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What is reflective practice?
Reflective practice is a way of studying your own experiences to improve the way you work. So you look back on past experiences or practices, analyse how it went, such as what was good or bad or what could be improved upon, and then implement that into future practices or use it as a learning curve. It’s about getting a better understanding of yourself and how you work and seeing if there is anything you can learn from the experience.
Why is reflective practice important?
There are many reasons why reflective practice is important, especially in the role of a social care worker. As we work with young adults, our effectiveness will have an impact on them, so being able to look back on what we have done, and see if there is anything that could be improved upon, could make a great difference in how we are able to support our service users and provide our service to them.
How does reflective practice contribute to improving the quality of service provision?
Reflective practice enables you to think about how you work, what you’ve done well and what you can do to improve the way you care for your service users in the future. You can gain a better understanding of how you can provide a better service of care tailored to the needs of individuals within your care.
How can standards be used to help a social care worker reflect on their practice?
Standards can be used as a guideline to follow when you carry out any task or duty within your job role, and set the benchmark for how things should be done. If when you reflect on such tasks you realise you are not meeting the required standards, then you know things need to be improved upon to meet these requirements, and are meeting the standards of care that are expected.