Working in Caring Environments

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 4
• Convenor: to be confirmed
• Assessment: a 1000-word reflexive practice essay (40%) and 1500-word case study essay (60%)

‘Care’ is a term used frequently in ordinary conversation, but do you really understand what it means to care, to work in care, or to be cared for?

In this module we invite you to consider the work of care from multiple perspectives, including:

• the lived experience of those in receipt of care
• the motivations of wanting to offer different forms of care professionally and in different contexts
• making sense of ethical frameworks underpinning care practice.

You will be able to develop self-awareness and the capacity for reflexivity, with techniques you will be able to use in understanding the emotional component of various caring roles. You will also consider the sensitivity of bodywork and begin to examine some of the ways that clients or patients may exhibit certain patterns of attachment and relating, or developmental difficulties, throughout the lifecourse.

A key feature of this module will be learning active listening and responding skills, based on a counselling approach, which can be used in a wide range of care environments and in everyday care practice. This practice takes place within a range of health, social or community settings: you will therefore learn about the nature of organisations and the dynamics therein, developing an understanding of how both carer and cared-for can be best supported in this often complex and multi-layered relational work.

Indicative syllabus

• Reflexivity
• Reflective models in practice
• Four ethical principles framework
• The relational approach to care work
• The lifecourse
• Attachment patterns
• Listening and responding exercises

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• demonstrate a capacity for reflecting on what it means to care
• critically reflect on motivations for working in care
• evaluate a range of reflective practice models
• reflect with greater emotional understanding about relationships between the professional carer and the client/patient
• demonstrate an understanding of life stage/developmental issues
• engage reflectively with an ethics of care framework.