Buse, C, Martin, D and Nettleton, S (2018) ‘Conceptualising “materialities of care”: Making visible mundane material culture in health and social care contexts,’ Sociology of Health & Illness, 40(2), pp. 243–255.
This article introduces the concept of materialities of care, which may be helpful in the field of health and social care. Buse, Martin, and Nettleton (2018) explore three dimensions of the newly introduced concept: spatialities, temporalities, and practices of care, each of which is used to describe and specify social care work. Spacialities describe places actual for social care patients, such as hospitals or museums, temporalities describe processes and feelings of patients, and practices are actual actions, such as exercises, necessary to maintain health. After reading the paper, I concluded that the concept of care materialities helps me in planning my work more efficiently. For example, temporalities of care are suitable for planning patient day schedules, making them more consistent and understandable. Thus, I will use the concept in my career to complete my work quicker and more efficiently.
Kinsella, E. A. et al. (2018) ‘Mindfulness in allied health and social care professional education: A scoping review,’ Disability and Rehabilitation, 42(2), pp. 283–295.
This study explores the concept of mindfulness, how it helps social care workers to cope with their work stress, and how to implement it in practice. Kinsella et al. (2018) analyzed 50 studies related to mindfulness in social care and elucidated its five fundamental aspects: attention, self-awareness, compassion, non-judgment, and acceptance. For me, those findings are essential to understand how I can reduce my stress level and enhance my social and cognitive abilities, which are necessary for my career in social healthcare.
Moudatsou, M. et al. (2020) ‘The role of empathy in health and social care professionals,’ Healthcare, 8(1), p. 26.
In this paper, the concept of empathy and its role for social care workers are reviewed. Moudatsou et al. (2020) evaluated and discussed 78 studies to elucidate three dimensions of empathy: emotional, cognitive, and behavioral. All of them are important for social care workers, who should be able to feel and understand the emotions of their clients and, in addition, cope with their own. For me, this model provides a robust tool for enhancing my empathy: emotional dimension for feeling other’s emotions, cognitive for proceeding with them, and behavioral for coping with my own emotions. I will remember it and use it to become a better social care worker during my career.
Papadopoulos, I, Koulouglioti, C and Ali, S (2018) ‘Views of nurses and other health and social care workers on the use of assistive humanoid and animal-like robots in health and social care: a scoping review,’ Contemporary Nurse, 54(4-5), pp. 425–442.
This article explores the usage of assistive robots in the social healthcare field. The main topics are the attitudes toward robot usage among social care workers and patients, in which activities robots may be the most valuable, and where their use causes the most concerns. Papadopoulos, Koulouglioti, and Ali (2018) analyzed nineteen studies connected with robot usage in healthcare. High cost, privacy concerns, and patient safety are the main obstacles that discourage social health workers from using robots. Still, they are especially useful as information providers for patients. For me, the importance of the article is that the implementation of new technologies, such as robots, is inevitable and may drastically increase the efficiency of social work. Thus, it is crucial to know how robots may be effectively used during my future career and understand all risks of working with them.
Smith, T. et al. (2018) ‘Leadership in interprofessional health and social care teams: A literature review,’ Leadership in Health Services, 31(4), pp. 452–467.
This critical literature review presents the interprofessional health leadership framework: a set of necessary skills and qualities that are helpful for interprofessional leadership. Smith et al. (2018) analyzed twenty-eight papers and elucidated twelve patterns that were included in the framework: examples of them are personal leadership qualities, communication and creativity skills, and a high level of expertise. The framework is good for analyzing which skills are necessary for healthcare leaders and help them develop those skills. I will use this model as a backbone for developing my leadership qualities and skill, which are necessary for my social healthcare career.