Reflections and Directions Dr Joe Duffy Lecturer in Social Work Queen’s University Belfast 19 January, 2018

Reflections What we know from research about how people want to be treated. The types of challenges that can occur – things to keep in mind. Things to think about to keep making experiences positive.

What makes an experience a good one in health and social care? Staff attitude Good communication skills Information Trust Enthusiasm Genuineness (Duffy et al, 2017) Personal and Public Involvement (PPI) and its impact

What we need to keep in mind? Poor communication skills Absence of respect Lack of empathy Working/organisational culture Need to keep person-centred Pressure of time (Duffy et al, 2017)

Things to think about to keep making experiences positive. We do better when we have choice and a say over our lives. When we have both voice and choice, we relate better with public services. Need to re-connect with principles of ‘kindness’ and ‘friendliness’ as being core to what we do. Interpersonal relationships profoundly affect well-being. A service user’s relationship with a social worker/care worker should start with ‘doing with’. (Brotchie, 2017) What Do Citizens Want? Carnegie Trust. UK

Directions – moving forward Risk averse and rule driven workplaces result in more challenges in connection and personalisation. Organisations therefore have to emphasize relational capacity (Gillinson, 2017). Move from transactional service model to relational enabling model (Carnegie Trust, 2017). Participative person-centred working cultures will have workers also committed to this (Tew, 2006). Good quality supervision.

Life changing “But whenever he began to be able to say, it just changed his life and even his quality of health and everything increased and he just feels people are listening. I suppose it is kind of ironic because he actually feels he has a voice in every sense now” (from Duffy et al, 2017:111)