One of the key skills needed to become a good health and social care worker is the ability to communicate clearly. Communication is always at the heart of good care. For example, this can be applied by supporting a service user to engage in an activity ,offering accessible ways to express their needs and requirements ,and, most importantly, listening to them express their thoughts and feelings.
Good communication is an important aspect of delivering effective and responsive care which will inevitably enhance the quality of life and the health and wellbeing of those you support. Good communication skills help prevent misunderstandings and mistrust that can lead to conflict and a breakdown in relationships. For a health and social care worker to be effective, you need to make connections that will promote trust. This will allow you to get a clear idea of their mental and physical wellbeing, become aware of issues of concern, and keep those you support on track to achieve their important outcomes and goals. It is also vital to sustain good communication channels with the significant people in a service user’s life.
Effective communication will give you a clearer understanding of the health, welfare and needs of those you support. This will enable you to get to know the people that you support well and would allow you to detect if they were unwell. Any change in the care needs of the people you are supporting requires effective communication to ensure consistency. Any confidential information is only shared on a need-to-know basis, and this will be documented in their supporting paperwork. It will also enable effective specialist care.
Finally, good communication skills help build your career as a care worker. The ability to listen, evaluate, analyse, and share information with those you support as well as colleagues, health professionals and main carers. Effective communication is a fundamental part of being a leader to enable you to target support and coordinate information. With great communication skills and a deep understanding of the industry, you could be well equipped to take on the challenges that the industry currently
What are Common Barriers to Communication?
A good care worker will have a great deal of social intelligence. This will allow them to pre-empt situations and respond both intuitively and effectively. As a care worker, you a’re going to be communicating with people in an intimate environment. You will develop skills to enable you to listen to those you support and understand what they are asking. Potential barriers to effective communication include:
Health Conditions
Some people you work with may have health conditions that impact on their ability to verbally communicate. A good support worker will find alternative methods of communication that suit both parties and allow effective communication.
Language
The UK is a melting pot of different cultures, accents, and languages, which can make understanding someone and being understood much more difficult. They may use terms that you don’t understand, speak little or no English, or have cultural norms and requirements that make it more challenging for you to do your job.
Emotions
You may find that someone you support find it difficult to express their emotions and how they are feeling. They may express an emotion or a feeling through their behaviour. It is important for caregivers to pick up on these cues and respond accordingly. Similarly, you may be supporting someone who is deemed to lack capacity around their care and treatment. Developing a relationship and getting to know those you support will enable you to identify communication needs and enable you to adapt and be responsive.
Types of Health & Social Care Communication
A great deal of our communication abilities are learnt. This is pretty good news since it means that we can develop our communication skills, and find better ways to communicate.
It also means that communication is different for everyone, and what we’ve developed in our lives so far is a product of our own upbringing, culture, abilities, values, and environment. For example, you likely have very different communication skills than someone who is autistic, or someone who communicates using sign language or braille. Because caregivers work alongside people who need support in their daily life, being able to understand their preferred communication method is an important part of providing care.
For health and social care workers, the main principles behind good verbal communication include:
Precision
Communication should be simple, clear, and contain no room for misunderstandings or confusion. Therapies and activities for service users need to be easily understood and instructions need to be concise and direct. It’s important for people to be offered accessible information to empower them to make their own decisions and choices to feel in control of their life. This is also very important when you are talking with colleagues, giving verbal reports, or delegating tasks, ensuring that important information is delivered with clarity and conciseness.
Calmness
Service users can become upset, confused, or even confrontational, but it is important to be able to stay calm and apply known communication strategies to enable the person to feel safe and regulate their emotions. Being calm and regulating your own emotions so you can manage things in a logical and balanced way. This will help you to manage work relationships and be an effective member of the team. Being calm will enable you to stop, think and reflect, developing a personal resilience.
Confidence
It’s essential to have confidence in your skills and training, and to make that confidence apparent in how you perform your role. Service users look to health and social care workers for help, relying on them to know how to guide them through certain aspects of their life. Being confident helps those you support and their families to feel confident in you too, helping build trusting relationships.
Here are some of the types of communication skills you’ll need to develop.
Non-verbal communication
Although we think of talking as soon as we hear the word “communication”, it may surprise you to know that as much as 70-93% of communication between people is non-verbal! Being aware of non-verbal communication cues and being able to read them is critical in care because the person you are caring for may have difficulty with their own communication skills.
Different types of non-verbal communication may include facial expressions, body movement and posture, gestures with your hands, eye contact, touch, physical space, and inflexions of the tone of your voice.
It’s important for health and social care workers to know that people may have very different non-verbal communication skills from you. For example, autistic people may be resistant to physical touch because it may feel overstimulating or intrusive. But that doesn’t mean they are depressed or avoiding care, for example.
Another example is the differences between cultures. You may have grown up in a culture where physical affection and closeness is common and touching or standing close to someone is a positive action. However, in some cultures, invading someone’s physical space or touching someone is considered rude or intrusive. Understanding the needs of those you support is an important part of care to enable you to pick up on the right cues and deliver care effectively.
Verbal Communication
Verbal communication includes what we say and how we say it. For example, just the words “I’m okay” can mean very different things depending on the accompanying non-verbal communication – it can be aggressive, depressed, frustrated, avoidant, resistant, content, or dismissive, and it’s up to you to detect the differences and act appropriately.
It’s also important to evaluate how you are communicating verbally with your colleagues and service users so you can see how this impacts on your working relationships For example, a service user may not wish to engage with you if they feel they are being spoken down to or patronised. They may be unlikely to share information about their health if they feel your tone is dismissive or impatient. Or they may respond negatively if they feel your tone is aggressive or confusing. Good verbal communication skills can help overcome these challenges.
One of the most important parts of effective communication is being able to listen to others. Active listening is the process of truly hearing, processing, and understanding someone. For caregivers, it’s important to record and assess what service users are saying, keeping in mind their health conditions and abilities.
This not only helps to build a relationship with them, but it also helps to assess how their care is progressing, note areas of concern or improvement, and make reports more insightful to further customise care to meet an individual’s needs.
Written Communication in Health and Social Care
Caregivers are required to document daily service reports which underline what care has been received that day. Senior management need to have a good level of literacy skills to perform the administrative part of their role. This can include the ability to write emails and memos to team members, health professionals etc. and write up reports on service users for care management teams.
Social care workers interact with those they support every day. They will often be co-ordinating between the service user and relevant others such as health professionals, care teams, and even family members. This means you need to be able to gain information on your service user’s wellbeing and progress, convey critical information to the right people, and allow them to make the best decisions in your service user’s interests.
Senior management will update personal details, keep medical records, providing important systematic information for service users and colleagues that will help determine future actions, fill in assessments, draw up care plans, issue reminders for appointments, and deliver reports as required.
How can Social Care Workers Improve their Communication Skills?
3 Trees works hard to create an environment that is focused on providing support, training, and ongoing career development. We focus on creating an environment that is as supportive to social care workers as it is to service users. 3 Trees focus on initial training as well as ongoing career development courses, which includes communication skills training that will enhance your knowledge specific to the social care industry.
3 Trees provide adult social care services to those with learning disabilities and physical disabilities 3 Trees is driven to transform this sector of the healthcare industry and wants to help people with a passion for caregiving to reach their full potential. 3 Trees are keen to support their staff throughout their career in the same exceptional way that you will support your clients throughout their lives.
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