Introduction
Working with adults and young people who are experiencing substance misuse requires much effort and knowledge from the professional who is engaged in it. Relying on one’s intuition is not enough to achieve true professional mastery. The reflective practitioner should be able to reflect upon one’s strengths and weaknesses, should review systematically his or her practices and beliefs, and become more and more reflective in one’s work.
Relationship between theory and practice
Going to Professor of Continuing Education, Peter Jarvis, the traditional relationship between theory and practice should no longer exist in a present-day practice. The demands of modern society maintain that the former principle to learn theory and then apply it to practice does not work anymore (Jarvis 1999, p.95). As society is constantly developing, knowledge about it is rather relative than fixed, from this comes the importance of constant reflection on the practice one conducts. Though the work of one reflective practitioner will not solve the complex problem of substance misuse, it will reduce the harm it causes to individuals and society, as a whole.
Acting as a social worker
Before starting my work as a reflective practitioner I dealt with such national competence-based frameworks as Drugs and Alcohol National Occupational Standards and National Health Service Knowledge Skills Framework.
The Drug and Alcohol National Occupational Standards were launched in May 2002, they are significant for every person engaged in minimizing harm associated with substance misuse. The Standards were developed by Skills for Health, the Sector Skills Councils for Justice, Social Care, Housing, Employment, Education, and Young People. This framework specifies the main principles according to which people engaged in the drugs and alcohol field should work. Also, the framework describes the knowledge and skills needed to meet the required standards.
Acting as a social worker I worked in three fields: service delivery, management of services, and commissioning of services. Service delivery presupposed: informing people about substance use, factors of health and social well-being; testing individuals for substance misuse; helping them to access substance misuse services; working out integrated programs of care for those who are addicted to substance misuse; provide individual’s rehabilitation and support him or her during this process.
Management of services made me deal with the following tasks: to manage information, to manage services, and to manage relationships.
The duty of commissioning services consisted of identifying needs for our substance misuse service and developing strategies and plans to meet these needs. In general, commissioning services also presuppose management of contracts for the service, but at that time it was not my task to cope with. Though these functions are usually performed by three different workers, my task was to combine the most essential of them.
Most often, I conducted tests for substance use, helped people to understand their problems, informed them about detoxification programs and supported them when the latter was conducted, provided individuals with housing and accommodation.
In my opinion, one of the most important things I had to deal with was to identify that someone who I came into contact with was misusing drugs, alcohol, solvents, or other substances.
Looking back at my work I can state that the following substances were most commonly misused: illegal drugs, prescription drugs, over-the-counter drugs, alcohol, and solvents. Indications of substance misuse were either physical or behavioral or came out from the information provided by the individuals or other sources. The main causes for substance misuse include criminal behavior of the individual, sexual exploitation, parental involvement with substance misuse, friends suffering from the same problem, absence of the desirable interconnection with other people, accommodation problems, etc.
When I ensured of the substance misuse I had to decide on the specialists this or that person needed to address: these were either those who worked with us or external to our organization.
While The Drug and Alcohol National Occupational Standards hold concrete and precise prescriptions concerning the work in the sphere of substance misuse, the NHS Knowledge Skills Framework gives a broader description of knowledge and skills that NHS workers need to apply to provide quality services. The main principle of this document – the principle of good people management – turned out to be extremely useful for me when working in the substance misuse center. It influenced my professional development, ethics, and decision-making abilities.
The principle of management
The principle of good people management may apply both to workers and to those who addressed our center. It implied such concepts, as integrity, honesty, and objectivity between people, the confidentiality of the information needed for effective work with those who experience substance misuse, ethical issues involved in having personal relationships with clients.
Also, my development as a practitioner depended on my abilities to realize my successes and failures which helped me to make conclusions about the work I have done. What was also important is my ability to identify the opportunities for new areas of growth, which contributed to my ever-increasing work over myself.
As substance misuse is a problem that needs urgent solving but is difficult to cope with, the experience that we get while working over it is essential and should be sufficiently analyzed and cumulated. This is what I made when being a reflective practitioner. I tried to implement the theoretical knowledge acquired before in practice, as well as to work out some new theory judging from the practical experience I got there.
Also, I realized that both the worker and the employee are responsible for the effective work of the substances misuse center. On the one hand, it is the worker who is ethically responsible for offering the services that he or she has the knowledge and skills to carry out, on the other, it is the employee who is responsible for hiring workers with appropriate knowledge and skills. If the system employee-worker system works efficiently people who address services of the type are more likely to get the professional help they have asked for.
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