What is Good support part two Active support
This will be a bit of deep dive into what support and care are are, so In a previous post, I talked about active and passive support. There
are times when both are appropriate but today I want to focus on active support
and what that looks like as it is very different from passive support is when a support worker does things for you instead of with you and
this is where things get tricky as it can lead to something called learned helplessness, and learned dependency.
However active support is where the support worker is
engaging the clients to build their capacity and skills, or in the case of a
higher functioning client to have their skills expanded upon or to not go backward,
we see that this often can be the case in some cases where someone goes into a disability
service facility.
There is an argument to be held around disability and consent and active
support and this is where active support becomes support and care so understanding
that support is an evolving process and that people need to be aware of this
and that goal will change over time just as support changes over time and this
is a really interesting thing that support can change over time and active
support can become passive support and the client stops learning new skills or
the support worker gets comfortable with the client and this isn’t a bad thing
but we need to keep it true to purpose as the support is something interesting,
as it is a weird mix between, your friend,
a therapist, taxi driver, and a nurse at times.
I mentioned that when you ask someone what a support worker is, it’s like Matt Walsh asking what a woman is at a pride parade. [i]
But it’s a very similar situation in that people have very different views of what is a support worker but we can be lucky in pinning down the answer to
knowing what a support worker can’t do and this then leads us to what is a
support worker and this goes back to active support, and how we interpret active support that is
how we see it and how much support a person needs, as there is a term called de-skilling
and this is what can lead to learned helplessness.
Deskilling is when a person loses the skills they need to
look after themselves because they get used to someone doing it for them giving
them the time to focus on other skills and abilities, but when these skills aren’t
used we see that people need to be aware of this and that we need to build a
person capacity not make them dependant on other people.
when I say active support I am generally talking about higher functioning
people as there are people with a disability who need things done for them as
they can’t understand what is happening or that actions have consequences, or have the concentration span to be able to independently work on tasks of
everyday living.
I need to explain that tasks of everyday living are, things
that we consider normal things such as dressing eating, and cleaning up after one’s
self, these are the things that people need to be doing independently, and this
is where the care side of support comes into play.
So this is different from caring for a person this can be done
from afar but caring for the person practically so could be say, helping
the person to shower or cooking for them, or helping them to dress. It seems to
be a good thing for the person to be aware of and to work towards doing it
independently. But for some people who
can’t this is where a support worker comes into it, and they can support the
person in various different ways and these ways can be by helping the person,
undress and shower that way, teaching them how to shower, in helping the
person to resolve any trauma around showering, in helping the person shop for hygiene
products as well these are all things that a support worker could do in an
active support role.
However, when the person can do these things independently we
see that this is where active support can turn into passive support in the way
that things are done the person might just need someone in the house so if
they were to slip and fall they can have someone to help them get up.
This then becomes passive support when the support worker
isn’t “working with the client,” but being a safety guard in case something were to happen, but this is where a good support
worker will see what the client isn’t getting done for themselves and help them
with it as well as the shower and bath “supervision.”
We need to be aware that this helping can lead to deskilling
in some areas and this isn’t a great idea but for example, it could be doing the ironing when supervising
the showers if the person is capable of doing it themselves it could be making a
meal for later if the person gets fatigued easily.
So you see that this is where it gets really tricky to define
what is support and what is a support worker? But we can generally answer it by
saying it is a person who helps people with a disability in their everyday
lives to have the care and support they need to live a normal life.
This then leads us to a really good point to finish on what is normal life as many people with disability lead extraordinary lives.
Comments
Post a Comment