Joyce Grace Kapela
Unit 5: Meeting Individual Care and Support Needs
Assignment Title: Ethical Care
Date: 08/02/2023
P1
When working in health and social care, professionals must understand the
importance of promoting equality and diversity when providing care to their service
users, so that individuals are receiving high quality care that is specific to their
individual needs. Equality is ensuring individuals are treated fairly and equally and
are no less favourably or disadvantaged than anyone else. Diversity includes a range
of people from different social and ethnic backgrounds, and valuing the different
beliefs or abilities individuals may have. Diversity and equality are important to
promote, to ensure that individuals are receiving equal opportunities regardless of
their individual characteristics, which includes areas of race, gender, disability,
religion / beliefs, sexual orientation and age. This would also ensure that individuals
are being empowered by having their values and beliefs being respected, in order to
ensure that in the aforementioned areas, discrimination is being prevented, which is
when individuals or a group of people are being treated differently by others mainly
due to prejudiced or stereotypical attitudes.
M1
When equality and diversity are not being promoted, it can lead to many issues like a
low self-concept and mental health issues, as well as leaving individuals to be in a
vulnerable position. For instance, Valerie has been bullied by the local teenagers for
being obese and is suffering from mental health issues, which includes her having
low self esteem. In order for equality and diversity to be promoted for her, the health
professionals working with her should help support her with building up her
confidence and self esteem, which could require further assistance from a mental
health specialist or support group, which would make her feel like she is being cared
for and receiving the help she needs. She is obese, but doesn’t see the importance
of losing weight and changing her lifestyle, so by having different health professionals
working together on a holistic approach for both her physical and emotional needs ,
they can help give her motivation and encouragement to change her lifestyle for the
better, as well as having a health professional like a dietitian, who is aware that she
is a vegetarian and can take that into consideration when any plans are made for
improving her weight or health.
Equality and diversity are also important for Billy as he has been involved in a violent
fight with his mother’s partner, which has resulted in him being left homeless. This
incident would cause him to be anxious and perhaps reluctant to seek any support.
Therefore, equality and diversity can be promoted for him by having a social worker,
who can support him with finding suitable accommodation, which can help contribute
to him becoming less anxious and feeling secure that he is able to receive the same
care as others, regardless of his situation. Him being homeless, has caused him to
, live mainly on food from rubbish bins that are thrown out by local restaurants.
Equality and diversity would be crucial for him, as he can receive financial support to
buy healthy full meals, and can be given support for where he can be provided free
food, which would give him a sense of belonging and that he is still able to receive
the same opportunities.
P1, M1, D1
It’s important to prevent discrimination, as it ensures that each individual is receiving
equal care and opportunities that are specific to their personal needs, and also
ensures that all the 9 protected characteristics of The Equality Act 2010, are being
promoted in order to create a sense of inclusion. A protected characteristic that
Valerie has that she could possibly be discriminated against is her disability, which is
her hearing impairment. Anti-discrimination can be promoted for her, by making sure
her hearing impairment is assessed so that further support with her hearing, like the
use of a hearing aid, having lessons on sign language or receiving financial benefits,
is able to be provided for her, which would be good as she would be able to build her
confidence to communicate with others. If there is failure to prevent discrimination for
her due to her hearing impairment, it may cause her to lack confidence and view
herself low, when comparing herself to others. Being discriminated against by the
professionals, may make her feel like if she were to be employed, her employer may
also discriminate against her, which could make her mental health worse. As she
already has low self esteem and has mental health issues, she may struggle to
speak up for herself and express her opinions. Here, discrimination can be prevented
by providing her with an advocate, which is a professional who helps a vulnerable
person by understanding their thoughts or views, and expressing those thoughts for
the vulnerable individual, and ensuring those rights are still being protected. This
would help her feel like she is still being valued, which would boost her self-esteem,
and would make her less anxious that her feelings won’t be able to be expressed. In
addition, she is obese and vegetarian, so discrimination can be prevented here by
receiving support with her diet, which includes her preference of vegetarian meals
being incorporated. This would make her feel more happy and possibly give her
motivation to lose weight which has a beneficial impact on her physical and mental
health. However, the use of an advocate may not always be the best approach as an
advocate may not express Valerie's thoughts in the best way, e.g if they are having a
bad day and are angry, they may not fully speak on all the information that needs to
be shared to professionals or lie about her thoughts or feelings, which would mean
that important information on Valerie’s opinions and feelings aren’t shared with them,
which means the professionals may not be able to take on information that could be
beneficial when providing a service to her. Also, giving her support with her diet even
if they consider her vegetarian meals into it may not work, as she could hold a strong
opinion on not changing her diet or weight which can make it difficult to persuade her
to change her lifestyle, therefore she may refuse any help that's got to do with losing
weight.
P1, M1
For Billy, discrimination in a health setting can be prevented by having his visual
impairment assessed in order to receive further support such as having resources /
information provided in braille and having low vision aids. This would allow him to feel
confident and feel like he is still able to receive the equal support. However, this
