What I Did
I arrived to assist my service user at lunch time, I started a conversation with him. For example I asked him “What did you do today?” I asked him this because it is important that the boy feels comfortable with me and relaxes. We spoke for around 10 minutes. I had to make sure the boy had some lunch. I was aware that he is a vegetarian and so I made sure that when i prepared the menu, it had 3 kinds of vegetarian dishes. I asked him what would he like to eat for lunch? I gave him 3 good options instead of one, so that he could feel empowered while he decided what he wanted to eat. Also i wanted him to feel valued, by not forcing him to eat something he does not like.
The 3 options I gave him were;
- Cheese sandwhich and fruit with orange drinks
- Jacket potato with bean salad , yougurt, fresh water
- Vegetable & couscous salad, with friut salad , and apple juice
He chose number 1, and I asked him if he wanted me to help him, he said yes. I gave him bread, butter, a knife and a plate.
The next thing I did was to cut the cheese and put it on the bread. While I did this, I also gave him orange juice and a plastic cup.
I then sat next to him to make sure he was ok to feed himself, which he was. I made sure the food was ok for him to eat. I encouraged him to eat by himself and checked that he didn’t have any complaints about his food. Also I had a conversation with him and we talked about his hobbies, and what he liked and disliked.
After he had finished eating i encouraged him to tidy up because it is important for him to learn how to throw things away becuase it help to develop his life skill for example in fututre he know how to kee his house clean. I gave the option of either throwing things away or putting the ingredients away. It is important that he was involved in everything we did because i wanted him to feel valued and included in the decision making process.
How I found it
I found some of it quite easy as I had learnt it before, for example I learnt how to communicate well before so starting a conversation with the service user was easy. I also found making the cheese sandwich easy. I think the main reason I found it easy was that the boy was very cooperative, I know that if he had not been cooperative it would have been really hard. He could have refused to eat or not even pick one of the food options I gave him; if he did this I think I would have given him another option. I tried to encourage and talk to him so that he could cooperate. I also asked what his favourite food was and tried to get that for him.
How I could improve
At the start of the roleplay i felt that i should be more paitent, calm and relax because in the roleplay i was nervous, i was thinking that if the serivce user did not want to eat what would i do? So now i realise that it is important to be patient, calm, and relax because it helps when you do that, for example, if the serivce user kept asking the same question over and over again, it could be annoying, and you can feel like you want to shout and tell them to stop, but that is not professional. That is why you need to have the skill of patience and control your anger.
Evaluation
I have learnt so much about practical care, feeding, mobility aids, clothing, and quality of care. I have found some of it difficult and some of it easy because there were some new words that I had never heard of before which I had to research to understand and learn them. I am improving my knowledge and understanding by remembering new vocabulary and researching new things. I have learnt more about people and their individual needs (likes and dislikes) and how to manage them. I try to do everything myself first, before I ask for help.
If I had the opportunity to do it differently I would definitely expand more on what I wanted to say and explain everything in more detail.
