Deena Stewart-Hitzk

Staff working in partnership with a service user’s family will become more aware of families' individual needs, and know more about an elderly person's home context, thus enabling them to be aware of how the care home is different or similar to their own home and understand the elderly person’s behaviour with this in mind.

Jonathan Kozol’s Fire in the Ashes is an honest depiction of the hardships and triumphs of families in the South Bronx, New York. In this book, Kozol introduces us to several Hispanic and Black families that he originally met in the Mott Haven/Martinique Hotel in the 1980’s and allows us to view their trajectory in the proceeding 25 years. By allowing the reader a look into the lives of these families, he provides us with a realistic depiction of the disadvantages families living in poverty encounter despite interventions from charity organizations and philanthropic donors. Kozol identifies that without “systematic justice and systematic equity in public education” (Kozol, 2013, pg 304) students in these impoverished neighborhoods will continue to lack the same economic opportunities that may potentially lead them out of the welfare system. Kozol emphasizes lack of stable housing, and unequal educational opportunities, as primarily conditions to perpetuating poverty. Despite the challenges that the families endure, Kozol is able to show that they are resilient.

There were small sheets of paper in each resident’s room, saying what their favourite things are, what they used to do, about their family and life, which was very touching for me to see the preservation of dignity throughout the facility. Although these write-ups were in everyone’s room it was as if there was not a human laying in that bed. It was like they were all mannequins and there was an indiscernible race, the focus was shifted from the individual to the completion of task at hand. Many care aides would have conversations about their weekend, or talk about the resident right in front of them. Some residents could hear and some could not, never the less,

This essay will explore why working in someone’s home can give rise to tensions and challenges for both the service user and care worker and will go on to explore how these issues can be overcome.

As we begin to go on an excursion through literature, it is important to understand the concept of what an ethnography is. Ethnography is known to be a descriptive type of work that analyzes culture and customs of individual people. James Clifford has implemented this work into his studies and has influenced many others to do the same. I saw through the books I have read, ethnography makes these books become vivacious for a reader.

A strength of this approach was her ability to live, not just research the topics since she was fully immersed. Since she actually works low-wage jobs and lives in low budget places, such as trailer parks, she gains a unique perspective to her research topic. When she compares her fellow workers' living conditions at Hearthside, for example, with her own "$500 efficiency," she exemplifies America's socioeconomic gap with a personal flair, not just merely research scope. Her Introduction directly confronts this issue: "Unlike many low wage workers, I have the further advantages of being white and a native English speaker." Since her data derives from case studies of real people, their narratives make the book more authentic and connect me on emotional, not just academic levels.

Ethnographic methodology provides rich and complex data (Brownlow, 2012). In the ethnographic approach a researcher joined the studied group in their natural environment, stayed as a part

This unit develops understanding of the values and principles that underpin the practice of all those who work in health and social care. The essay consider theories and policies that underpin health and social care practice and explore formal and informal mechanisms required to promote good practice by individuals in the workforce, including strategies that can influence the performance of others. The first part of this essay will consider how principles of support are implemented by using Overton house residential care home to evaluate and explain how principles of support are applied. Key concepts such as person-centred approach and dilemmas and conflicts arising from the

In this book we are opened to a new view of what really happens in east harlem by phillioe who carried out this ethnography reserch on

bell hooks is motivated to write Seeing and Making Culture: Representing the Poor based on her experiences of how they have been misrepresented. She knows firsthand what it is like to be poor and how difficult it can be. During her college years, she spent a great deal of her holidays with black women who knew hooks came from a poor family and were poor as well. These women were the ones to support and affirm to become educated in order to move beyond the world they lived in and the one she came from (hooks 432).

Both of the gentlemen stated they had been in other homes and that this was the nicest home they had been in. Kenneth complained of his first home ¡°smelling more like a zoo than a nursing home.¡± John told me that his last home was on the South Side and that the neighborhood was filled with gang bangers and hoodlums. When his family visits here though, they wheel him through the Lincoln Park neighborhoods and it¡¯s nice. For all of the questions that I asked these two men, they had just as many questions for me. Heading in to this assignment, I hadn¡¯t really considered that someone would be asking ME questions. In the midst of all that happens in nursing homes, it¡¯s important to remember that these residents aren¡¯t just dependent, older people, but that they are still people just like you and I.

As stated in text critique number one, where I explored and discussed the analytics of David Sirota’s “New data shows school ‘reformers’ are full of it”, the argument is strong and easily identifiable. The article flows and uses effective rhetorical devices to prove his points. As far as the interpretive side of it goes, I will explain the extent to which the author displays interpretive analysis and how that makes a difference in today’s society, and what the author meant for it to mean when published.

In a care home setting a relative may feel like they are putting their loved one (service user) at risk of further maltreatment or prejudicial treatment if they complain. They might fear that they will be identified as being the one whom complained and then, as a result, that the young person might be the target of a rebellious staff members emotional response. Conversely, a lot of relatives see how hard the staff are working and feel that they don’t want to complain because they sympathise with the difficult job that the carers have to carry out, so they might feel like they are being ungrateful for the care their loved one receives. A relative might also not be aware that they can complain (although this is in the welcome back and checked by social services and that it has been given) or might not know what the expectation are for the care of their loved one. They may assume that what has given them cause for concern is the norm and that in complaining they will be told ‘that is just the way it is’.

The book As We Are Now, written by May Sarton, targets those concerned with the care of elderly individuals in nursing homes. In the book, Sarton artistically highlights the plethora of ongoing issues social workers face in their work as they attempt to provide quality care to the elderly population. The book is written as the memoirs of a very thoughtful elderly woman, Caroline Spenser, as she spent part of her life in a nursing home; and brings to light the lack of quality of care that elderly individuals received when living in such a facility in the 1970’s.

Over the last two weeks the group tackled the assignments of Room 4: Coding. For this week’s assignment, Deena was tasked with coding her filed notes from the Room 11 – Observation Exercise. This combination of exercises add a significant piece of learning for my future work as a researcher. While the field notes, observations, and analysis that Deena provided as part of her observation study were detailed and full of good information, her coding of this material made it come alive. In this exercise she made Bryman’s four stages of qualitative analysus come alive.