Resilience Within Health And Social Care

Resilience is considered to be the ability to bounce back from negative experiences as well as challenges. It should be noted that confidence is considered to be one of the most essential components of resilience since it is only through confidence that individuals will be able to see failures and challenges as opportunities for growth and at the same time, will also be able to learn effective ways which will help them to cope with different types of negative thoughts and emotions (Aven and Thekdi 2018). Therefore, every individual should learn to build their resilience skills, since this will help them to give strength that is required to process as well as overcome difficulties. Individuals who lack resilience easily get overwhelmed and might also resort to coping mechanisms that are unhealthy (Aven and Thekdi 2018).

Hence, the primary aim of the essay is to explore the concept of resilience within health and social care, identify an opportunity that has been assessed by me, and state how resilience can be enabled and enhanced. One intervention to promote resilience will also be discussed and also highlight the importance of resilient as well as social care workforce in bringing supportive patient outcomes.

According to WHO, resilience is considered to be the process as well as skills that lead to both good individuals along with community health outcomes, despite the negative situation and hazards (Pollock et al 2020). It has also been stated by WHO, that resilience not only takes place within an individual context but also considers both environment as well as cultural context. Resilience, within health and social care, means to be able to adapt to the misfortunes and setbacks of life, because if individuals dwell on difficulties, then they tend to feel victimized and become overwhelmed with their emotions resulting in unhealthy coping mechanisms which ultimately affects individuals’ overall health and well-being (Pollock et al 2020).  Importance Of Resilience In Health And Social Care Example Paper

Therefore, it should be noted that both health and social care workers need to demonstrate their ability of resilience since this will help and encourage them to take effective as well as efficient care of patients and at the same time, will also ensure that they practice ethically and appropriately within the health and social care setting (Marshall et al 2021). It should be noted that resilience is a combination of discrete personal traits besides experience, that leads to positive adaptation. Both health and social care workers go through a lot of emotional, mental as well as physical burnout while taking care of patients, due to lack of control pertaining to over-schedules and long working hours that creates issues in work-life balance that might have a direct impact on quality care delivery for patients (Marshall et al 2021).

Enabling And Enhancing Resilience

Hence, in these situations, it is essential for health and social care workers to demonstrate and practice their ability and skill of resilience, which will not only help them to cope with difficult life situations as well as experience within their practice but will at the same time, also help in offering positive support and care to patients and clients (Walsh et al 2020). Apart from this, resilience is also essential in health and social care because it not only helps in developing mechanisms against overwhelming experiences but will help health and social care workers to improve their achievements by improving their work, will help in reducing risks as well as unhealthy behaviours while taking care of patients and at the same time, will also help in increasing their participation within health and social care activities (O’Hara,  Aase and Waring 2019).

Therefore, resilience within health and social care will not only help in taking care of patients and supporting them despite personal difficulties and issues but will motivate health and social care workers to come up with relevant and appropriate changes within the health and social care setting that will help in contributing towards positive care and treatment outcomes (Morse et al 2021). Apart from this, resilience within health, as well as social care, means to be optimistic even during challenging and hopeless situations.

It should be noted that health and social care professionals face regular challenges and difficulties in their practice, and if they are not able to be optimistic and hopeful in these situations then it affects patients as well as their families (Morse et al 2021). However, when resilience is shown then it leads to better and appropriate decision-making since emotionally resilient health and social care workers will be able to guide their emotions by making use of their thinking as well as behaviour, instead of making their emotions guide them (Mills, Sullivan and Ross 2021). Therefore, to take effective and appropriate care of patients and clients, health and social care professionals need to show and practice resilience that will not only lead to their personal and professional satisfaction but will also help in contributing positively towards patient health and well-being (Mills, Sullivan and Ross 2021).

It should be noted that as a practice learning experience while I was pursuing my BSc Honours, I participated in an adult nursing program where I worked as an intern in a care home for 1.5 months as a part of my course. My goal during this learning experience was to enhance and enable resilience skills within individuals living in a care home, that would help in enhancing their self-esteem and morale and at the same time, would also help them to become independent.

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Promoting Resilience In Elderly Individuals Living In Care Homes

A care home is considered to be an organization or a social care service that aims at providing accommodation as well as personal care to individuals who require additional support in their daily lives (Hanratty et al 2018). The care home, where I worked as an intern, took care of the elderly people, where they required care and support in eating, dressing as well as washing themselves which not only affected their physical health but also had a tremendous impact on their mental health since they were not able to work independently, however, intended to work independently that would help in enhancing their morale as well as self-esteem.

Therefore, since individuals in the care home were completely demotivated, therefore, I took this as an opportunity to enhance their build their resilience by encouraging them and making them understand strategies that would help them to work independently which would ultimately lead to their enhanced self-esteem as well as morale (Hanratty et al 2018). I realized that building resilience is quite essential within individuals in a care home, not only because they were old and suffering from physical and mental health illnesses, but because resilience would help them to face daily challenges with confidence and would also help them to work independently, thereby leading to positive health outcomes.

