Avoding Racism in Care Work

In Unit 11, both Rosie Purves and Elvis Malcolm talk about their experiences of racism at work. Compare their different experiences and discuss how racism can be avoided in care work.


Racism involves inappropriate behaviour towards another person due to their race, colour, nationality or ethnic group. Racism is made up by people’s Stereotyping, prejudices and discrimination towards others who are different from them. Racism is then applied by someone with the power to act on it. The power relationship gives us understanding to how prejudices and racism are acted upon. I am going to compare Rosie Purves and Elvis Malcolm’s experiences of racism at work and discuss how racism can be avoided in the care work.

A comparison between Rosie and Elvis was that Rosie didn’t have the support from management that Elvis had. Rosie was under racist actions due to the colour of her skin. The consultant went along with the mother’s request to move her child away from Rosie’s care. This was due to the mother not wanting anyone who was black looking after her child. By the consultant not challenging the mother made it look like he was agreeing with her actions and saying that racism was ok. ‘Nobody at the hospital apologised. The priority was the child, according to the consultant. The team was saying, “We don’t see you as being black” but they were still prepared to move the child’. (Purves, 2010, p 23) By the consultant going a long with the mother’s request caused the hospital to be institutionally discriminative. One of the reasons why the NHS trust was guilty of showing racial discrimination was due to there being no recognition of racism and ‘no policy setting out what action should be taken to address it’. (K101, Unit 11, p159)   However in comparison with Rosie, Elvis felt he had full support from his manager. This is due to Somebody Cares having an equal opportunities policy that was actively put into place to make ‘a safe and positive organisational climate for...