Humansolutions Bulletin - July 7th 2020

A key text for challenging ageism and promoting dignified practice. Dr Sue Thompson presents invaluable guidance on how to take care of older people in positive empowering ways that avoid common ageist assumptions and practices. This is an essential guide to good practice in eldercare. Available to purchase here or here

Email communication is a very strong feature of modern working life for a high proportion of people. It can be a very convenient and helpful form of communication, but it can also be highly problematic in a number of ways. One such way is the common (but thankfully not universal) expectation that responses will be more or less instant. This can lead to two sets of difficulties. One is that the person receiving an email may feel under pressure to reply there and then (when perhaps a more considered response would be wiser) and another is that the person sending the email can feel they are being ignored if they do not receive a prompt response. One way of addressing…

It is anticipated that there will be one million people living with dementia in the UK by 2021. Music is a powerful connector and has the ability to bring people together in the here and now. It can enliven, stimulate and enable people living with dementia to express themselves creatively through musical engagement. Research has shown and lived experiences demonstrate that music has the ability to help reduce the often-distressing symptoms of dementia, such as agitation, apathy and anxiety. Music supports people living with dementia to communicate beyond words, helping them to connect with others. It supports emotional health and wellbeing, particularly at a time when emotions can be overwhelming or difficult to process or manage. It has a valuable…

Respectful, inclusive processes that involve families have value in themselves. Family members need to feel ‘recognised’, in order to be able to participate fully in key decisions. When children are really vulnerable to harm social workers have to work even harder to create partnership with families where risk is present. For infants, babies, and very young children, as well as older children who are non-verbal or require constant care as they grow up, we need to find ways to work with risk that do not necessarily involve family separations. Click here to read more

Race hate incidents are acts of violence or hostility against people because of their race and are illegal in criminal law. If these occur in the workplace, they are also unlawful race discrimination under the Equality Act 2010 and can amount to gross misconduct for example, where one employee threatens another employee with physical violence because of the colour of their skin. Employees expect to be treated fairly and considerately in the workplace. When it comes to issues of race discrimination and race hate, fair treatment is a moral and legal duty and employers have a responsibility to investigate and respond to any issue they become aware of, as well as take all reasonable measures to protect employees from harassment…

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