Title: Well-being across the life course
– Word count: 3,000 words maximum (excluding in-text references)
– Assignments should be typed on a Word Document, double line or line and one half spacing with at least one inch.
– margins at the sides, top and bottom.
– Use an eligible font and size, such as Arial point 12.
– All pages must be numbered consecutively, including pages containing diagrams or tables.
– On each page, insert your SID Number in the Header on the right side and insert the module code on the left side.
– A word count must be included at the end of your assignment (before the reference list).
– Number any appendices according to the order in which they appear in the text.
– If you wish, you can include a graph or a table (not included in the word count) to add weight to an argument.
– Reference every sentence – every other sentence
– Harvard referencing style
– Use a variety of sources to deepen your discussion.
– Have to use books A LOT for references
– Must do primary research/ literature review- core part
Essay title: Wellbeing Across the Life Course in young offenders and probation
Learning Outcomes
This module is taught on the basis of the learning outcomes published below. The learning outcomes are statements of what you should have learnt by the time you come to the end of the module. To successfully complete the module, that is to pass it, you will need to demonstrate that you have met all the learning outcomes. The assessment task for the module is designed to help you do this.
Knowledge and understanding 1. Demonstrate how life course perspectives can be used to help social workers understand the well-being of service users and carers.
2. Analyse the impact of social inequalities and injustice on health and well-being.
Intellectual, practical, affective-and transferable skills 3. Demonstrate understanding of the methods social workers can use to address social inequalities in health and promote well-being.
4. Critically discuss how social workers can use anti-oppressive practice to counter the stigma and discrimination experienced by service users and carers.
Guidance
• As a starting point, select a group of people with lived experience (previously referred to as ‘service users’) to base your entire assignment on. Please see below a list of potential groups, although this is not exhaustive (more examples on canvas):
Selected service user group: Offending and probation
‘Being a service user means that we can identify and recognise that we share a lot of experiences with a wide range of other people who use services. This might include, for example, young people with experience of being looked after in care, people with learning difficulties, mental health service users, older people, physically and/or sensory impaired people, people using palliative care services and people with drug and alcohol problems’.
(National User Network, cited in SCIE, 2004)
For more information on people with lived experience refer to the SCIE resource on Co-production (Links to an external site.)
• You then need to address the following topics as they relate to your chosen group.
Part 1
With particular reference to social inequalities in health, demonstrate how life course perspectives can help social workers understand the well-being of a specific group of people with lived experience. LO 1 and 2
1,500 words maximum
Part 2
With reference to the same group, critically discuss how social workers can use mutual aid, and at least one other method, to take an anti-oppressive and anti-discriminatory approach to counter forms of stigma and discrimination faced by this group. LO 3 and 4
1,500 words maximum
To meet the learning outcomes of this module you need to:
Learning Outcome 1:
For this learning outcome you should choose a group of people with lived experience (e.g. disabled people, people with mental health problems, etc.) and show how life course perspectives can be used to understand their well-being.
Learning Outcome 2:
To meet this learning outcome, you should show how social inequalities and injustice, particularly inequalities, affect people’s health and well-being. You should do this with reference to the same group of people with lived experience. Be sure to give an analysis of the causes of those health inequalities.
Learning Outcome 3:
For this learning outcome you should discuss how social workers can tackle the problems you have addressed in discussing Learning Outcomes 1 and 2. For instance, social isolation, poverty and lack of autonomy are all bad for people’s well-being; so how can mutual aid and another method of your choice be used to counter these problems for the same group of people with lived experience. The Learning Outcome requires you to be critical so give a balanced assessment of the methods
Learning Outcome 4:
To meet this Learning Outcome you should, first, show how the group you have selected is affected by stigma and discrimination and then discuss how social workers can use anti-oppressive practice to challenge that. The Learning Outcome requires you to be critical so give a balanced assessment of how far social workers can do this, given the constraints of current practice context (for example high caseloads, thresholds, etc.).
As with all assignments, it is strongly recommended that you follow the guidance below. This will help you comprehend the instructions and structure your essay.
Exemplar:
An exemplar can be used to increase your understanding of the assignment
requirements and the expected academic standards. Please do not use it as
a guide for your own assignment. Instead, follow the assignment guidance.
https://canvas.anglia.ac.uk/courses/27007/pages/session-5-summative-assessment-3000-word-essay?module_item_id=1504666
Part 1 of the assignment covers three areas:
Intro
For the purpose of this assignment….
o Why did I pick my service user group?
o Data, statistics, percentage
o
Write a brief introduction outlining the areas you will be covering, and a brief conclusion which pulls together your most salient points.
Social inequalities in health – LO 2 (450 words)
Analyse the impact of social inequalities and injustice on health and well-being.
