Domestic Violence Essays (1641 words) - Abuse, Crimes,

Domestic Violence For my psychology paper I chose to do Service Learning. I volunteered 20 hours at the Benton County Womens Shelter. I enjoyed the time that I served there. They really made me feel needed and welcome. I decided, however, that I would not be capable of a career in this field. Just in the small amount of time that I volunteered there my heart wrenched for the girls there. I felt helpless to do more for them. And yes, I even felt sorry for them. That is not to say that I am not going to continuing volunteering. I have arranged with the organization to volunteer two Saturdays a month. Perhaps it is me that is weak. I suppose to some degree we are all weak. But the women I encountered there had the confidence of a child just beginning to walk: determined, but shaky. I couldnt watch the inner conflict and pain these women endure on a daily basis. I have gained a respect and admiration for those who can. However, my chosen field of study is Public Relations and it is my hope to someday gain a position at a charitable organization and become a spokeswoman for a greater cause. The Benton County Womens Shelter is a non-profit organization, a corporation with an overall purpose to work towards alleviating the problems of family violence. They provide shelter, counseling and financial assistances to women in an effort to instill a sense of self-purpose and self-esteem. I learned within my first hours of service what a benefit this service is to the women there. Without it, several would have no where to go. However, through my volunteer work, I seemed to see the same pattern repeat itself over and over. The women had little or no self-esteem. Most came from poverty situations. All of the women I encountered had children. All seemed unsure of their ability to support themselves and their children. Alcohol reappeared over and over again. Aggression problems surfaced in both the women and their children. Mostly, all just seemed lost and were searching for a source of comfort and security. That is what we do at the Benton County Womens Shelter. We give the women a sense of self-worth. We teach them how to beat the cycle of abuse. Domestic abuse in the United States is a large-scale and complex social and health problem. The family is perhaps the most violent group, with the home being the most violent American institution or setting today. Sadly enough, the majority of people who are murdered are not likely killed by a stranger during a hold-up or similar crime but are killed by someone they know. In one out of every six marriages, the wife is physically Fields 2 abused. Every fifteen seconds a women is battered in the United States. Daily, four American women lose their lives to their husbands or boyfriends, equaling more than one-third of all female homicide victims. These numbers report that too much violence is directed toward women. Violent families are easy to describe but difficult to explain. Research on family abuse has, on a consistent basis, found that the phenomenon is associated with intergenerational transmission, low socioeconomic status, social and structural stress, social isolation, and personality problems or psychopathology. Traditional theories on the causes of domestic abuse focus on such factors as peoples individual characteristics and life experiences, including the presence of problems such as social and structural stress, social alienation, unemployment, poverty, substance abuse, past child abuse, personality disorders, psychopathology, and depression. While domestic abuse can be studied through mental lenses that are psychological or sociological in nature, it is important also to examine this issue from a medical/public health perspective. While many theories have been proposed to explain the causes of family abuse, one of the most useful has been the social learning theory (Wade and Tavr is, 285-289). It has been proposed that learning be composed of both a modeling component and reciprocal influence. The latter suggests that we can shape our futures by influencing our environments. In explaining how social learning theory explains family abuse, psychologist OLeary (Wekesser and Swisher, 1994, 232) analyzed the effects of modeling on behavior, the role of stress,

Words for Winter Sports in Spanish

Words for Winter Sports in Spanish Most Spanish-speaking countries arent known for the winter sports, even though some of the worlds best skiing, even if less developed than elsewhere, can be found in some of them. As a result, many of the Spanish words for winter sports have been imported, so if youre ever skiing in the Andes of South America or in the Pyrenees of Spain, dont be surprised to hear statements or phrases like hacemos snowboard and el halfpipe. Such linguistic adaptations shouldnt be surprising. After all, English words such as ski and slalom come from Norwegian. Importing from other languages is one of the most common ways for a languages to grow, and Spanish is no exception. Pronunciation of imported words generally more or less follows that of the originating language with some variations. For example, the h of hockey may not be silent, and the word may end up sounding something like the English hokey. Here are the Spanish words for some of the most common winter and snow sports such as those you would find at the Winter Olympics: biathlon - biatlà ³n bobsleigh - bobsleigh cross-country skiing - esquà ­ de fondo, esquà ­ nà ³rdico curling - curling downhill skiing - esquà ­ alpino figure skating - patinaje artà ­stico (sobre hielo) (a skate is un patà ­n)hockey - hockey (sobre hielo) luge - luge short-track skating - patinaje en pista corta, patinaje short-track skeleton - skeleton, esquà ©leton skiing - esquiar (a ski is un esquà ­)ski jump - salto de esquà ­ slalom - eslalon snowboarding - snowboard, surfear en nieve, surf blanco (a snowboard is un snowboard, una plancha para nieve or una tabla para nieve)speed skating - patinaje de velà ³cidad (sobre hielo)

