How Can Social Worker Practitioners Improve Their Service - Research Proposal Example

Title: Do Staff/ social worker practitioners working with older people fully understand the social and psychological impact on service user and how can a social worker improve their service? Introduction Social workers play a very imperative role in the society. This is more so when handling older people in the society. Older people in the society usually require a lot of care. This is considering that they have diverse health, social and psychological challenges. This paper therefore entails a research proposal concerning whether social workers dealing with older people fully understand the psychological and social impact on service user. This paper includes a problem statement, the implications if research not considered, ethical considerations and the importance to the service users. (Scott, 2006) Problem statement It is quite evident that many social workers do not fully understand the psychological and social impact of older people that they serve. This is considering the fact that many older people keep complaining about this situation. It is clear that social workers may be handling people of different age groups and this could have led to the problem. Social workers are failing to adjust their services to suit old people. This also includes denying them some services. There seems to be a problem in the way social workers serve older people as though they are any other class of people. This has resulted in too much hurting among older people. This concerns the language that social workers use when serving older people, the activities that they expect that should carry out. This is a real problem because instead of enhancing the old people’s well being, social workers may be a bridge of deteriorating the older people’s lives. This may end up affecting their health in the long run. (Mortimer and Roberta, 1978) Implication if not considered Majority of older people are deaf or have partial hearing loss. This has various social and psychological effects. This means that there cannot have normal interactions with other people in the society since they cannot hear. This usually results in loneliness and sometimes may feel unloved in the society. Analysis shows that older people who have hearing loss cannot even detect smoke alarms, doorbell alerts and light arm. This affects their overall wellbeing and health. (Sapey, 2003) According to the social model, social workers should look at the strengths of the old people. This is where social, physical and psychological barriers. According to the social model, it is clear that deaf old people are sometimes made to feel that it is by their own mistake that they are like that. The social model blames structures in the society and shows problems such as prejudice, discrimination of services and de-valuing among others. (Scott, 2006) Social model believes these issues can be improved by societal change. The medical model believes in ability to cure through science. This is where loss of hearing for older people has to be diagnosed, treated or operated on accordingly. This model majors on what people cannot do and thus viewing them in line of their impairment. This model views the deaf old people to be the problem. On the other hand, the social model aims at identifying barriers to good life for the deaf people and developing solutions to this. While there should be a balance of the two models when handling deaf old people, the social model should given an upper hand. Ethical considerations Ethics are values or principles by which a person acts basing on those principles. Ethical values are main beliefs such as duty, respect and integrity that inspire actions and attitudes of a person. Some values are unethical, ethical values do relay what is considered right and clearly illustrate what is seen as wrong. Various factors have to be considered when carrying out this research, they include; confidentiality, aspects of justice, respect of the respondents and their point of view and finally beneficence. All these are very essential for the research to be successful. (Davis, 1993) One of the ethical considerations for this research is confidentiality. This research requires high level of confidentiality since some of the respondents may not want to be known as the ones who gave the information. The older people who will be part of the respondents may give information that is specific to the social workers and may not want to be in conflict with them. It is very essential to note that social workers will also part of respondents and may give information relating to their colleagues and whether they fully understand the social and psychological impact on the service user. This therefore calls for high level of confidentiality when handling the information. This is one of the ethical considerations that stakeholders such as research assistants, administrative personnel and the researcher have to adhere to. Any information that is deemed to be false or likely to jeopardize the validity of the study will be disregarded during the process of analysis. (Kerridge, 2006) Another ethical consideration for this research is the fact that all the respondents have to be informed before hand. This will help them to be prepared and to avoid resistance. As a matter of ethical practice, no actual names will be used during the whole process of the study. To avoid the divulgence of identities, the researcher will use subject letter variables throughout the study. (Feinstein, 2004) Meaning to service users Service users go through so much in their day to day interactions with social workers. This research will therefore help many service users in different ways. This is considering the fact that service users are constantly misunderstood by the social workers. They are sometimes denied some services just because of their disabilities. They will be able to get information that they need about life, managing their health that they need are sometimes denied. This will help service users live a more fulfilling life when their needs are met on a day to day basis. (Rosenbaum, 1975) Service users will be able to understand that death is inevitable for all and they do not have to be discriminated against because of any impairment. Some service users go through different kinds of discrimination. This includes being denied some social services just because they are very old, have multiple impairments and left to die. (Feinstein, 2004) In fact there is a Disability Discrimination Act 1995 that abhors discrimination against people just because of their impairment or disability. This includes being denied some services, education and provision of goods among others. This Act stipulates that any person that handles an impaired person less favourably acts against the law. It also requires service providers to ensure that they make adjustments for disabled people in their line of duty. This includes service providers making changes that will suit the disabled person. These adjustments have to be reasonable in nature. This may also include adjusting physical features of their premises such as sound fire alarms for deaf people should be changed probably to bright light fire alarms. This helps to overcome physical barriers in the impaired or disabled people. (Johnstone, 1998) Research methodology Qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection will be used. Data collection is a very essential step in any research. Various methods of collecting data will be used in this research. They include interviews, focus groups questionnaires, observation and analysis of documents. The target group of this qualitative research are the old people in the society and service providers or social workers. (Feinstein, 2004) Interviews Interviews will be incorporated among data collection methodologies. A research interview is simply asocial interaction between a researcher and a respondent with the aim of getting some specific information. The respondents will be identified by the researcher and in most cases he or she has knowledge in the subject. (Feinstein, 2004) Research assistants will have questions well prepared before hand. They will ask the respondents the questions and answers will be noted down. This method will be used because it allows the researcher to get clarification from the respondents concerning their feedback. The respondents can clearly elaborate on what they mean by their answers. (Feinstein, 2004) Questionnaires This is one of the methods that will be used to collect relevant data for this research. It is a research instrument that consists of questions prepared before hand which help in information gathering. Some of questionnaires will be distributed among social workers who are chosen respondents and others will be administered to the old people. Those administered to old people will be filled by research assistants since some of them may not know how to write, may have poor vision etc. (McGill, 2006) Observation Observation method will be highly incorporated in data collection process. This will entail research assistants observing the work of the social workers over a specified period of time. This is to ascertain whether they fully understand the social and psychological impact on service user and how social workers can improve their service. This information will be noted down and later on analysed. (Feinstein, 2004) Focus groups Focus groups will be used whereby ten respondents will be grouped together. Each group will have one research assistant who will ask questions. The answers will be noted down and responds asked to clarify where necessary. These will be used as they are time saving and they will help get uniform or the most correct answer from the group. (Mac, 2006) Secondary data Secondary data will also be used in this research. This includes the analysis of books, magazines, journals written on the topic. All the relevant data will be recorded by research assistants. It will later on be analysed and conclusions drawn concerning other authors’ views on the topic. (Feinstein, 2004) Conclusion Social workers that handle old people have the responsibility of understanding their social and psychological factors. Research in this area will help improve service provision for old people in the society. It will also help in improving the life of the aged. Various research methodologies can be used in this research. They include interviews, questionnaires, observations and focus groups. This will help collect all the relevant information. Ethical factors such as confidentiality have to be considered in this research. Read More