Time Management – a flexible approach

Time Managment is all the buzz right now and no doubt you have been on a course or seminar (if you haven’t you probably soon will be). They are often helpful but they are a bit prescriptive. Here is a link to a blog that approaches time management in a much more dynamic way, I’ve included an extended quote from it as a taster. See what you think, it makes good sense to me.

http://alltimemanagement.com/time-management/

In today’s world where change, communication and information are accelerated, and responsibilities are exponential, there is no one “way” to manage time.

The skills you will need to rely on are Emotional Intelligence competencies, and they will cure the problem, not treat the symptom.

Emotional Intelligence covers such competencies as flexibility, creativity, intuition and resilience. This means that what you are building is not “time management skills”, but the ability to function amidst chaos, inadequate data, imperfect human beings, uncertainty and pressure.

We are as much trapped by technology and people as we are assisted by them. On a good day, your computer, cell phone, airline, team plan, and project team will make things run more smoothly than in the past, and you will accomplish your goals for the day.

But on a bad day, your calendar will be of no use if your server goes down, and neither will your email. Even though you keep a meticulous day planner, you’ll have to rearrange your schedule if your cell phone battery goes dead in the middle of a client call. If your airplane is late arriving, it won’t matter how many people you called to the meeting, or how carefully you planned the details. And if Harry has to have emergency surgery and be out of work for two weeks, he won’t be fulfilling his part of the project, even if he’s prepared, knows how to do it and highly motivated and you are left to cope.

What will help you in these situations is:
·Resilience – being able to bounce when confronted with obstacles;
·Flexiblity – being able to relax when things change, so you can continue to think and function at top speed;
·Creativity – so you can come up with a Plan B; and
·Intuition – which can give you the an early-alert system to warn you when things are starting to fall apart, and how best to get them back together again

New papers from SCIE:

 

Here is a recent email form SCIE – there is so much stuff there that it’s a bit like Christmas….explore and enjoy! I would heartily recommend that after looking at this page you go directly to SCIE by clicking here SCIENEWSTUFF

 

New resources from the Social Care Institute for Excellence   General Interprofessional and inter-agency collaboration e-learning resources Working in partnership with professionals from other sectors, as well as with people who use services and their carers, is crucial to the provision of seamless social care services. These e-learning resources use interactive technology to explore the nature of interprofessional and inter-agency collaboration. SCIE guide 28: Using SCIE resources  This online toolkit shows how SCIE products can be disseminated by social care staff, helping them to develop and implement practice. It will be of particular interest to those with workforce or service development responsibilities. New resources from the Social Care Institute for Excellence   General Interprofessional and inter-agency collaboration e-learning resources Working in partnership with professionals from other sectors, as well as with people who use services and their carers, is crucial to the provision of seamless social care services. These e-learning resources use interactive technology to explore the nature of interprofessional and inter-agency collaboration. SCIE guide 28: Using SCIE resources  This online toolkit shows how SCIE products can be disseminated by social care staff, helping them to develop and implement practice. It will be of particular interest to those with workforce or service development responsibilities.   Adults’ services At a glance 2: Improving outcomes for people in shared living services Shared living schemes offer care and support to people who use services (usually older people and those with learning disabilities), in family homes. This At a glance presents key messages for local authorities and commissioners.  At a glance 4: Changing social care: an inclusive approach The transformation of adult social care requires a change in approach from the social care workforce. This At a glance presents some ideas about how to successfully make the move to personalised services.      At a glance 5: Mental Capacity Act This At a glance presents an overview of the Mental Capacity Act (MCA) 2005, which is important to all those working in health and social care.       Personalisation briefings At a glance 6: Implications for commissioners At a glance 7: Implications for home care providers At a glance 8: Implications for housing providers At a glance 10: Implications for carers     Social work education participation (SWEP) SWEP is an active user-made website for sharing of good practice in service user and carer involvement in social work education.   Using technology to support personalisation and workforce development SCIE and the National Skills Academy for Social Care are developing a strategy to support the use of electronic communication in learning and sharing within adult social care. We are looking for good practice examples in order to set the boundaries for this project. If you are pioneering the use of technology for staff or people using your services, we would like to hear from you. For more information see the workforce section of the SCIE website.

Step by step guides to success

These excellence checklists provide invaluable advice for leaders and managers tackling a range of everyday issues.

