March 2011 - Fighting Monsters

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Chief Social Worker?

A couple of days ago, I noted a that BASW issued a press release stating that their ‘chief social worker plans gain tentative ministerial support’. BASW (British Association of Social Workers) have been lobbying for changes in the Health and … Continue...

Published 31 Mar 2011 6:43 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: social care, social work, social issues, work, socialcare, politics, health, personal, British Association of Social Workers, college of social work, Professional association, baswcosw, chief social worker basw, community action, peer support
The State of Healthcare and Adult Social Care in England – a brief glance and thoughts

Yesterday the CQC published their report ‘The State of Healthcare and Adult Social Care in England’. I have to try and put my criticisms of the CQC and their increasingly lax regulatory process to one side, although I couldn’t help … Continue reading...

Published 30 Mar 2011 7:11 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: social care, social work, social issues, older people, work, mental health, local authority, old age, politics, elderly, long-term care, health, mental health act 1983, Disability, personal, Care Quality Commission, cqc, health and social care, personal budget, Public services, cqc report, state of healthcare in england, state of social care in england
Dementia Screening

I wrote up some reflections and thoughts about my time at the Rally and March on Saturday for Community Care and my piece can be read here. - I also wanted to comment about the proposal that the Alzheimer’s Society … Continue reading → Read...

Published 29 Mar 2011 6:52 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: social care, social work, older people, dementia, work, mental health, old age, health, carer, Alzheimer's disease, Alzheimer's Society, General practitioner, personal, Conditions and Diseases, Diagnosis, Screening (medicine), screening for alzheimers, screening for dementia
Social Media and Social Work – Part 2 Social Bookmarking

Social Bookmarking is a way to share links (or ‘bookmarks’) with other people or ‘on the internet’ rather than locally on whatever internet accessing device you are using. The first ‘weblogs’ or ‘blogs’ as they became were social bookmarking sites. …...

Published 28 Mar 2011 6:23 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: social work, work, technology, links, blog, personal, Weblogs, Social media, social work and technology, Add-ons, Bookmark (World Wide Web), delicious, Pinboard, posterous, Social Bookmarks, social media at work, tumblr, using social bookmarking, using technology at work
26th March 2011 – March for the Alternative

I’ll write more about the March for the Alternative during the week but wanted to feed back in the immediate aftermath. As arranged I attended with some friends and our intentions of meeting up with a larger group were scuppered … Continue...

Published 27 Mar 2011 8:33 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: work, politics, london, personal, cuts, 26th march, protest, banners, evil cameron, march 26, march for the alternative, march26, star wars, unions
Weekly Social Work Links 11

I am going to have to do a quicker than usual ‘round up’ this week because I’m heading off to the March this morning. But it has been a fantastic week in terms of the richness of posts. I’ve already … Continue reading → Read More...

Published 26 Mar 2011 5:50 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: social work, work, uk, social worker, links, Social Work Blogs, british social work blogs, second life, social work links
Managing Stress in Social Work

The idea for this post came from a brief conversation on Twitter last night when a social worker asked about how we manage stress at work. There was a fine Q and A in the Guardian a few weeks ago … Continue reading → Read More...

Published 25 Mar 2011 7:06 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: social care, social work, work, local authority, health, stress, stress management, personal, Meditation, Debriefing, managing stress at work, mindfulness, stress in social work, stress relief techniques, ways to manage stress
Budget 2011 – Reflections

When I go through the budget announcements I think on a couple of parallel lines. As well as the common ‘how am I affected’ line, I try to look at a wider effects of what the respective chancellor is trying … Continue reading → Read More....

Published 24 Mar 2011 6:39 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: social care, work, politics, personal, Income tax, Tax, george osborne, value added tax, george osbourne, 2011 budget, budget speech, tax changes
Why I’m marching

The Guardian published an article on their website yesterday titled ‘Why we’re marching?’ and it gave the points of view of six people who were going to be attending the TUC organised rally on Saturday. ketu@Flickr I am going to … Continue reading...

Published 23 Mar 2011 6:47 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: work, government, politics, london, National Health Service, personal, Labour, the guardian, Liberal Democrat, Disability Living Allowance, 26 march, 26th march, protest, rally, Trades Union Congress, tuc, tuc demonstration, uk government, uk uncut, why i'm marching on 26 march
On Being Shadowed

Last week, I had the pleasure of having a second year social work student shadow me as I worked. She was a student in a voluntary agency that I had come across because she had been doing some work with … Continue reading → Read More...

Published 22 Mar 2011 6:46 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: social care, social work, work, mental health, mental health act assessment, approved mental health professional, personal, AMHP, Student, mental health assessment, shadowing a social worker, student placement
Social Media in Social Work – Part 1 Blogs

Or a personal reflection on what I’ve learnt about blogging in Three Years and how it has helped me grow as a practitioner and a person. This post is really in two parts. The first part is about my own … Continue reading → Read More...

Published 21 Mar 2011 6:41 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: social work, work, personal, Social media
Social Media and Social Work – A Series

I’ve had a ‘technology’ type post brewing inside me for a while and although I can’t promise this is the best researched and planned post, I thought it might be useful to share some of my practical uses and experiences … Continue reading →...

Published 20 Mar 2011 6:47 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: social work, work, blog, personal, Social media, Online Communities, Social network, social work and online communities
Weekly Social Work Links 10

I’m back. In fact, I never went away but I realised that sometimes I just need to give myself a little more time in the morning than the regular blogging allows but back to service as usual with a collection … Continue reading → Read More...

