Good record-keeping matters: An excerpt from Jacki Pritchard’s ‘Recording Skills in Safeguarding Adults’

“We know that most workers are under extreme pressure with ever increasing workloads and there can be a reluctance to give recording the priority it deserves. Increasing workloads can be partly due to a lack of resources. It is important that people in positions of power argue for an increase in resources, but to do that arguments have to be put forward that there is a real need. Keeping good records can aid this.”

November 18, 2010Dementia

JKP authors abound at the 5th UK Dementia Congress

Last week, JKP attended the 5th UK Dementia Congress in Bournemouth. As the largest dementia-focused annual event in the UK, the congress offered an exciting…

October 29, 2010May 8, 2017Counselling

Working with Reluctant Clients in Health and Social Care – an Interview with JKP author Maggie Kindred

“One of the most important messages I would want to give to a newcomer is that your reluctant client will probably never [become a ‘willing’ client]. Why should s/he? Compliance with you and your rules is a massive victory. If you can rejoice with your clients when they are finally getting rid of you, this is very liberating. Social work and care does not change people’s personality fundamentally, it helps them function.”

October 29, 2010Dementia

Providing Good Care at Night for Older People – An Interview with JKP author Diana Kerr

“Night staff have to provide the same level of person centred, individualised care as day staff. Their primary task is seen as the promotion of sleep. This can often mean that they feel compelled to get people back to bed as quickly as possible. Often, however, residents need, time, food, activity, and TLC as well as an opportunity to talk and discuss, particularly their fears and worries.”

October 6, 2010Arts therapies

‘Creative Care and the Capacity to Play’ – An excerpt from The Creative Arts in Dementia Care, by Jill Hayes with Sarah Povey

“In working in dementia care we need often to let ourselves become foolish, unconventional, stop making sense. I have been thrilled to meet staff who at the drop of a hat will dress up, play the guitar, sing uproariously…or who have the capacity to sit quietly with someone without an agenda. It is this joy of the crazy and the still, this lightness of being, which is refreshing and life-promoting in the work that we do. We can play with balloons, blow bubbles, doodle, improvise. We don’t have to make a finished product. By creatively and somatically being with a person we can instil a sense of safety, of physical and emotional security.”

September 15, 2010May 8, 2017Counselling

‘Reflective Practice in Mental Health’ book launch held at the Institute of Psychiatry (IoP), London

We were thrilled to launch Reflective Practice in Mental Health last night at an event hosted by the book’s editors, Martin Webber (pictured) and Jack…

September 13, 2010Dementia

JKP author Lucy Whitman speaks at the ‘Unfettering the Imagination’ Dementia Conference

Lucy Whitman – editor of the JKP book, Telling Tales About Dementia: Experiences of Caring – spoke at the third annual ‘Unfettering the Imagination’ dementia…

July 20, 2010July 4, 2017Social work

CYPNow article by JKP author Gillian Ruch: Time to put relationship building back at the heart of social work

Children & Young People Now have featured a great article from JKP author, Dr Gillian Ruch, in which she argues that a focus on improving…

June 30, 2010Dementia

Bob Woods on the importance of family involvement in care homes for people with dementia

“Then came the opportunity to plan a new style of dementia care home, right in the heart of the catchment area, and the positive effects on relatives’ guilt and strain were palpable. [Relatives] visited more often and felt considerably more involved. But there were tensions too; relatives were often dissatisfied with staff, and staff felt that relatives were more of a problem than the residents. It became clear that the relationship between staff and relatives needed just as much attention as that between staff and residents.”

June 30, 2010Social work

Danielle Turney on Relationship-Based Social Work

‘Placing the relationship at the heart of practice means recognising that, as we suggest in the Introduction, ”despite all the continuing upheavals in policy and procedure, social work [will] always begin and end with a human encounter between two or more people” and that this encounter, or relationship as it develops, is the medium through which the social work task can be carried out. Social work is never a neutral activity but can, at its best, offer a vulnerable or distressed person the experience of being valued, supported and understood – perhaps for the first time.’