The Blog of Roz

Email is something that I use on a daily basis and have been using on a daily basis for over ten years now. It is essential to both my work life and my private life. I would confidently say that around 70% of my career is managed via email, and around 50% of my personal life. Even more so since the pandemic. I heavily rely on email, don’t we all? I am sent emails to remind me to pay my bills, renew my car insurance, book my MOT, take a gas or electricity meter reading. My house insurance, boiler insurance, phone insurance and car insurance documents are sent to me via email. My children’s activity schedules and information are emailed, my sons nursery send all information via email. There is no aspect of my life that does not involve email. All communication relating to my work is via email, phone calls are becoming a ting of the past. Junk and Spam really are a pet peeve of mine, when I open my inbox to 70+ emails I probably delete 30 or so junk mails before I even start to proces

  Thing 13   Discovering LinkedIn. Or rather, exploring LinkedIn has been an eye opener. I have thus far avoided it like the plague, intimidated by the professionalism of it all. But it turns out that it really is just like Facebook for your professional qualities! Signing up was easy, setting up my profile was a breeze, you are walked through the process with step-by-step instructions, none of which are complicated which is so refreshing. I went mad adding people; I think I added every other person on LinkedIn who is in the same job role as me! Maybe we can learn something from each other. Joining the groups were easy too, although I did use the hyperlink in the Thing 13 instructions initially. Now that I have set up my account; https://www.linkedin.com/in/roslyn-smith-66908b212/ I am quite interested in the prospect of having a professional identity online as opposed to just my personal one. It’s refreshing to be able to share my achievements within my career and it’s g

  Thing 12 – Apps I downloaded the Adult Support and Protection App onto my iPhone today and all I can say is wow! The app itself is such a useful resource to have at your fingertips, the content is split into sections so you can navigate to your particular query quicky and easily which is so useful. The sections include; My concerns (types of harm); My Responsibilities; Legislation; FAQ; Support. Each of these categories feature sub sections which is useful for specific and quick access. When exploring the sections, explanations and definitions are not too lengthy or complicated, they are simple and easy to comprehend then they finish with an option for ‘Action to take if required’. Some of the sections even include links to specific contacts if needed. This is an amazing resource to have on hand for quick research without getting bogged down with endless information which may not be relevant. The sections talk you through actions such as reporting so you can be full

Thing 11 – Twitter The dreaded Twitter, the one social media site that I just never understood. Is it my age? Well, thanks to Thing 11, I am now fully in the know and will be Tweeting like a bird from now on. So here's what i learned; Tweet is the name given to the action of sharing your thoughts on Twitter. You type your status and share it on your feed; you can add up to four photographs, GIF’s or a video with your Tweet. Then you have the option to notify other twitter users of your tweet using the @ tag, or you can make your tweet easier to search by using a hashtag (#) to categorise it. With Twitter you have the option to Follow other Twitter users, this means that you essentially subscribe to their Tweets as a follower, their updates will appear on your personal timeline and they can send you direct messages. Twitter Feed is simply an ongoing thread of Twitter messages, so essentially a conversation which happens between Twitter users. Twitter also offers the option of sendin

  Thing 10 – Podcasts I searched through the world of Podcasts until I came across ‘The Road to Outstanding’ – a podcast for care leaders. The Podcast featured an interview with Samantha Buckley who is an Activities Coordinator at the Boynes Care Centre in Worcestershire. Last year, she won The Carer Magazine award for ‘Unsung Hero’. The interview was carried out with the intention of understanding more about what an activities coordinator does, how they get the most out of their job and how the sector could attract more people like Samantha. https://theroadtooutstanding.podbean.com/e/samantha-buckley-award-winning-activities-coordintor The interview was a great source of information covering a range of topics from the details of the activities coordinator’s role in each setting, to the needs that we aim to meet for our service users. Samantha shares resources and advice on how she structures her activities and her evidence recording methods. I picked up some useful tips to impr

    The cloud has always been a bit of a mystery to me, I guess I was one of those people who just automatically envisioned an actual cloud in the sky bursting with all my phone data therefore allowed the logical part of my brain to just dismiss all thoughts of it. Now that I am better informed it makes sense. The cloud is pretty much just someone else’s hard drive that you rent for storage. I appreciate it is hugely advantageous to companies and it saves a tremendous amount of money for hard drives when you can use the internet to send your files to the cloud for storage so I can definitely appreciate its appeal to the bigger companies.   The cloud already supports my learning as I use it to store my open badges, to store information and research when I’m working on a new badge and to store certificates of learning and achievements that I might want to share with an employer one day. It could support my practice as I could use it to store digitalised information that I need regu

