Essay Sample on Creating a Self-Care Plan: Linking Social Justice and Wellbeing

Introduction

Self-care plan refers to a thoughtfully constructed and intentionally engaged guide that is used to promote the health and wellbeing. A good self-care plan can be crucial for the overall wellbeing, healthy life, and stress management. Social justice on the other end can be used to refer to a political and philosophical concept which states that people should have equal access to health, wealth, justice wellbeing and opportunity(Pulvirenti, McMillan & Lawn,2014). The main aim of this research is to show how the concept of self-care relates to the principles of equity and social location, how systems and structures create barriers and enablers to self-care and social care as well as provide some ways that promote greater social justice.

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Self-Care Relation to Principles of Equity and Social Location

Self-care relates to the principles of equity and social location in different ways. This ensures that resources such as wealth and health care are distributed relatively to each so that their wellbeing may be maintained. This can be done by activities such as those of community empowerment to ensure that every individual is well supported, identification, and collection of self-care practices as well as reviewing the roles of supportive institutions. Other issues such as the media, schools, and information technology can be used to ensure that information reaches the intended people so that equity is maintained. Different strategies may be employed to ensure that self-care relates to the principles of equity and social location (Levesque & Harris,2013). This may include creating an enabling environment for self-care accessibility. This ensures that facilities such as the local hospitals and rehabilitation are strengthened so that they can provide the necessary and required information and guidance to all the members of the public despite their age or different aspects of social location such as geographical location or the different backgrounds that they come from. Collaboration and coordination of resources would also be used to show how self-care relates to equity and social location. When people come together and pull resources together, they may be used to benefit all people without discrimination, and this, therefore, promotes the principle of equity and social location. Other methods such as having health volunteers ensure that agents of change in the community are created and thus, deliver what is required in the society and community at large. Health information and documentation can also be crucial. This is because it ensures the communication between the health service providers and the community which is being served. Training can also be done to the members of the public to ensure that they are aware of the different methods to handle things such as deworming and adoption of self-care at individual and community levels (Levesque & Harris,2013). Therefore, it is clear that self-care is related to the principle of equity and a social location to a very great extent as all services are provided to all members of the society without discrimination, therefore, promoting equity. Social location is displayed when people are served without looking at their age, social class, geographical location, or religion, and consequently, they are all upheld.

How Systems and Structures Create Barriers and Enablers to Self-Care and Social Care

Systems and structures can create either barriers or enablers to self-care and social care. Systems and structures can create barriers by performing different things. One way that they can do this is by upholding traditional practices and structures. This can be a barrier especially if they are not ready to embrace the current and continuously evolving models and structures which are more effective in the present day ( Lawn & Delany, 2015) Systems and structures can create a barrier due to time constraints. People in this system need a lot of time to learn and be trained on how to use the methods as well as engage with patients, and this is most times requires a lot of time. Professional attitudes could also be a barrier because in most times, they may lack the commitment or will to serve the patients as they are required, and this may be a significant setback. Population characteristics and documentation was also another barrier as it was involving a lot of processes such as recruiting, and this required one to look for the interested professionals.

Systems and structures can also create enablers to self-care and social care. This can be in different ways, such as proper education and training. If the people involved in the self-care and social care are well trained, they become professionals and can deliver efficiently. Leadership is also another essential factor that should be assessed, and the use of different leadership [p styles ensure that efficiency and effectiveness are maintained. Research can also be delivered at the appropriate way ( Lawn & Delany, 2015)This ensured that the data researched or recorded is transferred or communicated adequately to ensure that it is used for the right purposes. The proper delivery of research is a significant advantage as it enables things to flow smoothly. Professional attitude and approach are also encouraged where individuals are encouraged to have a positive attitude as well as approach so that they handle situations effectively. It is therefore clear that systems and structures can create either barriers or enablers to self-care and social care.

Some Ways Forward That Promotes Greater Social Justice

Social injustices have become global hindrances to development of desirable human behavior. The injustices could be in form of wealth distribution, availability of opportunities, and society privileges. Social justice is usually based on issues concerning equality and human rights. At every society, human rights have to be manifested at different levels of the society at their everyday lives. It is in rare cases that there is greater social justice in any society at any part of the world. In past history there has been a number of social movements which works in an attempt of achieving social justice (Mather & Konkle,2013). The common injustices often fought with are; discrimination on the basis of gender, race or ethnic background; homophobia and often ageism. When social justice is achieved, there is promotion of a society that enjoys greater equality and diversity. There are many ways in which social justice can be promoted.

Society solidarity is the awareness of the objectives, standards, and interests which create a mental sense of unity. It enables people to unite together as one. It is impossible to achieve justice if the society is not solidary build along issues that affect the community and movements created to address them. There could be solid movements such as those that address color discrimination and issues affecting the indigenous communities (Serim). There should also be an efficient organization among the society to solve social injustices. These organizations should be built upon the community and issues affecting them. Being on the front line in the process of planning and fighting for change is the nicest way of promoting social justice. One should not just appreciate the results but also get through the struggles that are part of the social justice promotion.

Risk taking is a way in which social justices have been achieved. Few may be willing to take the risk of speaking out or taking actions that are concerned to rectify a certain form of social injustice. When someone courageously chooses to take a risk and speak out, mobilize people to fight against the injustices, and take actions social justice is likely to be promoted though sometimes through the hard way (Mather & Konkle,2013). Sometimes t\it proves difficult y when there is likely collision with the authority or other powerful of groups which you don't share the same ideas of promoting social justice.

Strengthening your criticism is also an effective way of promoting social justice. This is strongly questioning an existing assumption which might be discriminative to some groups of people. One has to identify and choose to resist issues that dominate the society of which some are against social justice. However, this requires a lot of inspiration and passion which could be gotten from books and most importantly interaction with people who have had the courage to criticize social injustices in the past. Knowing the community well will also be of greater importance. One has to know about the neighborhood, school and even the society you are based on and this will help one to know about the injustices such as inequality that exists.

Mapping assets for actions. Working with members of the community to map the society assets. The community assets for example the people, support groups, printing shops, public meeting areas and independently established businesses are of greater importance when it comes to promoting social justice (Mather & Konkle,2013). Media, socials services and worship centers are also other types of assets that will be of much importance and will help people to work together around the issues that are affecting the society. There is also a greater probability of mobilizing people, knowing about the progress and evaluation of strategies when these platforms exist.

References

Pulvirenti, M., McMillan, J., & Lawn, S. (2014). Empowerment, patient centered care, and selfmanagement. Health Expectations, 17(3), 303-310.

Levesque, J. F., Harris, M. F., & Russell, G. (2013). Patient-centered access to health care: conceptualizing access at the interface of health systems and populations - international journal for equity in health, 12(1), 18.

Lawn, S., Delany, T., Sweet, L., Battersby, M., & Skinner, T. (2015). Barriers and enablers to good communication and information-sharing practices in care planning for chronic condition management. Australian journal of primary health, 21(1), 84-89.

Mather, P. C., & Konkle, E. (2013). Promoting Social Justice Through Appreciative Community Service. New Directions for Student Services, 2013(143), 77-88. doi:10.1002/ss.20062

Serim, J. (n.d.). Client Voice and Expertise in Promoting Social Justice. Social Justice and Social Work: Rediscovering a Core Value of the Profession, 309-324. doi:10.4135/9781483387987.n24