I have looked at most of them, especially those that are more likely to appeal to the Health and Social Care Sector – they are well worth exploring and most are worth downloading.

 Don’t hesistate – click here: InvestorsinExcellence

   

CRM (NEW)	Managing equal opportunity (NEW)
Emerging trends (NEW)	New Employee Induction (NEW)
Business continuity planning	Protecting intellectual property (NEW)
People surveys	Developing a business plan
Facilitation skills	Managing performance
Benchmarking	Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Risk assessment	Team building
Managing meetings	Influencing motivation
Negotiation skills	Value chain analysis
Project management	Triple bottom line
Presentation skills

Leadership and Management in Care Award

THE RMA AWARD IS NOW REPLACED BY THE NEW LEADERSHIP AND MANGEMENT IN CARE AWARD.

THIS BLOG WILL FOCUS ON THIS AWARD AND WILL MAP NEW POSTS TO THE UNITS! THE BLOG WILL REMAIN A USEFUL RESOURCE FOR ANYONE IN THE CARE SECTOR, ESPECIALLY MANAGERS.

THE FOLLOWING IS SOME BASIC INFORMATION ABOUT THIS NEW AWARD WITH A HYPERLINK AT THE BASE IF YOU WANT TO EXPLORE FURTHER.  

This NVQ is aimed at candidates who are leaders and managers of care services (adults and children and young people). It is suitable for candidates who:

• Develop, lead and manage a diverse provision and workforce in the context of continual change
• Lead, manage and develop good practice and continuous improvement in service provision that promotes the well being of people and enables them to reach their full potential
• Lead and manage provision which is healthy, safe, manages risks and safeguards and protects people from all forms of abuse
• Promote collaborative, joint working and decision making that achieves successful outcomes for people
• Manage the strategy, policy, finances and operations of the provision.

HyperlinkforOCRintroductionto Leasdership&ManagementinCareAward

CRB: Checks for volunteers……new guidelines.

 

CRB Checks for volunteers -guidance just published – click the link for easily readable booklet.

“No secrets?”. POVA. A statutory future?

Just what responsibilities does the POVA requirements lay on you and your workforce? The situation seems increasingly muddied as the POVA requirments are laid against the child protection statutory requirements. And then there are legal challenges to the limits of POVA intervention and it’s link with child and adlolecent services. After al,l vulnerable adult often have children. To what extent ought the protection issues be linked and place on the same legal footing? This is more complex than I can reasonably outline here, so please for to the link below for further information…

Community-Care

Practice Guides: free from SCIE!

Free resources, especially when they come form an authoritative source are always to be welcomed. The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) has a wealth of important free stuff as well as good links to all kinds of useful sites. For me, the Practice Guide 1: Managing Practice is a must and anyone in first line management would do well to read it. There are also exercises for group learning if you happen to be in education. But they are all important if you work in the respective sectors.

Hope you find them useful……. link:  http://www.scie.org.uk/publications/practiceguides/index.asp

 

Title	Year
Practice guide 11: The participation of adult service users, including older people, in developing social care	2007
Practice guide 10: Community-based day activities and supports for people with learning disabilities	2007
Practice guide 09: Dignity in care	2006
Practice guide 08: Improving outcomes for service users in adult placement – Commissioning and care management	2006
Practice guide 07: Making referrals to the POVA list	2006
Practice guide 06: Involving children and young people in developing social care	2006
Practice guide 05: Implementing the Carers (Equal Opportunities) Act 2004	2005
Practice guide 04: Adult placements and person-centred approaches for people with learning disabilities	2005
Practice guide 03: Fostering	2004
Practice guide 02: Assessing the mental health needs of older people	2006
Practice guide 01: Managing practice	2003
Number of publications/resources: 11

Stroke care – calling ‘best practice’ – can anyone help?

The issue of stroke care is one I often think about. Many homes do stroke training and updating. But in truth it is hardly the focus for most care/nursing homes. Have any of you out there got any best proctice guidlines you could share with us?

Meanwhile this from the BBC gives a taste of the current situation.

“Failings in stroke care are leaving thousands dead or unnecessarily disabled each year, warn experts.

The Stroke Association says too few patients are treated in specialist stroke units, or given the right drugs.

The National Institute for Clinical Excellence and Royal College of Physicians hope new guidelines for England and Wales will help boost care.