Natchez Indian Culture Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Natchez Indian Culture - Research Paper Example The many traditional rituals of the Natchez people are considered â€Å"primitive and brutal† and like many other Indian tribes, the Natchez people were sun worshippers, who held on strongly to the belief that their chiefs were descended from the sun. The Natchez lived in about 6-9 villages spoke their native Natchez language, a language that has been long lost. The inhabited area of the Natchez was sought after to be colonized by the English, Spanish and the French. Research pleaded that a total of four wars broke out between the Natchez and the French between 1716 and 1729. The first three appropriately termed, first, second and third Natchez war whilst the fourth one was called the Natchez Rebellion of 1729. The Natchez Rebellion was caused by French Commander Sieur de Chepart’s order to the villagers from the White Apple Natchez Village to vacate the land so he may use it as a tobacco plantation. Presently, surviving Natchez families and communities can be found dis persed in Oklahoma and the Appalachian mountains. Natchez Indian Culture The Natchez Indians were amongst the last of the Native American populous to make a home on Mississippi’s southwestern borders (Barnett, 2007). ... This â€Å"Sun† lives across from the temple, in a big adobe constructed house atop a platform mound, which the Natchez people are famous for constructing. Living close to him, is the single most important person in his life; his Principle Advisor-his mother. She is referred to as a white woman in the Natchez culture, she dwells close to the â€Å"The Great Sun† with her other children. This â€Å"family†, is considered the highest class in the Natchez Society. Nonetheless, despite being an indigenous tribe, the Natchez Indians share distinct similarities to the southeastern Indian tribes, such as being separated into two moieties as they call it. Moitie is the French word which means â€Å"half†. Moieties provide marriage partners for each other as well as other support services. Like today’s societal classing, one moiety of the Natchez tribe is considered superior or of a more established ranking than the other moiety. The Natchez were known for t heir mass cultivation of agriculture which was their main livelihood, but they also excelled at architecture and pottery, which seem to be the basics behind their mound building. â€Å"Mounds† are erected from dirt which acts as a base for their temples and other dwellings. To augment such skillfulness, they also wove textile fabrics from the inner barks of mulberry which they used for clothing. Authors Orin Lewis and Laura Redish (1998) described the dress code of the men as breechcloths and leggings. The breechcloth is a piece of cloth made of deer skin, cloth or fur which is worn between the legs that is tucked over a belt. It doesn’t cover the legs so the men wore leggings made from buckskin or soft leather, whilst the women wore wrap skirts made from

The Great Gatsby Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 3

The Great Gatsby - Essay Example S. Eliot in his Four Quartets. In Burnt Norton, he says This very vividly brings out time as an amorphous mass with no real future or past. It all seems to exist in one place and seems to suggest that it is also memory he is talking about, for where else in real life does all time exist in one place except in the human mind These lines from Little Gidding, bring a new dimension to the concept of circularity of time. It says quite clearly that one can only truly understand when one has come full circle. This dimension is not evident in The Great Gatsby. In the novel though past and present are irrevocably entangled, there is a quality that makes one think we are trying to escape from the past but cannot, especially in the last lines. However, Eliot seems to consider the pull of past on us as something that helps us to understand ourselves and the future more completely. The idea that the past and future are inseparable is brought out clearly in Nick's comparison of the Dutch sailors and Gatsby's vision of a new life. Here too, the idea of rediscovering oneself re asserts itself. The experience of the Dutch sailors on landing on the Long Island beach for the first time clearly seems to be one of wonder and is filled with a sense of incredible adventure. They had discovered a completely new, untouched virgin country; ".fresh, green breast of the new world." The discovery is accompanied by a sense of excitement and the promise of new and undiscovered adventure, as is evidenced by Fitzgeralds use of subtle but definite language. He describes the moment with tenderness, bringing out the overwhelming sense of wonder in their landing, with terms like "transitory enchanted moment" and his description of the greatness of their dreams for the future. The experience is unique because of the sheer newness of the discovery. The sailors had come across an entirely unexplored and unknown territory. Everything here was to be discovered and shaped by them, they had a sense of power and the headiness of it is evident in the language. The paragraphs vibrate with it despite the restrained language. This was not simply a new area; it was a new life and world, something of theirs and theirs alone. It was an experience of hope and was forward looking. Gatsby's experience on first identifying the light that swung outside Daisy's home must have been, according to Nick, a similar experience in terms of the wonder it created in him. He must have felt the same sense of discovery and also one of hope for the future; "I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it." However, this experience is both similar to and widely different from the one