✓ Briefly describe what is meant by social inequalities in health and illustrate this by giving an example of the forms and scale of them. You can do this by, for example, showing ‘health gaps’ between rich and poor or social gradients which show differences between groups across the social spectrum.
✓ Briefly discuss the causes of health inequalities. Here,you should show that you are aware that the causes are complex e.g. how different causes interrelate. Focus your critical analysis on how two of the suggested causes below affect the lives of the group of people with lived experience you have selected.
Material poverty: people living on low incomes in unhealthy environments.
Behavioural: people living in poverty are regarded as more likely to lead unhealthy ‘lifestyles’ – this is a point that requires critical analysis
Status: the psycho-social impact of social inequality on people living in poverty and the related limitation in autonomy and social participation.
Please note – you do not have to place equal emphasis on the causes you discuss.
Notes
The Life Course – LO1 (450 words)
Demonstrate how life course perspectives can be used to help social workers understand the well-being of the group of people with lived experience you have selected.
✓ In order to demonstrate your understanding of life course perspectives within the context of the group of people you are focusing on, you may want to write on either or both of the concepts below.
✓ Briefly describe what life course perspectives are and show how they can be applied to help social workers understand how people with lived experience are affected by health inequalities. The general concern is the cumulative impact social inequality and injustice have on people with lived experience over the course of their lives. Also, remember that life course perspectives can be used to project forwards and/or retrospectively, e.g. with care leavers it can help to understand how their life trajectory from childhood onwards developed the conditions they find themselves at exit from care and, from that, their risks and protective factors that might shape their future development.
• Critical Period and Accumulation of Risk models discussed by Bywaters (chapter 13) which can be found in Lymbery and Postle (2007). Whilst dated, this is a useful source.
• Transitions and trajectories discussed by Dornan and Woodhead (2015)
Notes
file:///N:/Chrome%20Downloads/Lifecourse%20epidemiology.pdf
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040260820300393
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/nov/14/this-photo-of-children-living-in-poverty-caused-shock-waves-in-1992-where-are-they-now
– Promoting Well-Being in Illness, Crisis & Loss Article by Neil Thompson; Wulf Livingston
https://d1ssu070pg2v9i.cloudfront.net/pex/carnegie_uk_trust/2018/06/02161058/3959-Wellbeing-Leaflet-ONLINE.pdf
Marmot Review Team, 2010, Fair society, healthy lives: the Marmot Review, Strategic review of health inequalities in England post 2010, London: The Marmot Review. Available online at: http://www.instituteofhealthequity.org/projects/fair-society-healthy-lives-the-marmot-review
Hirsch, D. & Spencer, N. 2008, Intergenerational Links Between Child Poverty and Poor Health in the UK, London: End Child Poverty, Available online at: http://www.ecpc.org.uk/files/Intergenerational_Links_between_child_Poverty_and_poor_health.pdf
Coren, E. et al, 2010, The contribution of social work and social care to the reduction of health inequalities: four case studies, Research Briefing 33, London: SCIE: http://www.scie.org.uk/publications/briefings/briefing33/index.asp
Townsend, P. et al. 1992, Inequalities in Health: The Black report; The Health Divide, Revised edition, Harmondsworth: Penguin. The Black Report is available online at: http://www.sochealth.co.uk/national-health-service/public-health-and-wellbeing/poverty-and-inequality/the-black-report-1980/
1. The life course perspective attempts to understand the continuities as well as the twists and turns in the paths of individual lives.
2. The life course perspective recognises the influence of historical changes on human behaviour.
3. The life course perspective recognises the importance of timing of lives not just in terms of chronological age, but also in terms of biological age, psychological age, social age, and spiritual age.
4. The life course perspective emphasises the ways in which humans are interdependent and gives special attention to the family as the primary arena for experiencing and interpreting the wider social world.
5. The life course perspective sees humans as capable of making choices and constructing their own life journeys, within systems of opportunities and constraints.
6. The life course perspective emphasises diversity in life journeys and the many sources of that diversity.
7. The life course perspective recognises the linkages between childhood and adolescent experiences and later experiences in adulthood.
The impact and influences of social inequalities in health and life course theory contributes to the service user’s well-being.
Social inequalities in health > life course theory> well-being
Hallqvist et al, 2004
•A critical period implies a stage in the individual’s development in which an increased sensitivity to the influence of external agents may have crucial effects on later life
•Accumulation hypotheses – A critical period implies a stage in the individual’s development in which an increased sensitivity to the influence of external agents may have crucial effects on later life
•The concept of social mobility is linked to an interest in some summary aspects like downward or upward inter-generational or intra-generational mobility.
