Evaluate your own professional development and your ability to enhance the capabilities of others.

Your answer should provide evidence of your ability to:

Manage change, tasks and processes within the Child and Youth Care environment at a level of consistent with your role in the organization (support worker)
Evaluate your own professional development and your ability to enhance the capabilities of others.
Identify the sources of power within your organization and demonstrate practice which is non oppressive and inclusive.

Approaching the question.

The question has been broken down into different parts just as a guide to think about how to ensure that the answer addresses all the different parts contained within the question.
These parts are colour coded font i.e Green, Red and Blue. This is to help think about how the question might be addressed and make sure that everything that is asked of you within the question is covered and answered.
It is important that what is submitted upon completion is one coherent, structured assignment and not a series of short answers dealing separately with each of the different points to be considered that are identified in the question.

AREA OF PRACTICE

Teamwork

ANSWERING THE QUESTION 1A

Students must provide a critical reflection on the processes of management and leadership within their workplace by applying your knowledge to at least one area of practice.

This area of practice becomes the central thread which provides a structure and coherence to the overall assignment. The question is asking to critically reflect upon the process of management and leadership per se, it is asking how management and leadership are particularly applied to this area of practice, i.e Teamwork.

The setting in this case is that of a Project Worker (Support Worker) whose job description is to provide a supportive environment with clear and consistent approaches to young people 16+ in a semi independent placement. A Project Worker is responsible to the Senior Project Worker, Service Manager and the Service Director.

Referring to “Teamwork” the question asks to critically reflect upon the way in which this is practiced in the workplace. The management and leadership tasks that are inherent within the process of Teamwork and asking to think about the effectiveness or not as seen to be played out.

The following literature can also be used for this part.

Required Reading Guide – Week 1

Goleman, D. (January 2004). What Makes a Leader? Harvard Business Review.

Hasenfeld, Y. (2015). What exactly is human services management? Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance, 39(1), 1-5.

Garrow, E. & Hasenfeld Y. (1992). Theoretical Approaches to Human Services Organizations. In Y. Hasenbfeld & A. Delano Abbott (Eds) Human Services as Complex Organizations (pp. 33-58). Sage: Los Angeles.

ANSWERING THE QUESTION 1B

In doing so, you will consider how leadership ad management contributes to the creation and maintenance of an effective therapeutic culture.

Week 1 Reading Material – Thinking about encouraging us to explore the meaning and definition of leadership and management; are they same, are they different, are they complimentary and what is the significance of this for Child and Youth Care (CYC) practice.

You need to explore and define what is meant about leadership and management within a CYC context.

Providing some sort of theoretical underpinning for what is understood to be leadership and management.
Then beginning to think about how the practice around the theme of teamwork contributes to the creation and maintenance of an effective, therapeutic culture by engaging with some literature about both management and leadership.
and some literature around Teamwork in terms of frequency, its content and the value that is placed on it.
What staff gain from being involved in Teamwork. How it helps the staff team and organisation carry out its tasks effectively.

ANSWERING THE QUESTION 1C

You must demonstrate that you can apply underpinning knowledge and theory to the understanding of the management and leadership issues, and the also critically reflect on how you have made sense of the practice issues.

You will achieve this via the use of literature provided and complimented by additional sources identified from own searches and research. References have to be made to the literature and research as appropriate throughout the assignment.
Part of the task is to evidence where the understanding is being drawn from.
Ensure that it is all cited and referenced in the format that is required for a Masters level study.

ANSWERING THE QUESTION 2

The answer should provide evidence of your ability to:

2A – Manage change, tasks and processes within the Child and Youth Care (CYC) environment at a level with your role in the organization;
2B – Evaluate your own professional development and your ability to enhance the capabilities of others;
2C – identify the sources of power within your organization and demonstrate practice which is non- oppressive and inclusive

ANSWERING THE QUESTION 2A –

This point is prompting me to reflect upon my role in the practice being analyzed (the practice is Teamwork). Whilst leadership and management practice will be discussed more generally, it is important that there is content which has focus within my role of Support Worker in the organization, where I should be critically reflecting upon tasks the processes that I am involved in in the agency setting. This has to be done in a way that is consistent with my role in the organization.

NB – In order to pass this assessment, I do not have to be a manager or be in a leadership position. I am supposed to engage with the material consistent with my role in the organization.