Esl 423 3 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Esl 423 3 - Essay Example The differentiated instruction approach is particularly suited to English language teaching because the students in these classes are more likely to have mixed abilities. It is a balance between having individualized instruction for each and every student and maintaining high standards that can be applied for all of them. To aid the teacher in this role, standards provide the framework in which to create differentiated instruction. The disadvantages of standards-based instruction are that they can lead to a restricted curriculum and place undue pressure on the schools to ensure that they perform up to the expected standards if not better. If handled properly, this makes them much more focused on high expectations and creating the right motivation to tailor instruction towards maintaining those standards. Greater coordination coupled with efforts to uphold high student expectations thus automatically puts the needs of the learner at the centre of attention. In short, the standards based system is geared towards meeting the needs of the learner. Standards based instruction is an attempt to base the instruction given to students on defined standards, as well as the resources and opportunities needed. This includes standards set for English language learning. Standards on what students ought to know and be able to do at each stage of their education are then maintained by testing these. And, schools are held responsible for ensuring satisfactory student achievement. The express purpose of standards-based instruction is to improve students’ academic performance, raise their expectations and the quality of education in the US. In raising their expectations, students are motivated to become more rigorous in their work and feel challenged at each stage in order to keep progressing to higher levels of achievement. The main incentive for establishing such standards is to enable equal opportunities for all students regardless of their

Skills Gained In Social Care Social Work Essay

Skills Gained In Social Care Social Work Essay A significant learning experience is one in which the student has acquired knowledge and/or skills or where the experience has informed or shaped the students social care values and beliefs. Throughout the course of my placement there have been many cases upon which I have experienced significant learning. These include conversations with both staff and service users, as well as sitting in on various meetings and programs. The main learning experience I enjoyed was in relation to Personal Centred Planning folders or PCPs. Personal Centred Planning is a way of discovering how a person wants to live their life and what is required to make that possible (NDA, 2005). Personal Centred Planning primarily focuses on the person as opposed to a disability. It is about the whole person and their life, not just their disability. Personal Centred Planning is not an assessment of service users. PCPs are, an extremely effective method of helping service users meet their goals in life and also, for keeping track of their basic daily activities. It was a very interesting and useful method to learn how to use. Person centred planning is based on shared action, about finding creative solutions rather than categorising people and about problem solving and working hard over time to achieve goals. Its about changing a persons life (Sanderson 2000). PCPs seek to craft a vision for a persons life in which they can play an active role in their local community or any organisation of their choice. It also describes the action necessary to make this vision come through (McGinn Cassidy, 2006). This is accomplished through some basic stages. Firstly you must discover, understand and then address the core issues for the individual involved. Secondly you must explore choices available to the individual before you then alert and involve the individuals entire social network. A balance must then be reached between what is important for the individual and what is important for their social network. Ideally, the individuals goals for themselves are the ones most focused on and not the goals that the individuals friends and family have for them (McGinn Cassidy, 2006). There are six key principles that underpin person centred planning. These are that PCPs are an individuals perspective, creative approach to planning, uses all the resources available to the person, requires serious and genuine commitment, an art and not a science and that the development of the plan is not the objective. There are also several advantages to using Person Centred Planning. Some of these are that it sets out important goals for the future, provides a forum to make choices, it provides encouragement and support and may be viewed as a lifelong process and support (McGinn Cassidy, 2006). Person Centred Planning is based on completely different way of seeing and working with people which is fundamentally about sharing power and community inclusion (Sanderson, 2000). A good caring service mobilises all its resources to assist people with disabilities to increase control over their lives. They also set goals that are personally meaningful and express personal preferences. They offer guidance to the individual. It is only through organisations like this that the PCPs are a success (McGinn Cassidy, 2006). There are many issues to be considered when supporting people who have difficulty in making choices. Some of these issues are if you take a different perspective than that of the person, if you develop a different understanding of the person and risk assessments must be carried out. The service user also requires certain support and assistance from the PCP process. Some of these include interpreting the environment, understanding other peoples expectations and conditions for cooperation and to figure out satisfying ways to pursue what they want (McGinn Cassidy, 2006). Person Centred Planning has one plan