Social Care Practice

Social Care Practice is a generic term that has been used to define the practice of providing physical, emotional and or psychological support to people with variety of needs and in contemporary times, the social care environments has widened to include care for the elderly, care for people with a physical or intellectual disability, community care, family support and residential care for old people, children and adults (Lyons, 1998).

Social care practice takes place in the shared life space, where experiences, perspectives, feelings, emotions and beliefs are fussed and in the process of meeting service user’s needs, social care practitioners needs to be aware of the dynamics and position of referent power which they occupy over the vulnerable

203) remarked that a tendency start to emerge where members start to behave, contribute and interrelate in particular ways. These team pressures often influence members in different ways to conform to team roles either through normative conformity (to fit in or to be liked), Informational Conformity (to be correct and to seek expert knowledge from other members on policies and procedures), Ingratiation conformity (to seek favour or for acceptance) or simply for Identification by conforming to the expectation and pressures of the team

Stanford Prison experiment, 1973 and the BBC Prison study 2006). This hierarchical process of laddered systems, entails clear roles of duties and responsibilities where those higher up the chain supervise those in lower positions. This bureaucratic structure in social care practice, create an imaginary conformity which influence and puts pressure on the role expectations through emphasis on ethics, routines and professionalism.

CRITIQUE OF APPLICATION

Conforming and over reliance on bureaucracy which is an organisational model rationally designed to perform complex task efficiently, as a significant factor influencing society, could become counterproductive which may result in alienation and dehumanisation, and a disenchantment with the social world.

The pressure to conform can sometimes lead children to violate personal values or needs of parents or of other adult authorities as whilst one child might feel pressured into paying unaffordable dues, joining fights reluctantly or shunning other children not belonging to their own group, another might feel pressured to wear clothes which their parents consider outrageous or to perform poorly at school. In return for these behaviours and attitudes, children remain in good standing with their peers (Damon 1988 as cited in Seifert et al. 2000