Resilience in elderly people living in care homes, is related to the importance of socially connecting them to other individuals and promoting their participation in purposeful activities. Since elderly people already go through a lot of mental and physical health issues, therefore, I realized that to build resilience among them I had to build positive thoughts and feelings within them (MacDonald 2020). I realized that to build resilience within them, it was essential to offer emotional and psychological support to elderly people living in care homes. This would thereby, help them to accept the wear as well as tear of aging while at the same time, dealing with their problems and crisis of daily lives that help in making them stronger.

It should be noted that elderly people living in care homes tend to be completely demotivated since they have limited interaction and communication with the outside world, have limited access to resources, and at the same time, due to poor self-confidence and esteem, elderly individuals are unable to do their everyday activities independently, that tends to make them further dependent and further affects their confidence (Casaccia et al 2019).

Hence, when resilience will be built then elderly individuals in the care homes, will be able to look at their challenges and difficulties in an optimistic manner, will feel motivated to overcome their daily issues, and at the same time, will be able to develop coping mechanisms to deal with their failures (Casaccia et al 2019). Apart from this, it should also be noted, resilience is a skill that will help elderly individuals to understand strategies that will motivate them to work independently which will thereby lead to their happiness and also ensure their health and overall well-being (Otoara et al 2018). In addition to this, with the help of resilience, elderly individuals will also be able to successfully identify their strengths and build upon them by making the best use of resources that are offered to them (Otoara et al 2018).

Furthermore, it should also be noted that with the help of resilience, elderly people will be able to successfully find meaning to their life, will lead to better and efficient self-management skills which will thereby lead to better health outcomes, will help in enhancing their quality of life and at the same time, will also lead to their greater participation in different types of activities that will be aimed at better health outcomes.

Cognitive behavioural therapy is considered to be one of the most effective as well as efficient interventions that aim at building resilience among individuals, helps them to identify coping strategies and at the same time, also helps in instilling positive emotions and thoughts within them (Joyce et al 2018). Therefore, it should be noted that CBT is one such identified intervention, that will help in enhancing and promoting resilience among elderly people living in a care home. It should be noted that CBT is a type of psychological intervention which will be effectively used by me while working with elderly people living in a care home (Joyce et al 2018).

Hence, as a therapist it should be noted, that to build and develop resilience among elderly people, I will motivate as well as encourage elderly individuals to identify their negative emotions and thought that is resulting in their poor self-esteem as well as morale which is affecting their mental health and thereby making them weaker as a result of which they do not feel motivated to work independently (Rauschenberg et al 2020). Therefore, with the help of CBT, I will motivate elderly individuals living in care homes to identify their negative thought patterns and replace them with positive ones which will help in strengthening their skills and capabilities, will help them to realize the consequences of their negative feelings and actions and how this is affecting their mental and physical health (Rauschenberg et al 2020).

Therefore, since CBT will help in replacing negative thoughts and actions with positive ones, it will thereby help them to develop a flexible and optimistic way of thinking regarding the dependent lives in the care homes (Yang et al 2018). Apart from this, CBT will also help in developing elderly people to relax and develop a more rational thought process. In addition to this, it should also be noted that CBT will act as a powerful tool to promote positive changes in behaviour, where the intervention will make use of self-awareness as well as other strategies that will help them to overcome negative habits and thought patterns (Yang et al 2018).

When elderly people will be able to identify coping strategies and will successfully replace their negative thoughts and emotions with positive ones, then they will be able to enhance their self-esteem and morale, which will thereby build their confidence and resilience to face the challenge of their daily lives where they are unable to do simple activities like eating, dressing and others independently, or might not be given a chance to do them (Naeem, Irfan and Javed 2020). Therefore, CBT as an intervention will help in building resilience among elderly people by instilling positive thought patterns within them which will also encourage them to at least make an attempt to do their activities effectively and efficiently.

It should be noted that individuals who are able to bounce back from adversities are able to share happier relationships and enjoy better health. CBT, will, therefore, help in building resilience which will aim at increasing their self-awareness by making elderly people, identify their beliefs and adhere to the three C’s of resilience- commitment, control, and challenge (Naeem, Irfan and Javed 2020). Therefore, it should be noted that CBT will help in making the elderly people in the care home to commit towards positive emotions and thoughts and control their negative thoughts which are affecting their everyday actions thereby motivating them to challenge stressful life events (Feder et al 2019).

At the same time, CBT will also help elderly individuals to understand and recognize what is within and outside their control that will help them to effectively understand their strengths as well as weaknesses and will thereby help in building new confidence and hope within them (Feder et al 2019). Similarly, CBT will also help in understanding the social factors that might have an impact and influence on the negative thought processes of elderly people that will help in addressing those social issues affecting the strengths and morale of the group and thereby will help in building and promoting effective resilience (MacDonald 2020).