per person. The service users key worker drives the process. The first step the key worker must take is to get to know the person. This includes getting to know their personal history, family, friends, health, hobbies and other personal details. You must talk to the person in order to gather this information. You must observe them in their natural environment too in order to get your own vision of the persons personality. A good way to add to this vision is to speak to the persons family and friends to get other opinions of the service users personality and goals in life. Finally reviewing previous documentation on the service user will give you other opinions on the service user, this time from a professional view (McGinn Cassidy, 2006). The second step is to discuss the persons own goals and dreams for the future with them. This involves sitting down with the service user in what they feel is a safe environment, so that they can reveal their dreams to you without feeling threatened or embarrassed about them. You then document the service users goals in their PCP file and move onto step three which is to plan a meeting. The meeting is entirely the service users choice. They get to decide who attends, where it is, when it is and what exactly will be discussed. It is simply our job to facilitate them by giving them any help or support they might need. The meeting itself is then step four. In the company of the service user and whoever they had wished to have at the meeting you work out what has to done is the coming weeks and months to achieve the service users targets. The fifth and final step is to implement everything that had gone before. It is now that the staff starts working on achieving the agreed goals. Any progress gained should be recorded in a progress plan form. A review sheet must also be completed at the end of each month and at the six month review meeting (McGinn Cassidy, 2006). The staff involved in the Person Centred Planning process, play a crucial role and have extremely important responsibilities in ensuring the process is a success. Person centred planning requires that staff adopt a flexible and responsive approach to meeting peoples changing needs and circumstances, guided by general principles of good practice rather than standard procedures (Sanderson, 2000). It is important that the staff do not underestimate the scale of the task and should allow sufficient time for it to be completed. Initially the process involves identifying people who are likely to support the idea and then, running some information and basic training sessions for everyone likely to be directly involved, impacted or called upon for support (McGinn, 2006). The unit manager also plays an important role in the Person Centred Planning process. Managers have a significant role to play in enabling staff teams to adopt a person centred approach (Sanderson, 2000). Sanderson advocates that managers extend the principles of person centred planning to their staff teams, in order to develop what she describes as person centred teams (McGinn, 2006). There are characteristics that a person centred team leader needs in order to be successful. Some of these include being able to bring the best out in people, having a clear vision and direction, encouraging personal involvement with the people being supported and investing in community connections (Sanderson, 2003). The leader of this process needs to develop a very clear understanding of the key principles and processes of Person Centred Planning (McGinn, 2006). The leader must ensure that staff work together as a team and not as individuals which will only drag the process in different directions, accomplishing nothing. They must ensure that there is good, ongoing communication at individual plan level. It is also their job to maintain and update plans over time or assign somebody the role of doing so. At a more general level, it is important to establish a routine process of monitoring, evaluating reviewing and developing the way person centred planning is being done, so as to ensure it is having a positive effect on lives and services. Every effort should be made to ensure that the role and responsibilities of every individual, group and organisation participating in the person centred planning process is clearly understood and agreed by them and adequately supported (McGinn, 2006). Success will be achieved will the Person Centred Plan if the staff team ensure that the needs of the service user are met to the greatest extent possible, consistent with their responsibility to assess risks involved and ensure that they are acceptable and considered. It is also necessary that they build a closer relationship with the service user in order to become more acutely aware of their needs and wishes. The staff team must ensure that all risks are identified and action is taken to minimise them. They must seek to maximise opportunities for the service users self development, self esteem and independence in order to realise their fullest potential (McGinn, 2006). Finally the role of the Key worker is crucial to the success of the Person Centred Plan. The Key workers objectives are to develop a close and positive relationship with the service user. They must also work co-operatively with other staff, family, external services/professionals etc, on the service users behalf to ensure that a quality service is provided. The Key workers team role is to enable the team to effectively support the service user. To do this the Key worker must listen to others, respect and support team members, maintain commitment and communicate effectively. The Key worker enables the service user to advocate for themselves, develop new skills and build enjoyable relationships with others (McGinn, 2006). There are of course challenges to implementing Person Centred Planning. The need for everyone to develop a new perspective on people with disabilities is defiantly one of the