The Department of Health said its stroke strategy for England was already improving care.

Too often in the past, vital stroke guidelines such as these have been put on a shelf and ignored, causing unnecessary deaths, disability and loss of independence for many thousands of people Joe Korner Stroke Association

Each year, approximately 150,000 people in the UK suffer a stroke, and 67,000 people die as a result.

However, specialists say that the toll of deaths and permanent disability could be radically reduced if the NHS offered the appropriate care at the appropriate time.

Great Management Quotes of Our Time: Peter Drucker.

Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for. A product is not quality because it is hard to make and costs a lot of money, as manufacturers typically believe. This is incompetence. Customers pay only for what is of use to them and gives them value. Nothing else constitutes quality.

Peter Drucker
American (Austrian-born) management writer (1909 – 2005)

If this is true most health and social care organisations, private voluntary and statutory, are approaching quality from the wrong direction. Ho, hum…..comments please…….

Plenty more where that came from…

http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/4773.html

NVQ evidence: pliagerism and correct citing of sources.

Professional reflection: Plagiarism in the NVQ process.

Philip McMullen.  Jan 2008.

Introduction.  

Whether evidence is presented in handwritten, printed or electronic formats, the assessor /verifiers ought to have an understanding of how to establish that the evidence presented is original, and where and to what extent it relies on citing other people’s work. This skill-set requires having an understanding of the candidates writing style – the textual hallmarks that give an accurate assessment of the originality and authenticity of the evidence produced – in much the same way as a college or university tutor would mark an essay.

With the availability of third person work freely available on the internet, and access to paid model answers, this is a ‘clear and present’ issue. Work can also be taken from another portfolio or originated by a friend or family.  Remember signatures and dates can be faked / falsified.  In my experience, evidence often contains unacknowledged third party citations. It is not always deliberate.

Possible solutions:  

1.  Assessor/ verifier continued professional development. 

The assessor should be presented with sample written evidence that has extracts taken directly from text books and ‘internet sites’. Exploration of these, individually or in groups should enable assessors to develop the skills to identify the changes in style, syntax, knowledge level etc that differentiates these portions of text from the surrounding original authentic text.

Assessors should be equipped to understand the standards of  correct referencing/citation  for any quotations and extracts used. These should be in keeping with the level of the award of the candidate (with level  5 requiring full academic referencing with bibliography). The centre’s standardization processes should decide the reference system to be used. It is worthwhile noting that several reference systems exist for written text but internet web and blog references have only advisory status. Never-the-less one should be chosen.

2. Candidate Induction 

At inductions the requirement for authentic evidence should be stressed along with an outline and examples of practices that are not acceptable.

It is wise during the induction to ask the candidate to answer several (perhaps 3-6) model questions in your presence. These questions should require information from different aspects of their work and should require answering in past, present and future tenses. These can provide a baseline for understanding the candidates writing style – to identify any future serious deviations.

This exercise can also include enabling candidates to properly paraphrase a piece of text while acknowledging it’s origin by using the authors name and date of publication.

How to write a bibliography should be explained appropriate to the level of the award and a standardized form should be used for them.

 Reflection from practice: 

Included in a nearly complete portfolio (level 3) was a reflective account that bore little relationship to the candidate’s usual writing style.  The reflection was written in a much briefer, ‘clipped’ style and the spelling was more accurate than usual. I sensitively but clearly raised my observations on the text with the candidate.  It was explained to me that the candidate’s daughter had written the answers – paraphrasing what the candidate had told her. There was clearly no intent to deceive and the content of the evidence (as distinct from the style of the evidence) was congruent with the candidate’s usual presentation style.

I requested that the candidate include a statement such as “this evidence was typed by a third person who paraphrased my answers to their own writing style. I confirm that it is accurate to the spirit and intent of my verbal evidence.” This was readily accepted and I was able to record that I accepted this explanation.  However the candidate eventually decided they were uncomfortable with the evidence in their portfolio and re-presented it by hand.

Further Information : 

http://www.shef.ac.uk/library/libdocs/hsl-dvc2.pdf Information on methods for citation of electronic sources.

http://www.shef.ac.uk/library/libdocs/hsl-dvc1.pdf Information on Harvard citation method for written sources.

http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/ Virtual Training Institute with many resources to using the internet for learning / research. It includes sections on Social Sciences and Management.