Care

As the exam season begins in full strength, I am now bust planning the delivery of my first SQA Care course in our senior school. It is a course that I think will bring together a lot of the work I have been doing with various community groups, with a more academic approach to why we should care. The pupils who have chosen to study this course may already have a plan of a vocational future or may just find the three units of Human Development and Behaviour, Social Issues in a care setting and Values and Principles potentially interesting. Whatever their motives, I hope these teenagers can bring to the class their enthusiasm for learning and an appreciation of a world that does not revolve around them!

I am hoping to spark their interest in observations as an important social scientific method, and encourage them to take a step back and work out what the factors may be that lead to the interactions they witness in their day to day life. I have the advantage of easily accessible video documentaries on all aspects of care provision and human need. However I also hope to encourage an interest in autobiography as a way of understanding lives that may be very different from their own. Any suggestions of inspirational lives from my Linked In friends would be most gratefully received. My particular favourites in recent times have been "Poverty Safari" and "Little Big Things"; although Darren McGarvey and Henry Fraser's lives have been very dissimilar, their ability to survive is a clearly observed commonality.

My other aim is to get my pupils into our community. Although until I have my timetable for the next session, the logistics arre still hazy, I know that they will get a greater empathy and awareness of the needs of those in care settings when they actually meet them face to face. That's why I am so excited that the manager of Campsie Neurological care centre is happy for us to make a connection, as this is a place that hitherto has only been referred to by the few residents and activities workers that I have met whilst at the two clubs run at Lenzie Old Parish Church. I hope that we will be able to tie in a number of visits out as well as utilise the expertise of more familiar contacts within the third sector.

If we want the best possible care provided by the best possible carers we cannot leave it to chance or hope that there will be enough people with no better alternative career path. We need to start developing our carers whilst they are still young and show them how life affirming it is to provide support for those who cannot be fully autonomous. With our school values of tolerance, respect, compassion and continuous improvement to the fore, the new Care class will hopefully deliver all that it can to demonstrate how vital care work is for both individuals and society.