larger ones. For a goal like that to be reached it will take a global effort and one that is not easily achieved. Other challenges include the need for a new general perspective on services, resistance to change and risks and learning curves (McGinn, 2006). All of this was being carried out on a constant basis in RehabCare Cavan while I was there. Sitting in on meetings between the key workers and the service users was an eye opening experience. It also really stood out to me just how much Unconditional Positive Regard is used in services and why it is so crucially important in a programme such as Person Centred Planning. Without it the programme would be a complete failure. The entire PCP programme worked well while I was on my placement. It was being managed very sufficiently and all staff members had an excellent relationship with each other. I personally felt that I helped the staff to show unconditional positive regard towards the service users when they were finding it tough. Most importantly I have learned and witnessed just how positive an impact the PCP programme can have on the service users when managed properly. Seeing the delight on service users faces when they achieved goals which would have been impossible without Person Centred Plans made me realise how much they need the programme and educated social care workers to manage it for them. Critical Reflective Paper My twelve week placement in RehabCare Cavan provided me with sufficient opportunities for learning and to enhance my social care knowledge, skills and values. Throughout the duration of my placement I enjoyed the experience of working with a vast variety of service users most of whom had disabilities and problems that were completely unique to themselves within the centre. I also had the chance to compare my skills as a social care worker with a number of people from different occupations including social care workers, community nurses and psychologists. They all both worked together as a team and then as individuals. Overall my placement in RehabCare Cavan was an immensely enjoyable and positive experience. There were however, a number of difficulties to deal with along the way. These included challenging behaviours from the service users and limitations from the staff. Altogether though, I believe my placement would not have been as educational had it not been for the combination o f positive and negative factors. The part of my placement which I feel most facilitated my learning was working with the inter-disciplinary team. This team consists of a list of professionals from different occupations and also collaborates with the parents or friends or next of kin for each of the service users. The service user decides who they wish to have present at the meeting from their family or friends. There are strong positive relationships between the different members of the team. At the beginning of my placement I found it quite overwhelming and complicated to understand how a team consisting of so many people managed to perform sufficiently and how mistakes werent made. I also struggled to understand how there was need for so many individuals and how they each had their own unique role within the group. At first I just sat in the corner of the room and observed the team meetings. I felt I didnt know the clients well enough to make contributions and that the staff didnt know me well enough to be able to justify accepting my contributions. It was my job for the first few weeks to simply sit, observe and analyse what was being discussed and proposed within these meetings. Over the following days and weeks I started to become more familiar with the staff, the service users and the cases. I began to feel more confident interacting with the staff and service users and believed I had a place within the centre. I could see advantages of using the interdisciplinary team system, however I quickly realised too that mistakes were made. These mistakes were few though and no system or person is flawless so they were generally accepted as small human errors and rectified. Each team member had adequate knowledge of the other team members, their profession and their disciplines. This allowed each team member to answer questions and give guidance, even if was only to tell the person involved which team member was most likely to solve their problems. As my placement progressed I was able to become more involved with the staff as I became more aware and familiar with each case. By having the opportunity to observe and ultimately work with the different professionals i nvolved I was able to gain valuable knowledge and skills relevant to each discipline which will prove valuable throughout the rest of my course and beginning of my own professional career. One aspect of the service or the centre which limited my learning was unfortunately due to cutbacks. Due to lack of funds the service was severely understaffed which meant there was an extremely heavy workload on the remaining staff members. This in turn meant that there were long periods were they had work to do and I was unable to participate. During these periods I would socialise with the service users, talking to them, playing games with them and helping them in whatever way possible. Although from a professional perspective this reduced my learning experience, personally it greatly increased it. It was during this time that I got to know the service users, their likes and dislikes, their personal ambitions and most importantly, what it was like for them individually growing up in the community with their disabilities and how RehabCare has greatly improved their lives and self-esteem. I felt that it was this information that would help and inspire me to progress through my place ment and academic years ahead. While on my placement I took a leading role in facilitating a few programmes in particular for the service users. As I have a great interest in sport personally I