My first day of placement commenced on the 24th of February 2016. My role as a Recreational Activities Officer (RAO) for UP’s Leisure and Lifestyle team started two months prior to placement on a trial basis to relive staff on holidays and sick leave. Before this change in roles, I worked part-time as a support worker for UP for over two years.
Prior to the placement I felt perplexed as …show more content…
With the guidance from my agency supervisor and other staff members, I assembled a MSS therapy toolkit consisting of items designed for the application of MSS including known likes of the resident (Klages et al. 2011). For example, I was able to research the resident’s care plan and discovered that the resident enjoyed classical music, reading the newspaper and that he was a highly intellectual man. Included in my toolkit were different types of classical music accessed from my smart phone, a newspaper, a ball with soft and hard aspects, and an electric oil …show more content…
During the experience I felt confident because the training I had as a support worker was the same regarding assessments and data input/creation of care plans. In contemplation, what made me feel intrigued, was how “natural justice” (McDonald, 2011, p. 205-2110) was upheld in regards to the residents with diminished cognition as this was an afterthought on my part and not discussed in the training.
Fundamentally, Uniting’s policy regarding assessment and care plans is designed to assist the individual to optimise their health, independence, quality of life, well-being, and active participation in their community (Uniting 2016). McDonald (2011) defines natural justice as a fundamental principle that organisations need to adhere to in order to remain unbiased and fair in the decision making process. However, McDonald (2011) suggests that older people with disabilities rights to natural justice may be overlooked because of their