Understanding Teams in Social Care

Understanding Teams in Social Care
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Carolyn_Barber]Carolyn Barber

One of the most critical issues for managers at all levels is how to make sure your team is working at its best. More often than not, what we notice is how a team or staff group is not working well. There may be poor communication or outright conflict between team members; there may be low morale particularly in times of organisational change; there may be scapegoating of individual staff, even bullying at times.

But what exactly do we mean by a team? There are two commonly recognised necessary conditions for a group of people to be defined as a 'team'. First, a shared common purpose, and second an interdependency of work among the members.

In modern day social care organisations and businesses everyone belongs to a staff team for hierarchical and managerial purposes, but it doesn't necessarily follow that individuals within the team depend on each other to achieve a common objective. In an Adult Social Care team, care managers tend to work quite independently of each other although they may see positive support, supervision and learning opportunities as indicative of being in a 'good team'. In a residential care home, the shift system can mean staff working groups often change, but there is a high level of interdependency to get the work done at the time.

And a contemporary dilemma for many teams or staff groups is that there can often be different interpretations of what the common objective is or should be.

So how then, should management and leadership skills be applied in relation to team development? These are some key differences between different kinds of teams.

Management and staff teams have a longer life, so it's worth investing more effort into ensuring that they work well

Management and project teams need to pay close attention to good preparation and paperwork to maximise their effectiveness

Project teams have deadlines, so they need to become effective quickly, achieve their objective and dissolve themselvesOne of the central tasks of a manager is to create a framework that enables their staff to work to the best of their abilities in support of the objectives of the organisation or business. Even if the synergy of a truly performing team is not always a realistic aim, there are still many ways to continuously improve the effectiveness and efficiency of a team which can have a lot more impact than the annual team building day or the Christmas staff party.

Carolyn Barber, Bsc (Hons), CQSW, is the founder of Wayfinder Associates, a social care training and consultancy business specialising in research, team development and management skills. Carolyn has over 25 years experience in social care as practitioner, trainer, researcher and manager, working across public, voluntary and independent sectors. Carolyn is a GSCC registered social worker.

For more information about research, training and consultancy services, go to http://www.wayfinderassociates.co.uk/

Carolyn also runs a community based venue specialising in training and team building facilities for small groups. The Parlour is based in Southsea, Portsmouth and offers a personalised service to meet your needs. For more information go to http://www.theparloursouthsea.co.uk

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Carolyn_Barber http://EzineArticles.com/?Understanding-Teams-in-Social-Care&id=2967035