became involved in all sport related programmes with the service users. Every Tuesday six service users went swimming and I accompanied them. I observed how much excitement and pleasure they got on a weekly basis out of this one simple activity. I also got involved with a soccer programme with the service users. As I have a good knowledge of the game I took some training sessions with them and helped them develop their skills. They are hoping to compete and win out a regional RehabCare Soccer tournament in the New Year. I also became heavily involved in programmes that were not sport related. I helped set up a woodwork programme which had not existed before I arrived. I trained the service users in the basic skills of carpentry and through this they learned how to work on a project as a team, but most importantly they could see that they were making a difference and that their project was evolving into beautiful furniture. I witnessed a sense of pride amongst the service users that was almost unprecedented. A pleasure as small as completing a piece of furniture was enough to have them busting with pride for days. Overall the programme was a remarkable success. I am particularly proud of this group as I feel this is an area in which I was able to apply a lot of knowledge and skills to that nobody else in the centre could have. One other Key programme which I participated in was the Writing skills programme. The activities or skills that were focused on during this programme were writing, pronunciation and basic maths skills. Under these heading we worked on different needs of each client which included spelling, counting and oral communication skills. As this was a continuous weekly programme I had the opportunity to observe these service users as week by week they worked in their weaknesses and I could observe a marked improvement from when I first arrived. I was able to monitor their progress and have evaluated that it was a very effective programme. I was able to contribute my knowledge towards the class which meant that more progress was gained in the same length of time. One aspect which I feel contributed positively towards my learning was working with and witnessing the staff handle particular cases which involved serious and cautious matters involving the service users. Examples of these cases are when violence is threatened by service users or a case where one service user was being unfairly manipulated into giving away the money they earned on social benefit. The staff team in RehabCare are quite a close-knit team and conduct their work very professionally. Working alongside them was an extremely positive experience and I had no problems in asking them questions when I had queries. The staff all worked together in serious cases and did not just leave it to the service users Key worker. I could see that this was an extremely effective and positive way for them to operate as each staff member brought their own ideas and together they were able to formulate a plan more effectively than if it were just one of them. Initially I was too nervous to mak e contributions myself but as the weeks passed I began to make a few suggestions some of which were used in solving certain cases. As a result of my experiences on placement I have significantly enhanced many of my social care skills and values and expanded my knowledge. One particular area in which I feel more confident in is my communication skills with a range of professionals and services, especially when communicating with people who suffer with intellectual disabilities. I gained experience and built my ability to show empathy and unconditional positive regard, particularly when being on the receiving end of insults. It is essential that social care workers have the ability to demonstrate empathy to allow them to be more responsive to the service users needs and build better relationships based on trust and honesty. Learning about the Person Centred Planning approach was probably the most valuable information I gained. I saw firsthand how well the plan works when managed sufficiently. It is a goal based system, focusing on what the service user wants to achieve in their lives. It is person focused which is the secret to is success and why it is so popular. The medication procedures in the supported accommodation branch of RehabCare were extremely interesting. The service user had to put their pills into an egg cup and then swallow them all. The support worker then had to check the service users mouth to make sure they were all swallowed. I realised then the extreme of the medication policy within RehabCare. I found it rather unsettling that the support worker had to look into the service users mouth to make sure the medication had been swallowed. Previous to distributing the medication each daily dose had to be counted to make sure that the pharmacy didnt make any mistakes while distributing it. It was surprisingly frequent how often the pharmacy had made mistakes. In conclusion my time spent on work placement has been an invaluable experience to me. I have learnt and developed many skills that will be a great attribute to me in my career as a social care practitioner. Some of these skills have included learning how to manage a Person Centred Plan, gaining practical experience in solving a wide variety of cases involving people with intellectual disabilities, improving my overall knowledge on disability awareness and most importantly learning that I can make a positive impact in any social care field that I wish to pursue. I am fully aware that becoming a successful, fully trained social care worker does not happen overnight but takes years of hard work and practice. However, seeing the positive impact that I can make of peoples lives with my career is the inspiration I need to go on and succeed. It is a long journey to get where I want to be, one that started years ago and is set to continue for a good time to