences, appeal panels and court proceedings when the matter is more serious.

Another element of active promotion of Anti-Discriminatory practice is to provide active support consistent with the beliefs, culture and preferences of the individual. ''Active support encourages individuals to do as much for themselves as possible, to maintain their independence and physical ability and encourages people with disabilities to maximise their own potential and independence. ''

This also means that by providing them with support consistent of their beliefs, culture and preferences, service providers will not treat service users less fairly because they have different views and preferences to themselves. Also, if service providers do not agree with the choice their patient is making due to personal preferences then they should still provide them with that active support and ensure that there patient knows that the support is available to them. Balancing individual rights with rights of others also actively promotes anti-discriminatory practice.

Care workers can balance rights by giving all service users equal opportunities and often compromises are needed to be made. Individual rights refer to the rights of individuals; this must balance out equally with the rights of others. An example of this could be a resident at Peacehaven house with a right to privacy but shares a room

with another resident who continuously invades his space and looks through his things and causes distraction when he is trying to read then he would be breaching the patients right to privacy.

However, the other patients right to be treated equally and have a companion in the home would then be breached if he had to be moved into a different room on his own. Therefore the patient will need appropraite explanations on what is appropriate behaviour regarding privacy and possibly a new set of rules to obide by so that resident A is getting his right to privacy whilst resident B is also getting his right to be treated equally. To stop discrimination, care workers must first identifty and challenge the discrimination.

To identify the discrimination they would need to determine what bases it was on such as racial, sexual etc and ensuring that people are aware of the dangers of discrimination and reporting it to the correct people. To challenge the discrimination could be putting into place certain peoples of legislation to stop discrimination from happening. Regulations such as the race relations act and sex discrimination act protects victims and prevents discrimination from happening as people are then more aware of their actions and consequences of it.

Often conflicts lead to to discrimination so to help put a stop to discrimination, conflicts should be dealt with promptly and appropriately. There are times when workers can find themselves faced with conflicts and arguments, angry service users and even violence from patients; situations like so are difficult but can be overcome when dealt with effectively. The following quote explains how to deal with conflict without more anger being

created and acted upon.

''There are some basic guidelines to follow:

• Remain calm and speak in a firm, quiet vioce
• Make it clear that physical violence is unacceptable
• Make it clear that verbal abuse will not be tolerated
• Listen in turn to both sides of the argument- don't let people interupt each other
• Look for reasonable compromises which involve both parties in winning some points and losing other

Make it clear to both sides that they will have to compromise- that total victory for one or the other is not an option'' (S/NVQ level 2 health and social care by Yvonne Nolan, Alyson Winn)

Similar to 'balancing individuals right with rights of others' , 'supporting individuals to express their needs and preferences' and 'providing active support consistent with the beleifs, culture and values and preferences of the individual'; promoting individuals' rights, choices and wellbeing also focus on over coming discrimination by refering to the serivce users individual choices and rights. If the service user feels that they are having their rights met fully and choices respected then there is much less of a chance of conflict and anger throughout Peacehaven house.

Also if there well being is being promoted then they are assured that they are the service providers main priority. Empowerment is a key part of care need for all health and social care settings including Peace Haven house. By empowering the service user is recognising their right to freedom from discrimination. Empowerment is when the service user feels in contol of their own care; when this doesn't happen they can adapt a low self esteem and feel bullied or discriminated against.

Being able to retain or regain control

over health cares makes a huge contribution to empowering individuals and giving them control over their own lives. Those who are undertaking their own care are taking control of a key aspect of being independent. Care workers can use reflective practice to recognise the service users right to freedom. This is an integral part of health and social care practice and is considered helpful to reflect on health and social care experiences to improve the practice and care in which service users receive.

Therefore , that helps the service provider learn from past experiences and can often be considered as 'thinking things over'. There are many approaches to learning through reflective practice and Donald SCHON- founder of Reflective Practice considered two different times when individuals might use reflective practice. ''Reflect in practice- this is when you are involved in a situation and you have reflected on it at the time. You are thinking on your feet. You have access to a wide range of personal knowledge rapidly...

Reflect on practice- this occurs after the situation has taken place and reflect on it then. You think things over at your leisure and build your own knowledge or understanding'' (www. infed. org/thinkers/et-schon. htm)[2001] An example of reflect in practice in Peacehaven house could be a new carer attempting to hoist a patient into the bath but doesn't know how to do it properly and is failing to complete this task. Therefore she thinks fast and calls for another member of staff to help hoist the patient.

She was reflective in practice because she thought the process through whilst on the job and come up with a way of overcoming the

difficulty. An example of reflecting on practice would be a carer attempting to hoist a patient into the bath but doesn't know how to do it and is failing to complete the task so instead of quickly thinking it through and fetching someone else to help; the carer carries on attempting to carry out the task alone but in the end gives in because she cant physically do it by herself.

So later on, in her own time the carer will sit there and think about the events and how she could have overcome it by asking someone for help and that it could have been successful if she reflected on practice rather than on the practice later on. What reflective practice does is allows all individuals to reflect on what went well, what didn't go so how and how it can be improved in future events.