Support individuals with specific communication needs.
Support individuals with specific communication needs.
Community and disability service workers work with a diverse range of clients who, because of their disability or personal, emotional and cultural situation, may require workers to develop and use specialist communication skills.
You must be able to adapt your communication style to meet the needs of this client group in a fair, non-judgemental and effective manner.
Areas of specific need you should consider when communicating with others include:
• Disability (including but not limited to intellectual impairment, physical impairment, psychiatric disability, hearing or vision impairment, learning difficulties, and attention deficits).
• Literacy (e.g. false assumptions about level of intelligence and understanding, concerns about the content of documents and forms, what is being written down).
• Language (e.g. non-English-speaking backgrounds, not familiar with service-specific jargon and acronyms).
• Gender, age, experiences, emotional well-being and other individual attributes.
• Critical situations. Crises traditionally cause disorganisation of thought and hence need special skills by workers in establishing rapport with clients.
• Culture (including experiences in other countries, music, spirituality, customs, gender, social expectations, body language, and position in the community).
• Remote location (limited access to services and resources, distance travelled).
Irrespective of their particular needs, all clients must be treated with dignity and all communication must demonstrate respect and be open and non-judgemental.
Strategies for specific needs
You will usually find that there is more than one way to provide the information required. Depending on your client group, you will need to adapt your communication strategy to meet the particular needs of clients and co-workers; you may need to include use of techniques and aids such as:
• facial expressions, hand signals and other physical
Community and disability service workers work with a diverse range of clients who, because of their disability or personal, emotional and cultural situation, may require workers to develop and use specialist communication skills.
You must be able to adapt your communication style to meet the needs of this client group in a fair, non-judgemental and effective manner.
Areas of specific need you should consider when communicating with others include:
• Disability (including but not limited to intellectual impairment, physical impairment, psychiatric disability, hearing or vision impairment, learning difficulties, and attention deficits).
• Literacy (e.g. false assumptions about level of intelligence and understanding, concerns about the content of documents and forms, what is being written down).
• Language (e.g. non-English-speaking backgrounds, not familiar with service-specific jargon and acronyms).
• Gender, age, experiences, emotional well-being and other individual attributes.
• Critical situations. Crises traditionally cause disorganisation of thought and hence need special skills by workers in establishing rapport with clients.
• Culture (including experiences in other countries, music, spirituality, customs, gender, social expectations, body language, and position in the community).
• Remote location (limited access to services and resources, distance travelled).
Irrespective of their particular needs, all clients must be treated with dignity and all communication must demonstrate respect and be open and non-judgemental.
Strategies for specific needs
You will usually find that there is more than one way to provide the information required. Depending on your client group, you will need to adapt your communication strategy to meet the particular needs of clients and co-workers; you may need to include use of techniques and aids such as:
• facial expressions, hand signals and other physical