come. This journey will change wh o I am, will change who I will become but only for the better. With the knowledge that I am gaining from my social care class, the lessons I am learning about myself I am sure that I will evolve into a fully competent and successful social care practitioner. Personal Learning Account Profile For the purpose of this placement, I have received a position in RehabCare Cavan, working with the Programme Facilitators at the facility. RehabCare is the health and social care division of the Rehab Group. Their aim is to enhance the lives of all of their clients through the provision of high quality, flexible, person centred services. They presently provide and are developing a number of services, including Resource Centres, Residential Services, Respite Care, Supported Accommodation and Home Based Services for people with disabilities. The role of the Programme Facilitator in the facility is to report to the Community Service Manager through the Programmes Supervisor. The Programme Facilitators facilitate service users in their choices, developing programmes within the context of a person centred model of service delivery. The programmes may include independent living, personal development and occupational and leisure activities within the context of a quality of life model. For this placement, there are a number of personal attributes and learned knowledge which will assist in getting maximum benefit from completing placement with the Programme Facilitators. Some personal attributes which play an important role in the social care role are patience, understanding, kindness and the ability to apply learned knowledge to a specific situation. Having talked to one of the Programme Facilitators I also became aware that being open-minded, compassionate flexible and a good listener play particularly important roles in this service. These are all equally important attributes as at different times they can individually and collectively be the difference between dealing well any given situation in comparison to dealing poorly with it. Due to the unfortunate discrimination that, many of the older service users received when they were younger, the Programme Facilitator must take an understanding therapeutic approach when working with these service users. For this to be successful the Programme Facilitator must apply Carl Rogers conditions for the outcome to be successful. Rogers created three conditions which a service user must believe are present b efore a therapeutic relationship can develop. These are empathetic understanding, congruence and unconditional positive regard (Sherry and Lalor, 2009). The skills and knowledge that I gained through Creative Studies (both art and drama), will play a great role in helping me assist the Programme Facilitators, in trying to ensure the service users get the best experience possible from the service. Arts and Crafts as well as drama are programmes which receive a lot of focus from the Programme Facilitators at the facility. A good understanding of people with disabilities which I gained from modules, such as Issues in Social Care and Theories in Social Care along with, reading Applied Social Care by Perry Share and Kevin Lalor will assist me throughout my placement. Also the knowledge that I gained doing woodwork in secondary school will be of great benefit, as the Programme Supervisor is planning on starting up a woodwork programme for the service users but no Programme Facilitator has any experience in the field. Communication plays a crucial role in working in RehabCare or any organisation which is designed to fit the needs of adults with intellectual disabilities. Listening is a function which we do every day without paying much notice to the information we are obtaining. However, in a facility such as RehabCare the ability to listen to clients and then digest what they are saying is of crucial importance. The ability to listen attentively to service users problems and concerns and to then support them in whatever form necessary is a skill that cannot be replaced. Considering the fragile state of mind of many of the service users you must always be compassionate when listening to them and your response must be swift. Needs Analysis Within the learning contract there are a number of objectives identified as part of key learning. Enclosed in the professional learning objectives, the task is outlined of using and critiquing social care theories. As a second year social care student I felt that it was important for me to identify theories and then critique them and recognise limitations within the theories structure and their application to real life situations. My personal learning objectives surrounded interactions with the service users. I was lacking confidence and very unsure of myself when I first started my placement. The staff were very supportive though and within a few days I found my confidence improved dramatically and with it so did my effectiveness in helping the staff and having a controlling but compassionate authority over the service users. I became firm and assertive when dealing with problematic service users and fights between them. I hope my abilities and confidence continue to grow in this ar ea which will leave me in a very strong position by the time my placement is completed. Showing Unconditional Positive Regard towards some of the service users is something I struggled with for the first few days. It was left difficult when service users were constantly rude, disruptive and fighting. I have felt myself improving though and believe over the next few weeks I will have perfected it. During my induction week I had numerous policies and procedures to familiarise myself with. There are policies and procedures regarding health and safety, fire evacuation, risk management, prevent and control, child and adult protection, swine flu, confidentiality, medication policy and staff supervision etc. A basic