From the above discussion, it can easily be said that it is quite essential to build, promote as well as enhance resilience among patients since this gives them the strengths and confidence to challenge difficulties and problems and at the same time, helps in building self-esteem and morale within them which motivates them to respond to care as well as treatment services (Iflaifel et al 2020). However, resilience should be built not only within patients, but even health and social care workers taking care of patients and clients need to build resilience within them, or should have strong resilient capabilities that will help in supporting patient care (Iflaifel et al 2020).

It should be noted that when there will be a presence of resilient health as well as social care workforce then they will be effectively able to meet challenges and will at the same time, will also help in identifying and coping with their burnout of work stress, over-scheduling and managing critical cases which do not allow them to maintain an efficient work-life balance (Kittelsen and Keating 2019).

Therefore, when the health and social care workforce will have resilience skills, then this will help them to see their daily challenges in an optimistic manner where they will be able to successfully come up with effective and relevant decision-making skills that will help in supporting patient care where the most relevant and appropriate decision will be taken for the benefit and care of patients (Kittelsen and Keating 2019).

If the health and social care workforce are not resilient then they will not be able to think critically and appropriately and will mostly be overwhelmed by their own emotions which will have a tremendous impact on their decision-making abilities and will also not help them to effectively support patient care (Ellis et al 2019). Apart from this, when there will be a presence of positive and resilient health and social care workforce then they will be able to make the best use of available resources that might help in offering quality care to patients which are considered to be quite essential in health and social care sectors (Ellis et al 2019).

Another significant importance of having resilient health and social care practitioners is that the mentioned skill helps them to see their work as a way of encouraging patients to become healthy and promote continuous health education instead of only focusing on fixing their problems (Kuhlmann, Dussault and Wismar 2020). Apart from this, resilient health and social care workforce will also help in allowing the professionals to become aware of their own emotions which will thereby encourage them to respond in rational ways and avoid automatic and negative reactions that can affect patient care and might also lead to their withdrawal from the health and social care services (Kuhlmann, Dussault and Wismar 2020).

At the same time, resilience will also help the health and social care workforce to maintain a balance between work and life which will thereby help in contributing towards their personal as well as a positive development and also encourages them to align their practice with ethical principles to make it professionally and legally appropriate (Anderson et al 2020). In addition to this, positive and enhanced resilience capability and skills not only help in supporting patients but also help in supporting their families and challenging and tough times, since resilience skills help in building strong emotional intelligence abilities that help in being compassionate towards issues faced by others (Anderson et al 2020).

Furthermore, positive resilient health and social care workforce help in protecting these individuals from mental health conditions, which makes them more responsible and accountable towards their patients (O’Hara, Canfield and Aase 2019). At the same time, resilience will also lead to better job satisfaction within health and social care professionals, enhance their performance and productivity and build team morale and effective self-management skills which thereby leads to their satisfaction that will motivate them to take effective and supportive care of patients which will eventually lead to patient satisfaction and supportive care (O’Hara, Canfield and Aase 2019).

Techniques of mindfulness, breathing and relaxation exercises, meditation, reflection, and effective self-awareness skills help health and social care workers to build their resilience capability which helps in creating positive treatment and care outcomes for the patients.  Therefore, all the mentioned skills need to be practiced by health and social care professionals to promote supportive patient care (Wiig et al 2020).

Conclusion

Thus, to conclude it should be noted that resilience is considered to be one of the most essential and effective skills and capabilities that needs to be present within health and social care practitioners which motivates them to make relevant and appropriate decisions for the patients, helps them to make appropriate use of resources and at the same time, also helps in building and promoting resilience among patients which thereby helps both patients and health professionals to face difficult life challenges and situations. Working in a care home gave me an opportunity to enable and build resilience within elderly patients so that they become less dependent for their daily activities which thereby helped in enhancing their self-esteem and morale.

References

Anderson, J.E., Ross, A.J., Macrae, C. and Wiig, S., 2020. Defining adaptive capacity in healthcare: a new framework for researching resilient performance. Applied ergonomics, 87, p.103111.

Aven, T. and Thekdi, S., 2018. The importance of resilience-based strategies in risk analysis, and vice versa. Domains of resilience for complex interconnected systems., p.33.

Casaccia, S., Bevilacqua, R., Scalise, L., Revel, G.M., Astell, A.J., Spinsante, S. and Rossi, L., 2019, July. Assistive sensor-based technology driven self-management for building resilience among people with early stage cognitive impairment. In 2019 IEEE International Symposium on Measurements & Networking (M&N) (pp. 1-5). IEEE.

Ellis, L.A., Churruca, K., Clay-Williams, R., Pomare, C., Austin, E.E., Long, J.C., Grødahl, A. and Braithwaite, J., 2019. Patterns of resilience: a scoping review and bibliometric analysis of resilient health care. Safety Science, 118, pp.241-257.  Importance Of Resilience In Health And Social Care Example Paper