Social Work and Bereavement
Reflective Essay-Bereavement
Essay Plan
A Introduction
The placement
In this part of the essay l will talk about the name of the placement and the type of the service user group l have been involved with.
My placement began on the 6th of February 2012 and on arrival l was allocated key working role while shadowing permanent members of the team. The first week was the week to go through everything l needed to know about the organisation and service user group. I was introduced to all the service users and made aware that l would be working with SB who lived with her husband CB. CB was in hospital at this time and we went to visit him. My conversation with him at the hospital was like l had known him for a long time. CB spoke in a friendly and pleasant manner. He said he wanted to come home with us and his voice was full of life and he was a happy man and entertaining on this day. The sad thing was that Doctors had discontinued his kidney dialysis as they said it was not helping or improving the quality of CB’s life.
Arrangements were made to bring CB home and l participated in a Crisis MDT meeting that was held to make these arrangements. He was finally transferred home towards the end of my first week on placement. All preparations had been made to provide palliative nursing care. However, it was evident that staff were not sure what to expect. In the team meetings that followed on CB had there was a sense that staff were not prepared to see the man they had been looking after for so long suffer while they were on duty. In a way this was understandable and also a very difficult situation to blame staff for kind of like walking away on CB during the time he needed them most. It was clear that CB was approaching his end of life within the next few days or weeks. There was no time for training and preparing staff for this difficult time. The emotional impact CB’s illness and the eventual death had on staff was felt by everyone
Essay Plan
A Introduction
The placement
In this part of the essay l will talk about the name of the placement and the type of the service user group l have been involved with.
My placement began on the 6th of February 2012 and on arrival l was allocated key working role while shadowing permanent members of the team. The first week was the week to go through everything l needed to know about the organisation and service user group. I was introduced to all the service users and made aware that l would be working with SB who lived with her husband CB. CB was in hospital at this time and we went to visit him. My conversation with him at the hospital was like l had known him for a long time. CB spoke in a friendly and pleasant manner. He said he wanted to come home with us and his voice was full of life and he was a happy man and entertaining on this day. The sad thing was that Doctors had discontinued his kidney dialysis as they said it was not helping or improving the quality of CB’s life.
Arrangements were made to bring CB home and l participated in a Crisis MDT meeting that was held to make these arrangements. He was finally transferred home towards the end of my first week on placement. All preparations had been made to provide palliative nursing care. However, it was evident that staff were not sure what to expect. In the team meetings that followed on CB had there was a sense that staff were not prepared to see the man they had been looking after for so long suffer while they were on duty. In a way this was understandable and also a very difficult situation to blame staff for kind of like walking away on CB during the time he needed them most. It was clear that CB was approaching his end of life within the next few days or weeks. There was no time for training and preparing staff for this difficult time. The emotional impact CB’s illness and the eventual death had on staff was felt by everyone