knowledge of these policies and procedures is paramount in order for me to play an effective and positive role during my placement. Action Planning and Activity Throughout the course of this placement, I shall partake in a number of activities with the service users, which will assist me in meeting my learning objectives. Areas of activity include practical work such as arts and crafts and woodwork while sports and drama both play key roles in the centre too. Communication skills and independent living skills have a high priority too, as RehabCare is an organisation, designed to bridge the gap from full support to independent living. Assisting the programme facilitators in training the service users through these programmes, I felt I would meet my learning objectives. The programmes are usually done on a 10(service users)-2(programme facilitator and myself) basis. I will have several opportunities to practice my communication skills as I will have to give my input and express my opinion in different cases involving different service users and different programme facilitators. Through the communications programme I will also get a chance to train some of the users in the basic forms of communication, i.e. teach them how to, write a letter to a friend, use the telephone and practice various verbal and non- verbal communication skills. During the placement it is highly important that I test a number of theories which I learned through academic means. Through applying theories to real life situations, and recognising when a theory is used, the applicability and usefulness of the theory should be examined. As a social care student, the ability to recognise the limitations within theories will assist in identifying the best practice for the service user. I can practice this in different programmes and in free time that I spend just talking to the service users. Throughout placement knowledge of policies and procedures surrounding disability awareness will be obtained through dealing with the different cases and service users. I will have to familiarise myself with all government and RehabCare policies and procedures. I shall also become aware of them through hands on work throughout the duration of my placement. Evaluation A consideration of the learning goals following the completion of the placement, there is a sense of achievement as I believe all learning goals were reached and an in dept knowledge of disability awareness and the role of a programme facilitator were gained. I believe I successfully completed identifying and applying theories. I was very happy with my supervision classes as I was able to discuss with my supervisor what I did well and what I did not so well. I was able to discuss troubling issues which I had witnessed and discover the background stories and mental reasons for such incidents arising. Treating the service users with empathy and unconditional positive regard proved crucial time and time again as I managed to keep the service users trust in compromising and threatening situations. It also allowed some of the service users to open up about their feelings and their lives. Due to their mental disabilities some service users wouldnt disclose such information while others would have without being treated with empathy or unconditional positive regard. They didnt know any different. An example of where these theories didnt work was when a service user threatened violence against both myself and the staff members in the centre. This situation arose on numerous occasions. There was a considerable improvement in my communication skills throughout my placement. I was slightly shy on my first day in the centre both with staff and the service users. It took me the length of the induction week to overcome this shyness and be able to give a genuine account of myself. By the time my placement was completed shyness was a problem of the past and communication was free flowing between me and the service users. An example of this communication is when I took programmes with up to ten service users and took a teacher like approach with them. I regularly took the writing skills programme which involved me stand

cuba :: essays research papers

Cuba Cuba is the country that I will research for this assignment. Cuba was found by humans in about 3500 BC. On October 27, 1492 Christopher sighted Cuba and then by 1514, Diego Velà ¡zquez de Cuà ©llar had conquered the island for the Spanish crown. In these particular countries cattle ranching became most popular for Cuban economy, but by 1592 the system was abolished. Cuba is the Caribbean’s commercialized islands and is one of the world's last bastions of communism. In Cuba US dollars are not accepted. People that travel to Cuba have to have their money converted over to Cuban money in order to buy anything, and the cost to change the money is 10% of how much you are exchanging. This issue causes problems for many people that visit the country. Cuba has about five main attractions with Havana being the most popular. Baracoa is another major attraction of Cuba that sits on a headland between two picturesque bays near Cuba's easternmost point of Cabo Maisà ­. Santiago de Cuba is another main attraction and is the second biggest city in Cuba. Trinidad is the last of the attractions in Cuba and is the only one that I am familiar with. Out of all of these attractions Havana is not only the most popular but is the center of the country of Cuba. The size of Cuba is 110,860 sq km and has a population of eleven million. The capital of the Republic of Cuba is Havana which has over 2 million people. Cuba has different races that live within the country. They have 60% Spanish descent, 22% mixed-race, 11% African descent, and 1% Chinese. This country also has different religions which have: 47% Catholic, 4% Protestant, and 2% Santerà ­a. The country has a communist government and the head of state is the President of the Council of State