Keeping it Sweet: the importance of Reflective Practice


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Whoever really just gets the time just to sit and think? – This can be especially hard when working in cultures that appear to be very busy and always emphasising the importance of time with the client. Traditional medical backgrounds in particular tend to devalue knowledge that does not evolve from controlled trials or from ‘touchy feely’ stuff. ”[1] In that kind of environment, the desire to take time to review what has been happening and the types of outcomes that are being achieved seems self-indulgent. The types of routine information gathering that allows organisations to reflect and improve the quality of what they are doing is widely resented and often sabotaged.
The consequence if this is allowed is simply burnout – people will get discouraged and leave. A major way to avoid this is promoting and developing reflective practice
Reflective practice is a key obligation for all workers and ties into the mandatory DANOS unit AC1(HSC33) Reflect on and develop your practice. For some groups of staff like nurses and counsellors, if they do not demonstrate that they are engaging it in a transparent way they can be struck off. What is reflection? Reflection can be formally defined as ‘the process of internally examining and exploring an issue of concern, triggered by an experience, which creates and clarifies meaning in terms of self and which results in a changed conceptual perspective’[2]
The reflective process involves thinking about what happened in a structured way and looking at what can be learned to improve my practice. It will involve being challenged and the way I respond to constructive criticism, (which may be painful) is going to determine my ability to benefit.
A key test of how committed a worker is to developing their practice is how he/she uses opportunities to reflect that are provided or that are created at work. Common opportunities include keeping a reflective diary, the performance management ‘supervision’ time, group supervision or even paying external supervision.

Course Rationale.

This course will encourage participants to reflect on their work using reflective journals and the supervision practice and so will support participants to build portfolios about their work for accreditation and qualificationsMany schemes in the past have attempted to encourage reflective practices but, more often than not, participants have tended to produce journals on an ad-hoc basis, filling in details at the last minute rather than contemplating the value of such an exercise. Our framework aims to make this practice less reactive, by making the journal entry process as easy as possible while encouraging participants to consider sources of mutual support and encouragement.This session will equip participants with a simple to use diary grid structure that prompts them into filling in details quickly and efficiently in an articulate way.We will also establish how participants can support each other, particularly when they work together, to help each other complete their journal entries. This takes into account that sometimes others are better at monitoring results and witnessing achievements than the individuals themselves.

Objectives

By the end of the course participants will be able to:
  • Describe how reflecting on their practices will improve their performance and working experience
  • Transfer the knowledge gained from the reflective process to a diary or journal
  • Describe the role that clients, staff, supervisors and others can play in improving their own performance
  • Assess the quality of the supervision they receive and be able to use their own abilities to improve supervision, if and where needed
  • Build support groups to exchange skills and knowledge in relation to improving performance
  • Develop a portfolio to demonstrate the quality of their work using DANOS units as a structure

Who will benefit from attending?

The learning on this course is essential for all front line workers especially those who may be alone with clients.

Length 1day – 9:30 – 4:30 (or equivalent)

Relevant DANOS units

HSC33 Reflect on and develop your practice
GEN36 Make use of supervision

References

[1] Jenny Newton, Learning to reflect: a journey, Reflective Practice, Volume 5, Issue 2, Jun 2004, Pages 155 - 166,
[2] Boyd, E. M. & Fales, A. W. (1983) Reflective learning: key to learning from experience, Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 23, 99–117. cited in Reflective Practice, Vol. 5, No. 3, October 2004 Reflective learning journals: from concept to practice Karran Thorpe

This course is designed and delivered in association with DrugScope

DrugScope is the UK's leading independent centre of expertise on drugs and the national membership organisation for the drug field. Our aim is to inform policy development and reduce drug-related harms - to individuals, families and communities. We provide quality drug information, promote effective responses to drug taking, undertake research, advise on policy-making, encourage informed debate - particularly in the media - and speak for our member organisations working on the ground.

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Please note
All our courses are commissioned for groups and organisations. If you have more than three people who would benefit from working together on this topic, use the link at the the bottom of the page to contact me, or click here to find out more about getting us to deliver a programme.

We regret that we do not have an open access programme