Principal Tasks as Project/Support worker

To recognize the potential capabilities and aspirations of all young people.
To provide the opportunities, encouragement and support whereby individual potential may be realized and independence promoted.
To provide a holistic approach to all areas of support and opportunities in the young peoples’ lives.
To provide young people with a safe space and skilled workforce in order to support their development as they move to independence. Workers must hold or be able to work towards CQF level 3 working with Children and Young People, mandatory and specialist training

Job Activities

To provide at all times a clean and healthy living environment in which one works, and to encourage and support young people as to how to provide such an environment for themselves. To encourage young people to be responsible for their own personal effects.
To ensure the living environment in which staff work and young people live is safe and free of dangers of a health and safety nature (in the first instance) and report all matters of concern to the appropriate person as soon as possible.
To ensure that all identified support needs are met in line with support plans.
To ensure that a balanced and culturally appropriate (if applicable) diet is encouraged and that young people are advised around the importance of healthy eating and regular exercise.
To display positive role modelling at all times in relation to personal hygiene, dress and demeanour.

To provide the opportunity for all young people in CareTech Children’s Services care to form and maintain positive working relationships in a professional nature with the adults closest to them so enabling them to learn the necessary skills required for future development in their own lives and relationships.
To provide the opportunity for young people to discuss their fears and concerns and offer supportive counsel (bar child protection responsibilities).
To support appropriate contact with significant others in the young person’s life. Where necessary offering safety and support with difficult relationships.
To provide in both group and one to one settings the appropriate level of care and control required to effectively manage the day to day running and support provision.
To encourage the importance of education and employment and provide support, where requested, to education/employment providers.
To support young people attending interviews for school/further education/employment at the direction of the education staff.
To provide positive and acceptable health promotion to young people, including sexual health.
To provide and be actively involved in facilitating a package of safe and varied activities, in line with the young person’s preferences and resources.
To involve young people in the day to day planning of such activities and the general running of the home.
To ensure that adequate risk assessments have been completed in respect of activities and permission for those deemed as dangerous to be highlighted to Placing Authority.
To provide objective and professionally sound verbal and written information on a daily basis where required.
To be available for relevant statutory reviews, planning meetings, Child Protection Case Conferences and any other relevant meetings when requested.
To be actively involved in the assessment, planning, preparation and implementation of support plans.
To fulfil all organizational requirements involving administration and finances to the standards as designated by the Service Manager.
To adhere to at all times, the organizational policy, procedure and guidelines.
To work in line at all times with standards designated by the Children’s Act (1989), and other relevant legislation.
To attend and be involved in all relevant training, qualifications and courses provided by the organization, in line with personal development plan.
To be available for all internal meetings and staff meetings.

ANSWERING THE QUESTION 2B – This acts as a prompt to reflect on my own practices on professional development (professional development of CYC workers) along with the ability to play a role in enhancing the capabilities of others in a manner that is consistent with the role of a Support Worker. This will be thinking on how I play a role in enhancing the capability of other as a CYC Support Worker.

In Teamwork, we should be working in a way where we are being collaborative when we are being good team members and colleagues and when it is being done well that will be involving, inevitably how I can enhance the capabilities of other acting as a role model in some way. This role is the *****of quality that can be evidenced by workers at all levels. There is a need to provide evidence of how one thinks of their own professional development and how one can contribute to enhancing the capability of others.

ANSWERING THE QUESTION 2C – Identify the sources of power within your organization and demonstrate practice which is non-oppressive and inclusive.

Looking at material around leadership and management that emphasises the fact that power is an element of leadership and management practice. This prompt acts as a reminder to reflect upon the manner in which this is exercised within your setting, possibly making links to the underpinning values of CYC generally.

LINKS BACK TO STRUCTURE

Making sure paragraphs flow from one to the next in a logical progression, and use signposts or bridges to make progression clear.
Team work (which is the selected area of practice), should become the central thread and this should help the structure and the coherence of the overall assignment and will be the area of practice through which management and leadership will be examined.

TIP- What should not be done is when thinking about the evaluation of professional development and the ability to enhance the capability of others (in red ink), going off into material or talk about something completely unrelated to Teamwork.

The three bullet points need not form stand-alone sections within the assignment but each should be touched on and covered to some extent.

ASSIGNMENT – LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT.

MODULE REQUIRED READING GUIDE

Goleman, D. (January 2004). What Makes a Leader? Harvard Business Review.

Hasenfeld, Y. (2015). What exactly is human services management? Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance, 39(1), 1-5.

Week 2

Gharabhagi, K. (2011). Professional Issues in Child and Youth Care Practice. New York: Routledge. Chapter 9 – Child and Youth Care Approaches to Management.

Smith, S.R. (2015). Managing human service organizations in the 21st century, Human Services Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance, 39(5), 407-411.

Simon Sinek, How great leaders inspire action, TED talk.

Week 3

Stuart, C. (2004). Our relation ship to leadership in Child and Youth Care. Relational Child and Youth Care Practice, 17(2), 46-48.

Modlin, H. (2013). Meaning-making: Another perspective. Relational Child and Youth Care Practice, 26(3), 5-13.