Reflection in Community & Human Services Work – Nursing Assignment Help

Assignment Task

Task
Reflection is a key skill in community and human service work. Reflection is used to help us to identify gaps between formal theory and practice. Reflection is designed to improve the way we practice by examining what we do and what we say we do, looking for inconsistencies and improving our own awareness of our practice and the theories and ideas that inform it.Critical reflection adds additional elements to this. Whilst reflection and critical reflection are sometimes used interchangeably. In community and human service work and social work critical reflection is understood to add the elements of:
a.examining our own underlying beliefs and assumptions, and 
b.analysing and examining power.
This can be described as understanding the social context in which something occurs and in which we work. Critically reflecting on the social context- underlying beliefs, assumptions and power relationships then enables us to understand these factors and work to change them.Critical reflection and reflective practice are therefore not mutually exclusive, but can be based on similar assumptions and processes of thinking. I like to think of critical reflection as being a subset of reflective practice. Critical reflection, when used specifically to improve professional practice, is reflective practice that focuses on the power dimensions of assumptive thinking, and therefore on how practice might change in order to bring about change in the social situations in which professionals work. In order to be able to critically reflect, obviously one must be able to reflect. However, not all reflective practice will lead to critical reflection – that is, to fundamental changes. In addition, effective critical reflection will apply to many important aspects of living, which may extend beyond the terrain of professional practice. In this sense, more fundamental and generalizable critical reflection should function to improve the way we live and relate as human beings, and in the process also improve our professional practice.“

There are four key stages to critical reflection. Using Fook & Gardner’s (2007) framework here are some key tasks and question prompts for these stages.

• Practice Experience (Describe the incident).
• Focus on Language
• Focus on assumptions
• Focus on working with other professionals
• What assumptions are implicit in my experience? (Reflecting)
• How do my personal experience and beliefs from my social context interact in this situation?
• How did my personal values impact on the assumptions?
• How did my professional values impact on the assumptions?
• What do I want to change? (Conceptualise)
• What do I want to change about my beliefs or practises?
• What are the things I will do to actively think about my practice?
• What will I do next?
• What do I want to advocate for?
• What are the key things I will do to learn directly from professional practice experience?
• What are the goals I will set for my professional practice?

Summarise the following things:
1.What have I learnt through engaging in this reflective supervision process?
2.How will I enact my goals?