Explore the Attitudes of 4th Year Social Care Students in Athlone IT to Social Care Practice

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW1

Social Care Practice1

Role of Ethical and Values in Social Care Profession2

Social Care Practices and Education3

Students Perceptions and Attitude about Social Care Practices as Profession6

REFERENCES8

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

Social Care Practice

Social care and social work is a profession where social care practitioners work in collaboration with the people who have been experiencing disadvantages or marginalistaion or people who have special needs. Social care practitioners might work, for instance, with older people, people having physical or learning disabilities, people who do not have any place to live, people who are dependent on drugs or alcohol, adolescents or children in residential care, minority families in the society, refugees or immigrants, and people facing domestic violence (Lindsey, 2005, 229).

Social care is an academic and professional discipline which focuses on improving the quality of lives and on the wellbeing of community, groups of people, or individuals, through directly practicing, implementing policies, research, community organizations, and also teaching for people who are badly affected with poverty, disability, or any perceived or real social violations and injustices of their human rights. Research is usually focused on disciplines such as social policies, psychotherapy, public administration, program assessment, community and international and human development (Mitchell, 2001, 433). These social care practitioners are organized into international, continental, national and local professional bodies. It involves various theories based on education, politics, medicine, philosophy, economics, anthropology, psychology and sociology. In a number of practical and experimental practices, social care practitioners associated with the clinical discipline are licensed with mental health professionals.

Role of Ethical and Values in Social Care Profession

According to a study conducted by Lindsey (2005), there is a need to teach students about the values that tend to conflict in social care ethics. Where ethical dilemmas have been identified previously, the challenges related to ethical practice of the staff and faculty in terms of conflicting, values, responsibilities and duties towards agency, students, and school are also being highlighted in recent researches. A major emphasis and centrality is given to ethics and values in the new system (curriculum). This part of the job involves understanding of one own values, ethical dilemmas, prejudices, conflict of interests and its implications related to one's own practices. It involves preparing oneself for and to work with families, groups, carers, communities, and even individuals for assessing the circumstances and needs. It also focuses on how to support people for representing their views, needs, desires, and situations, manage their risks (Wilson, Walsh & Kirby, 2008, 35). Social care practices education should also be focusing on teaching students about how to plan, carry out, analyse and assess the social care practices with families, groups, carers, communities, professionals, and individuals.

Values in society's context might include a number of aspects, such as cultural values, personal values, social values, and spiritual values. Cultural values involve respecting or emotional attachment with rituals at specific times or to a certain dress ...