Clinical Assessment or Client Empowerment - Assignment Example

Running Head: Promoting Independence Promoting Independence [The [The of the Promoting Independence Introduction Despite a great deal of progress in the efforts to end the myths surrounding the aging process, there are still some powerful images that govern both policies and programs dealing with older people. None is more manifest than the view that older people are increasingly dependent, need protection from their environment, and eventually from themselves. It is this notion that creates enormous barriers to the development of policies based on the strengths of the individual and his or her right to self-determination. Clearly, there are older persons who are frail, some of whom cannot make decisions for themselves. There are older persons who need protection from exploitation by forces in society, sometimes from relatives, and even from themselves. Though, this is not the case by means of the overwhelming preponderance of older persons who are not only able of self-determination but be adamant on uphold their independence and dignity, even in the face of bodily complexity. The fact is that older persons are like everyone else. They seek independence and participation in choice making. They do not distinguish themselves as clients or patients. They are not willing to dump their decision for the decision of others and want to uphold control of their own fate (Adams R. G. 2005, 222-227). The Aging Perspective on Empowerment In recent years, a new occupational group has been created to work with older persons. Known as "case" or "care" managers, these individuals can work with a wide range of clients. Ideally, they can operate with the same concern for self-determination that social case workers demonstrated in earlier times. Yet they can also be vested with power and decision making by the bureaucracies that employ them making decisions for people rather than responding to the wishes of their clients. The dilemma is real and can be modified by clear appeal procedures, empowerment education for clients, and ombudsmen with sufficient leverage to challenge case managers. Older persons do not want to be "cases" and don't want to be managed. If "empowerment" can lead to some semantic distortions, the term "case manager" conjures up a totally opposite image (Ahrons C. 2002, 49-68). Autonomy is indeed a difficult element to maintain in the lives of individuals or organizations. Older people need to find, among providers of service and public policy leaders, allies who will be willing to open channels for self-empowerment. These allies will have to be equally adept at containment--and resist the temptation to give too much advice or to suggest, by verbal and nonverbal means, that their counsel is crucial to the decision making by older persons. The greatest role that can be played by providers is to help educate older persons to continue to make critical decisions independently of them, and to organize with persons in similar circumstances to affect the milieu in which they live (Antonucci T, 2001, 519-27). The Assessment Of Dependency In Older People I think that any discussion of authorize the old must begin with this assumption: The phenomenon of aging is now producing something new under the sun a change in the basic character of this planet's human inhabitants. Such a basic social change will require a parallel shift in social consciousness. Without it, nothing else we might plan for will ultimately be effective. But we are not paying enough attention to that aspect of empowerment that ought to precede these developments, and without which political and economic progress will stall. Summoning the political will to cope with global aging in the coming decades also will require a revolution in thought and feeling. There must be a change in what everyone perceives and believes to be the place of elders in the social fabric. We must distinguish between the instruments through which older people everywhere might be empowered, and the political and personal will in whose absence the implements of empowerment will lie unused. Bathing As A Hindrance To Dependency Because of these demographic changes, it is not surprising that providing care for the dependent elderly should be a major focus of both research and public policy debate. The potential strain an expanding population of elderly puts on the caring resources of others, however, is only part of the picture. Focusing on the elderly solely as recipients of care ignores the potential of the elderly themselves in giving care. New polices promoting volunteerism-particularly among the aged recognize this potential and propose that older Americans may be asked to fill in the care giving gap: to offer the material, sensible, and emotional help and hold up essential to uphold families and group of people. An underlying statement of these policies is that a important number of older people are clever and willing to give care. Yet, no previous research has examined the degree to which older men and women are involved, or desire to be involved, in giving help and support to family, friends, and others. The purpose, however, is not only to chronicle the distribution and desire to help, but to analyze the ways in which age, gender, and marriage affect the help given by the elderly. The analysis, therefore, is organized around two axes which are central to the organization of social life those of gender and marriage. In organizing the analysis in this way, I examine not only the effects of gender and marriage on the help older people give, but also the ways in which patterns of help inform us about sociological theories of gender, marriage, and caring (Babchuk N., Peters G. R., 2004, 579-587). NHS and Community Care Act The NHS and Community Care Act also augmented the number of people by mental health troubles being cared for in the group of people rather than in a mental hospital. When deciding whether a big shot suffering from mental illness ought to be treated in the community, health and social care practitioners need to assess the likely risk to the person, the community and the person's family. If the proceedings are considered too huge, the person can be 'sectioned' under the Mental Health Act 1983 - detained for healing in a cerebral hospital (Alan S. Glazer, Henry R. Jaenicke, 2002) People's rights to confidentiality are reinforced by several pieces of legislation: According to the Data Protection Act 1984 aims to ensure the confidentiality of information stored on computer (Banks, S. 2001). It sets rules on the individual information which can be held automatically, stating that information have to be: sect; get hold of legally. sect; used in the way particular when it was composed, sect; kept precise and up to date sect; secret, but available to those who have a right to see it. Oslash; the Access to Health Records Act 1990 and the Access to Personal Files Act 1987 establish measures for treatment discretion data. The Role Of Social Workers In The Promotion Of Independence In Older People In the 1970s, NCSWD worked with other organizations in a successful campaign for the introduction of the Attendance Allowance, which was a milestone in the area of financial benefits for the very frail and/or disabled. Qualifying conditions were stringent. The benefit provided two rates of allowance; a lower one for those who required constant care and attention by day or night, and a higher one for those who required constant care and attention by day and night. It was a non-means-tested and nontaxable benefit. The organization's formidable success came with the introduction of the Invalid Care Allowance, a noncontributory benefit that was not means-tested but was taxable. Typical of government benefits, the amount payable was based upon Pratt's "empirically unverified assumption," that carer benefits were not required to match unemployment benefits. Importantly, however, carer benefits protected pension rights of the recipient. To qualify, the carer had to be a man under age 65 or a single woman under age 60, who was unemployed because of the need to provide care 35 hours a week for a relative in receipt of the Attendance Allowance. This allowance changed the financial profile of single women (and men) carers by providing some remuneration for loss of income due to having to give up work to provide care. And it was significant in that it protected the state pension rights of those who received it. Married women were excluded from qualifying. Reference Cowger Charles D. 2004. "Assessing Client Strengths: Clinical Assessment or Client Empowerment." Social Work, May 2004. Daniels John. 2000. America Via the Neighborhood. New York and London: Harper & Brothers. Griffin. Keith. 2000. Alternative Strategies for Economic Development. London: Macmillan, 7 - 10. Sen Amartya. 2001. Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Zaki S. M. 2004. The Ageing Population in Pakistan. 4th ed. Karachi, Pakistan. Abel E. 2003. "Adult daughters and care for the elderly". Feminist Studies. 12: 479-497. Adams B. 2000. "Isolation, function, and beyond: American kinship in the 1960's". Journal of Marriage and the Family. 32: 575-597. Adams R. G. 2005. "Patterns of network change: A longitudinal study of friendships of elderly women". The Gerontologist. 27: 222-227. Ahrons C. R. & Bowman M. E. 2002. "Changes in family relationships following the divorce of a adult child: Grandmothers perceptions". Journal of Divorce. 5: 49-68. Antonucci T, & Akiyama H. 2001. "Social networks in adult life and a preliminary examination of the convoy model". Journal of Gerontology, 42, 519-27. Babchuk N., Peters G. R., Hoyt D. R. & Kaiser M. A. 2004. "The voluntary associations of the aged". Journal of Gerontology, 34, 579-587. Read More