Example Of Essay On Theories That Underpin Social AND Healthcare Practice

Social work and healthcare service provision are pertinent for the development of any community (Basabe, 147). They involve application of various strategies and perspectives in order to solve specific issues or challenges. There are also certain theoretical perspectives that are usually applied to provide explanations to certain issues within a community. Theories assist social workers and healthcare practitioners to predict the causes of certain challenges and how intervention measures may be implemented.
In relation to social practice, one of the theories that may be applied to enhance social work processes is social learning theory. This theory stipulates that the processes of learning human behavior can be observing the manner humans interact with the environment. It further asserts that particular human behavior may be achieved through maintaining negative or positive reinforcements (Basabe, 147). This theory also highlights the fact that the process of maintaining a particular human behavior is determined by certain cognitive processes. That is, dysfunctional thoughts that might influence behavior.
The other theory that underpins social practice is the Systems Theory: Systems theory places emphasis on reciprocal connections or relationships between factors and elements that make up a whole (Basabe, 149). Social theory also places emphasis on the relationships that exist among human-beings, communities, groups, organizations as well as nations and mutually affect the environment. It also focuses on the inter-connectivity between natural elements, chemistry, social relationships et cetera.
There are also certain theories that underpin the provision of healthcare services for instance: The Need theory; this theory was formulated by Virginia Henderson (Alligood, 7). It places emphasis on the pertinence of enhancing a client’s independence as a means of promoting a continued healing process after they have been discharged from the hospitals or from the health facilities. A patient’s independence to recovery can be achieved by providing the patient with the appropriate knowledge and skills that would enable him/her to perform certain activities on their own after they have been provided with the appropriate medical care. However, this can only be achieved by understanding the needs of the patients. There is also the Self-Care Theory that was formulated by Dorothea Orem. This theory is based on the assumption that people should be independent or self-reliant in a manner that they are responsible for their healthcare and the care of others (Alligood, 9). This can be achieved through imparting knowledge within a society in relation to how one can take care of their health and the health of others.

Impact of Social Processes on Users of Healthcare and Social Services

The corpus of social processes entails the various dimensions of social interactions that occur in a frequent or repeated manner (Munn-Giddings, Carol, and Richard, 12). That is, the means through, which groups, communities, individuals and organizations interact and develop relationships. The different forms of social interactions include; accommodation, conflicts, competition, cooperation et cetera. These processes have a significant impact on users of social and healthcare services (Munn-Giddings, Carol, and Richard, 12). Consider a scenario of two neighboring communities that have engaged in military conflict. There are higher chances that social services and healthcare service provision facilities may be destroyed during the conflict. This means that the capacity of the respective communities to access services from these resources will be jeopardized or negatively affected. Another example of social process is corporation; cooperation between two different communities creates social cohesion, which is usually associated with a high level of development. It may also enhance information and skill exchange among the neighboring communities; this may have positive impacts on social services as well as healthcare service provision, thus improving the health of social service users.
The relationship between governments and citizens is also another aspect of social process; governments that experience a harmonious relationship are in a position to provide appropriate socio-economic resources to its citizens. This has a significant impact on the provision of social and healthcare services. However, governments characterized by incidences of corruption and conflicts with its citizens may not have adequate and appropriate structures that facilitate the provision of healthcare and social services to its citizens; this may affect the level of access of these services.

Evaluation of Effectiveness of Inter-professional Working

The concept of inter-professional working basically involves application of a collaborative approach to perform certain tasks among professionals. Professionals may decide to work in a participatory manner as a means of sharing ideas through networking; they may also share resources and skills. In healthcare and social service provision, inter-professional working has enabled healthcare practitioners and social service providers to share resources and ideas hence facilitating their efforts to resolve certain social and healthcare challenges. An example of inter-professional working may involve collaboration between experts from Center for Disease Prevention and Control and experts from a government health ministry focused towards engaging in a specific research for purposes of identifying social and health challenges, hence formulating appropriate solutions.
The process of solving certain health and social challenges i.e. fighting epidemic diseases such as Ebola may require massive amounts of resources that may not be afforded by a single organization or community. Inter-professional working creates a platform where professional from various organizations bring together their resources to ensure that such challenges are solved in an amicable manner.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Certain social and healthcare challenges also require huge amounts of resources for example the management of Ebola outbreak may require a huge pool of resources i.e. financial resources and medical equipments. Some of these resources are also quite expensive. Taking this issue into consideration, I believe that collaboration between healthcare and social workers is pertinent for generation of adequate resources that can be used to solve social and healthcare challenges. In conclusion, inter-professional working is the most appropriate method that can be used to adequate, effectively and efficiently solve current and future healthcare challenges.

Work Cited

Alligood, Martha Raile, ed. Nursing theorists and their work. Elsevier Health Sciences, 2013.
Basabe, Nekane. "Social processes and collective memory: A cross-cultural approach to remembering political events." Collective memory of political events: Social psychological perspectives (2013): 147-160.
Munn-Giddings, Carol, and Richard Winter. A handbook for action research in health and social care. Routledge, 2013.