The Role of Skills and Qualifications in Ensuring Quality of Service Delivery

Quality in Social Services

From the Perspective of Services

Working with Homeless People

European Conference, Luxembourg City, 21st October 2011

Workshop 8:

The role of skills and qualifications in The role of skills and qualifications in ensuring quality of service deliveryensuring quality of service delivery

Paolo Brusa

Quality in Social Services – Luxembourg City, 21st October 2011 Workshop 8 Paolo Brusa – the Role of skills and qualifications in ensuring quality of service delivery

Working with people experiencing homelessness

is an intervention of care

Let's handle it with care

&

make some distinctions between its 3 structural elements

setting offer tools


setting

offer

tools

the place or type of surroundings where something is positioned or where an event takes place as its unique tool

everywhere an intervention takes place there is an own setting

(a shelter, a park, a social service...)

the expression of readiness to do or give something if desired

it comprehends everything that we do or give but only if it matches with desires, aspirations & will of the receiver

a device or implement used to carry out a particular function

as our particular function is care-giving, the relation is the sole available tool

Hard to handle with care

the donor's debt


Working with people experiencing homelessness is an intervention of care

where a care-worker meets a person experiencing homelessness

The care-work is structured around this relation between these 2 persons with all their dynamics

the relation is not peer-to-peer -> significant role played by

emotions power ............

user

prof.

A person entitled to have needs that require to be satisfied

a person supposed to have something to offer concerning the specific needs which are expressed by the user in that specific setting


most urgent qualification is the capacity to read what is going on within this relation

a work of art that requires to:

- be aware of personnel relational given position, role, power

- take full responsibility for what it is happening since its position is structurally higher

- capacity to read within the lines of what it is going on with the user in a specific setting & change position if required by relational dynamics


most urgent qualification is the capacity to read what is going on within this relation

a work of art that requires to:

- handle with particular care all power-trip, which are often implicit, & might appear in forms of seduction, manipulation, aggressiveness, recklessness, fixation to the rules, total and silent compliance …

- always doubt on his/her personal prejudices, in order to have them as a positive allied to deepen the significant of the relational dynamics and not as a predefined discrimination

- learn to read the movements of all the actors as part of a dynamic process, where failure is not a value-driven meaning, but a peculiar stage that requires extra-care


the relation of care can be represented by the Borromean Rings

-> in mathematics, quantum physic, various symbolism, logic and psychoanalysis, 3 topological circles are linked to form a Brunnian link

-> meaning that every time one ring is removed, the other two remains unlinked.

-> no one of the 3 rings, by the fact of being wrapped by another ring, is not itself wrapping another

-> within the relationship, each dynamic which is not bound is binding, everything that is not brought to awareness and consciousness becomes an action

-> this is applicable to all representations at every level of our work :- setting, offer, tools- personnel, user, institution- wellness, hardship, symptom- biography before homelessness, today needs, process of reinsertion- inclusion, exclusion, shelter- logical path in social policy, SSGIs offer, people biography- physical domain, legal domain, social domain- experience, skill, reality

… Quality in Social Services – Luxembourg City, 21st October 2011 Workshop 8

Paolo Brusa – the Role of skills and qualifications in ensuring quality of service delivery

older personnel with long experience is not necessarily skilled

younger personnel with high-level education is lacking experience

all persons face a variety of considerations, meanings, prejudices, points of view, emotions, indications, needs & recommendations

each user is an individual each situation is dissimilar

each day we all are a bit differentthe challenge is to consider not solely a training programme, but an on-going supervision.

The combination of these 3 levels can support personnel, users, institutions to regain the inner sense of the work of taking and giving care to people experiencing homelessness.


is a role-play game specifically created to help the workshop conduction for

professionals working in the social field

consists on a human-sized game board that’s posed on the ground

participants are asked to take part at the game as personification of various institutions, of case studies, or of general situations that might happen to the topics at stake

The rules are very simple

MULTI POLIS It allows participants to develop paths to awareness-raising concerning social, prof and personal dynamics, in logical framework focused on methodological skills in giving/taking care

means learning through experience while the experience comes from playing


The game-board will lay on the floor.

Participants receive a case study card and are asked to link and enter

their specific role

The participants start the role play by throwing the foam-rubber dices

Following the dices sum, the participant defines its objectives and its path to

reach itQuality in Social Services – Luxembourg City, 21st October 2011 Workshop 8

Paolo Brusa – the Role of skills and qualifications in ensuring quality of service delivery

The conductor always follows the role-play to support,

control, address and guaranty its correct development

While other participants observe with attention, the role-play take place

The gaming-time is variable

When the participant takes the situational card, one of the observer is invited to reach the red center of the board-game


When the role-play and the game ends, a collective discussion and confrontation take place in order to share individual observations and reflections… …that have been used to collectively

build up the contents that represents the workshop outputs


To favour a collective free shareware, use and evolution, Multi-Polis is registered under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0

This means that you are free to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work under the following condition: BY ) Attribution -> you must give the original author credit

NC ) Non Commercial -> you may not use this work for commercial purposes

ND ) No Derivative Works -> you may not alter, transform, or build upon this work

You may share your output results with the community by sending the .pdf form to MultiPolis mail address

ND

Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder.Your fair use and other rights are in no way affected by the above.


Comments from participants

… the session was like an experience of free-diving and breathing: free-diving, as when one remains firm, still and silent as facing something new and unexpected like a new vision; and breathing, as when

one savours its beauty and potential ... psychologist 2010

… it is curious to see the relational traps in which we fall daily, to become reality in front of you … social worker 2010

… for the first time ever, I've seen something that pushes the social workers to experience what does really mean to be homeless … service user 2010

… I felt many things, I received many input, I perceived the fresh breeze of a way to work different from all I have been told so far... social worker 2010

… we thought that your MultiPolis game would be worth looking more precisely... trainer 2008

… it gives opportunities to go beyond the traditional professional roles and challenges to explore situations in an open way ... social worker 2007

Contact: Paolo Brusavia Musinè 12-10143 Torinotel. +39.011.1971 9353mobile +39.333.222 32 89mail [email protected] www.multipolis.eu


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The Role of Skills and Qualifications in Ensuring Quality of Service Delivery