  Thing 8 – Facebook   So, after reading Thing 8 I actually spent quite a bit of time exploring my privacy settings on Facebook which is something I have never really bothered doing up until now. I always kept my profile public because I now live by my married name and I wanted to make sure that people from my past, who might not recognise it, would be able to have a look and ensure its me who has added them.   The process was great surprisingly, Facebook have taken the time to actually set this process up for you in a step by step way similar to setting up a new iPhone. You work through the various privacy settings one by one and answer questions that the software asks you to help you decide which changes are best for you. By the end of it I had changed my DOB privacy to friends as this is not really information that you want any old Tom Dick or Harry having access to, it can endanger your online security and provide clues to email addresses, security questions or online passw

  Using SSKS and Google. ‘Let’s look it up’ is a phrase I hear myself saying regularly, I am a Google fiend myself and I know first-hand that a fair amount of the information you unearth there turns out to be false. When it comes to looking up the age of your favourite actress, or images of your celebrity crush’s wife, then Google is your go to point, but when it comes to researching reliable information relating to your practice in particular, then its not such a great idea.  I used the SSKS website to search for an article on Activity in Care. I created an Open Athens Account, signed in and use the hyperlink from Thing 7 to jump straight to the search option. An article came up instantly regarding physical activity in Scottish care homes, the article outlined the approach being taken to improve opportunities and increase levels of physical activity amongst residents in Scottish care homes. It talks about the benefits of physical activity to service users, it explains the authors

After reading the information shared in Thing 6, I feel better informed regarding online safety. The first point it made was that it can be difficult to manage various usernames and passwords so some people are guilty of using the same login details for numerous sites. This would be me. It turns out, that my laziness is actually making it easy for me to be hacked, if one set of my login details is compromised, then the hackers will have access to every platform I use.  So, within minutes, I learned to use multiple usernames and passwords to ensure my online safety. I was reassured to read that there are online tools available to help you make sure your login details are of the highest level of safety. I plan to utilise these when I change my details. I was embarrassed once more when I discovered that people are advised against using any personal information in passwords or usernames such as partner, children or pets’ names, dates of births, favourite sports teams. Guilty, guilty and

Social Media. Every Company holds a policy detailing expected behaviours and codes of practice when it comes to social media. You would be a fool not to.  According to the SSSC social media guidance for social service workers video;  ‘it is expected that eployees will not behave in a way that can bring their suitability to work in social services into question, whether it is in work or outside of work.’ The video states that using social media is not an issue, but you should maintain a high standard of behaviour when using it so as not damage your career. Professional boundaries are also expected, just as they are when you are in the setting; employees should not befriend service users on their personal social media accounts, this is unprofessional and inappropriate. I would like to say that it is common sense that one would not discuss service users, or work-related topics on their social media, nor would they make inappropriate comments pertaining to work, but unfortunately th

  After watching Orange’s Digital Dirt video, I really reflected on the possible damage that your social media content could cause you. I would have always assumed that referring to your work on social media is something that no one is silly enough to do, but I must admit I gave little to no thought about how your own personal posts could reflect on you in a professional situation. My personal opinion is that social media is for sharing personal experiences and opinions with people you know and trust, connecting with friends old and new, and sharing joyous moments and occasions with those who are too far away to join you. I do not believe in using social media to slander, degrade or humiliate people, to complain about your work or your colleagues or management, or for any other inappropriate behaviour. Working in a Social Services role adds some new restrictions to appropriate social media content. You would be surprised at how easily a service user, or one of their relatives or fr

Ask yourself, what is learning as opposed to practice? I think learning is when you expand your knowledge on a topic or subject, it is studying, memorising and becoming familiar with information that you didn’t know beforehand, practice however, is a more intense form of learning. It is when you put your learning to the test. It is all well and good for me to work through open badge after open badge and take in the information, but if I do not alter my practice to embrace the new information I have accumulated, then it is pointless to work on them in the first place. Practice is when you test your learning.  These differences have improved my motivation to continue to develop my digital skills. The changes that I have already been able to make to my practice as a result of the open badges I have achieved have been effective and rewarding. I have changed some of the paperwork I complete with my service users and in turn this has allowed me to provide a more effective level of care for t