Practical Help
Social Worker: How the Hospital Social Worker can help
At the ILFA OPEN DAY MARCH 24, 2007, BILL FOLEY, Social Worker, Heart and Lung Unit, Mater Misericordiae University Hospital, Dublin, spoke about the role of the Social Worker in the hospital setting.
The role of the Social Worker varies depending on the setting they are working in, but what connects them all is the approach they take to problem solving, and to coping with various issues that can be particularly challenging and life-changing.
Social Workers take a bio-psycho-social perspective which means they take into account the biological, psychological and social needs of the patient.
The biological aspect involves asking how this issue is going to affect this person’s ability to interact with their physical environment. Are practical supports going to be required? Does the situation require the hands-on support of family and friends? Are community services going to be needed?
The social worker also has a role in identifying information resources that might be useful in trying to cope with a particular issue.
The psychological aspect deals with the person’s emotional wellbeing. Having a chronic or debilitating illness can present many challenges so looking at the person’s coping mechanisms within the family and how they are doing is important. Having a chronic illness can leave people prone to depression so monitoring mood might also be needed.
In the transplant area there is a whole range of uncertainty related to being on the list, getting a match, etc. which can be very stressful. So helping a person to manage stress is important.
The social aspect is really about identifying how having a particular problem affects our relationships. Maintaining social relationships can be particularly challenging if you are not able to go down to the pub or to social events. Relationships within families may have to be redefined especially if the breadwinner has to give up work because of illness. This can have a profound effect on a person’s self-esteem.
As well as helping to deal with the emotional aspects of illness the social worker can help with the practical side of things – with social welfare services, with education and retraining for more suitable work, with housing and housing alterations and generally with activities of daily living - all of which can be affected by having a chronic condition like IPF.
The aim of putting all these perspectives together is to give a clear understanding of what the important issues to be addressed might be for any one individual.
Essentially the Social Worker has two main roles;
- Giving advice, imparting information and acting as a referral service to other agencies that might be of help in a particular situation.
- Providing formal counselling. Informal counselling takes place all the time in families but formal counselling has the advantage that it enables people to raise issues that they might be difficult to talk about in the family setting – such as a life-threatening illness.
In the hospital the social worker will carry out a psychosocial assessment to establish how is the person coping; what led to them coming into the hospital; what are the issues and problems they are currently facing; what are the priorities for them to deal with and to see if there are any issues that might benefit from counselling or if there are any practical issues that need to be addressed.
Social Workers also act as advocates– if you are having difficulty with a housing grant sometimes a letter from the Social Worker can help to speed things up The Social Worker can also provide a link to community services like home help services, home nursing, care attendants, if and when they are required.
The Social Worker in the hospital is available both to in-patients and out-patients.