Reflective Practices (Essay Sample)

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Reflective practices and professional development
Introduction
The health care department is one of the important sectors in the world as it helps in providing services to the general public for a better healthy life. It's always the role of the government to provide some essential services to the public like health services, education, and security among others and thus the government through the concerned department has to ensure that the best services are delivered to the people. Completion in this sector has greatly increased from time to time due to the emergency of the private healthcare institution and thus the clients in this sector become very essential since without them the sector cannot survive and thus the health care have to ensure that they provide quality services which meet the patient's expectations and in the long run improve the patient satisfaction which is a very essential aspect in winning the patient loyalty. This means that the concerned departments have to ensure that all clinical practitioners and social workers are equipped with the best skills, knowledge and expertise for better service provision. In consideration of this, reflective practices have been proved to be very essential in professional development and they help ensure that learners acquire the best and desirable skills in their profession that will help in service delivery (Gustafsson et al., 2004). Some scholars argue that reflective practices are the foundation of professional development as they help in making meaning from experiences as well as transform insight into practical approaches for both individual growth and organizational impact. In general, reflective practice is defined as the critical evaluation and self-assessment in which an event is deeply explored so as to learn from the experiences and thereafter make the necessary changes in perception or behaviour (Johnston, C. (2017). Reflective practice can help a practice positively by enhancing professionalism as well as encouraging self-directed learning and thus self-directed learning can be an essential part of the lifelong learning undertaken by registered veterinary nurses who engage in the ongoing programmers of continuing professional development. Initially, the continuing professional development was traditionally delivered through the use of the input-based model, in which time in attendance of activities is accrued. One of the demerits of this model is that it ensures that a learning activity happens through it does not ensure that the actual learning has occurred and whether the learning activity has had any positive impact on professional competency (Grobbel, C. C. (2013). As a result of this, scholars have approved another model which is based on the outcome which entails other activities like planning, recording and reflecting. With the aid of the reflective practice, the new model ensures that professional development is completely explored more deeply as well consider what learning has occurred and the learning can be measured based on the outcomes which may include, improved patient care, patients service delivery, management among many others.
In learning one of the important desired skills is critical thinking skills and in this regard, one way through which reflective practice supports positive outcome is that it helps an individual think critically through analyzing an event so as to have a better understanding of how it made them feel, why they behaved and acted the way they did as well as considering other factors that may have influenced the event. Therefore, before making any other decision professionals have to make a critical analysis which is very essential and thus it's through this that they are able to learn from their own experiences which can lead to changed behavior and perception (Tarrant, P. (2013). For example, considering a social worker who faces hostility in a certain society as he/she tries to address and solve a certain social issue in the society, through critical thinking and analysis of the event and experience, the social worker will have good reasons why the event happened that and thus make the necessary changes or adopt the best strategies that will help in solving the community issue without any further hostility and it through this that positive outcome is supported since people can easily reflect on either positive or negative experiences or on the mundane habitual aspects of practice. in this regard, reflective practice can be said to promote the development of self-awareness and critical thinking about a practice.
It's very true that the world is changing from time to time for instance in the health care sector the science of medication and clinical services is evolving linked with an increasing body of knowledge as well as rapid technological changes which needs to be adopted and implemented for better service delivery in the sector. As well this health care sector is governed by a set of rules and regulations or the clinical ethics and societal expectations that all clinical practitioners are expected and required to abide by or they are professionally accountable to such regulations (Howatson-Jones, L. (2016). Therefore, the management of the clinical officers concerned with professional development has to participate in life-long learning, individual and professional development so as to maintain and improve professional ability. This is only possible to the management through reflective practice in which they plan on the best approaches to be adopted and it's through the process of continually retaining, improving and increasing individual skills and knowledge and also creating personal qualities helps in ensuring that clinical practitioners remain professionally competent (Bulman et al., 2013). Therefore, another way through which reflective practice help in supporting positive outcome is that it enhances professionalism through placing responsibility with the individual clinical practitioner so that he/she can be open-minded and devoted to an enquiry-based strategy.
There are various theories that have been developed to explain various aspects of issues and which have been found to be very effective and useful on various occasions. For instance, there are some theories about clinical service delivery and the relationship between the various stakeholders involved in an organization. Therefore, the reflection practices help clinical practitioners or other service providers relate the theoretical frameworks and practice by offering them a systematic way of educating professionals in their everyday work. It's through relating theoretical frameworks with practices that help in professional development as well as result in improved outcomes (Bleach, 2014). There are various challenges that are faced by organizations as well as individuals themselves more so the service providers and which need to be solved once and for all so that service delivery can be improved and client's expectations can be met. Reflection supports outcomes in that it places all the problems that are experienced by an organization or practitioners in a wider organizational and social view/context. In this way, the problems will be addressed using the best approach and through that, the best outcomes will be realized by either the organization or the individual themselves. In any organizational setting, the stakeholders contain a mixture of different people who play different roles and responsibilities in the organization and thus for the betterment of the organization all these people have to cooperate and coordinate with one another in teamwork (Knott et al., 2016). Reflection facilitates the multidisciplinary interaction when negotiating on various aspects, planning as well when implementing the agreed policies to enhance professional development and it's through this that better outcomes are realized since more ideas and opinions are brought up during interactions.
Theoretical perspectives
Many theories have been developed to explain various aspects in distinct sectors and thus there are some theories which help in explaining how reflective practices in health care in social worker can help in continuing professional development. Some of these theories include Kolb's experiential learning theory and the Gibbs learning cycle which will be discussed in this paper. Kolb's experiential learning theory operates basically in two levels is in a four-stage cycle of learning and in four different learning styles. Mostly the bigger part of this theory is more concerned with the cognitive process of the learner. Kolb the pioneer of the theory states that the learning process entails acquiring various concepts which can be used flexibly in a range of situations (Bergsteiner et al., 2010). According to this theory, the ability to develop new concepts is enhanced by new experiences. Based on the theory and according to the four-stage learning cycle a leaner learns about all the bases that are concrete, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization and finally the active experimentation stage. In the first stage of concrete experience, the learners encounter new experiences or they may reinterpret the existing experiences. In service delivery the caregivers or the social workers experience various obstacles which interfere with their work and thus from this encounter and in order to improve on their services they have to reflect on the new experiences through critical analysis of the event at hand for better options and solutions to counter the challenges, it's through reflection and conceptualization that new ideas arise or a modification of an existing idea is made to attain the desired results. Fr...