Published 19 Mar 2011 7:24 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: social work, work, links, Purim
Weekend Links 9

The weekend again. I’d like to thank all those who come across this blog. I’ve had a massive upsurge in readers this year and I appreciate the time that people spend coming, reading, commenting and responding on Twitter. In the … Continue reading...

Published 12 Mar 2011 7:05 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: social work, work, mental health, health, links, Social Sciences, Social Work Blogs, Electronic Arts, Nintendogs
Inspections and the CQC

I was interested to see that Mark Easton in his BBC blog, touched on the issue of residential care and the confusion in the regulatory system. He talks about a man, Dave, who needed to place his mother in a … Continue reading → Read More....

Published 11 Mar 2011 6:42 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: social care, social work, social issues, older people, work, mental health, local authority, old age, politics, elderly, long-term care, local government, nursing home, BBC, adult social care, personal, Care of residents, Care Quality Commission, HealthWatch, care home inspections, imcompetence of inspections, Mark Easton
Statutory Duties and Consultations

A blogpost by Vern Pitt on the Community Care website alerted me to a very quiet consultation that started this week. According to the post Quiet as a mouse the Department of Communities and Local Government announced a review of … Continue reading...

Published 10 Mar 2011 5:30 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: social care, social work, social issues, work, mental health, local authority, politics, local government, community care, Department of Health, personal, Department for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, vern pitt
Meanwhile in the Office..

Usually when I’ve mentioned workloads here, it’s because they are increasing or we are going through one of the ‘peaks’ in the general ‘peak or trough’ pattern of work balances. I’m going to do it again because we are definitely … Continue reading...

Published 9 Mar 2011 6:14 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: social care, social work, social issues, older people, dementia, work, mental health, local authority, old age, elderly, health, respite care, Disability, personal, Best Interests Assessor, personal budget, social work uk, budget, emergency, workplace support
International Women’s Day 2011

I want to mark International Women’s Day this year. It marks the 100th anniversary of the first International Women’s Day. As I considered what to write, I came across a post I wrote for the day in 2009 and to … Continue reading → Read More...

Published 8 Mar 2011 7:02 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: social issues, work, politics, women, links, personal, International Womens Day, Feminism, Annie Lennox, international womens day 2011, Maya Angelou, we are equals
Enemies of Enterprise

I am a generally tolerant person. It’s useful in this profession of social work and my broadly tolerant nature has served me well throughout my life. I would like to think I don’t make enemies often. Apparently though, Cameron has … Continue reading...

Published 7 Mar 2011 6:56 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: social care, social issues, work, local authority, politics, personal, david cameron, big society, Danny Blanchflower
Weekend Links 8

I want to start in solidarity with a couple more British Mental Health Social Work blogs – go and visit them and comment as an incentive for them to continue writing. I really want a community of blogging social workers … Continue reading →...

Published 5 Mar 2011 6:12 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: work, mental health, links, approved mental health professional, AMHP
Personalisation in Mental Health and Older Adult Services

Personalisation is a very broad brush term to describe the so-called ‘transformation’ agenda in adult social care. In very general terms it refers to the process of moving from resource-led to needs-led systems of service provision (just as the NHS …...

Published 4 Mar 2011 6:09 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: social care, social work, social issues, older people, dementia, work, mental health, discrimination, learning disability, local authority, old age, politics, elderly, health, direct payments, personalisation, Disability, adult social care, personal, personal budget, individual budgets, putting people first, personal budgets, individual budget, sds, self-directed support, ilf, budget, care provision, Support group
To Say Goodbye

The best kind of ‘goodbyes’ are the planned ones. We can discuss with someone a couple of visits before their discharge from the service about how they might be supported on discharge and we have already, by this stage, put … Continue reading →...

Published 3 Mar 2011 6:05 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: social work, work, elderly, health, personal, Death
National Social Work Month

Apparently in the US, March is ‘National Social Work Month’. I know about World Social Work Day which falls on 15th March this year but I hadn’t thought about extrapolating out the joy of celebrating social work to an entire … Continue reading →...

Published 2 Mar 2011 7:31 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: social work, work, British Association of Social Workers, world social work day, college of social work, National Association of Social Workers, national social work month, world social work day 2011
Excellence Ratings for Care Homes

Yesterday, the government announced the unveiling of a new ‘gold standard’ or excellence rating for care homes. This is supposed to address some of the poor care that is delivered through local authority funded care. I have my doubts. Not … Continue...

Published 1 Mar 2011 6:48 AM by Fighting Monsters

Filed under: residential care, social care, social work, social issues, older people, work, nursing care, local authority, old age, government, politics, elderly, long-term care, health, nursing home, personal, Care of residents, Care Quality Commission, cqc, health and social care, care homes, cynthia bower, excellence ratings for care homes, excellence standards, gold standards for care homes, incompetence of cqc, Independent

March 2011 - Fighting Monsters

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Chief Social Worker?

The State of Healthcare and Adult Social Care in England – a brief glance and thoughts

Dementia Screening

Social Media and Social Work – Part 2 Social Bookmarking

26th March 2011 – March for the Alternative

Weekly Social Work Links 11

Managing Stress in Social Work

Budget 2011 – Reflections

Why I’m marching

On Being Shadowed

Social Media in Social Work – Part 1 Blogs

Social Media and Social Work – A Series

Weekly Social Work Links 10

Weekend Links 9

Inspections and the CQC

Statutory Duties and Consultations

Meanwhile in the Office..

International Women’s Day 2011

Enemies of Enterprise

Weekend Links 8

Personalisation in Mental Health and Older Adult Services

To Say Goodbye

National Social Work Month

Excellence Ratings for Care Homes