• A critical period is the amalgamation of factors that played a significant role in the time leading towards the death or serious harm of children (Sidebotham et al., 2016).
• •It is also the period where the most significant learning can be extracted (Wood, 2016), arguably the most salient purpose of Safeguarding Practice Reviews (Wood, 2016).
• •These critical periods are not predictors of tragedy (Burke Harris, 2020)
• •But, if recognised and responded to, they become reachable moments (Drew, 2020)
• •Windows of opportunity (Dornan and Woodhead, 2015) where individuals are more open and accepting of help and support.
Life course Theory/Perspectives(Green, 2016)
Challenges misconceptions about behaviour and society.
It challenges that problems or achievements certain groups of people experience disproportionality are due more to their inherent individual failings or merits than to societal influences.
Stereotypes, discrimination, creates and reinforces significant inequalities.
It is essential that social workers understand child development and human growth in order to carry out assessments and intervene. The Life Course Theory not only takes this into consideration but goes one step further to help social workers to understand the importance of the service user’s biographies and how factors in their past lives and circumstances/cumulative aspects shape their current experience and aspirations.
Life Course Theory emphasis the individual’s capacity to shape their own destinies as opposed to going through Ericson’s Eight Developmental stages (1965) which is criticised for being too narrow.
Psychosocial Factors:
• Social status – occupation, education, wealth, housing
• Social networks –friends, community, religion
• Stress in early life – oppression, poor family health, little income, parent’s experience of inequality shapes child development
All have an impact on overall wellbeing, health, how we see ourselves, whether we belong to a group or not; etc.
What ‘Everyone Knows’ about Service Users:
Are usually living in relative poverty and relatively poor
environmental conditions – means tests are often a
determinant of service provision;
That poverty and poor social conditions have been their
experience for much of or at critical periods of their lives;
That service users are liable to have experienced more
than a fair share of ‘cumulative insults’;
That service users’ mental and physical health is
disproportionately poor – again for most adult service
users, poor health is the central reason for referral
Bywaters (2007) suggests that social workers should, as part of their intervention:
Refocus attention on basic needs (money,
housing, food and child and adult education
More emphasis on history taking as part of an
assessment
Greater awareness of the personal and social
aspects of the individual and their insight into
the current situation.
Risks may be alleviated with preventative work
Life Course Theory can help people to:
Highlight patterns of how and when risk
to health occur in people’s lives. This
can be done in
Chains – one risk leading to another or
Clusters – several risks that are
connected but not necessarily related.
For social workers:
– It is imperative that they recognize the way in which
trajectories are shaped by early circumstances.
-Children’s development is nested within household contexts, which are also changing over time, and children are themselves active in shaping their development, according to their capacities, agency and identity.
– Identifying the timing of when circumstances and events matter as does the extent of their reversibility.
Well-being – LO 1 and 2 (450 words)
✓ Briefly define well-being. Then, analyse the impacts and influences of specific social inequalities in health and life course perspectives to the well-being of the group of people with lived experience you have selected. The general issue linking health inequalities, the life course and well-being is the interrelationship of physical and psychological health and how theyare ‘socially determined’. How people feel, and their mental well-being, will influence both their physical health and their behaviour, all of which is related to social status (see e.g. Friedli, 2009; Marmot, 2010; Bywaters 2016).
Material poverty: people living on low incomes in unhealthy environments.
Behavioural: people living in poverty are regarded as more likely to lead unhealthy ‘lifestyles’ – this is a point that requires critical analysis
Status: the psycho-social impact of social inequality on people living in poverty and the related limitation in autonomy and social participation.
Please note – you do not have to place equal emphasis on the causes you discuss.
• Critical Period and Accumulation of Risk models discussed by Bywaters (chapter 13) which can be found in Lymbery and Postle (2007). Whilst dated, this is a useful source.
• Transitions and trajectories discussed by Dornan andWoodhead (2015) being – LO 1 and
Notes:
Stanley 2016: Having meaningful and safe relationships, a sense of belonging, purpose, acts of participating and sense of making a contribution.
Connolly and Morris 2012: Wellbeing is often defined in terms of people having access to material and emotional resources within their social and economic environment.
Braye & Preston Shoot, Practicing the Law in SW 2016 (18-20): The law alone is not the solution, the question of resources remains contested…chronic unfunded…the legal position remains that the LA may consider their resource position when setting/reviewing eligibility criteria and when deciding how to make those needs, that they are prepared to let fall within their statutory duties.
Laming report 2003: Golightly and Goemans (2017) SW &MH, Edmond & Price (2012) Integrated working with children and young people.
– Serious case reviews often highlight a failure to work together.
– Highlighted services come too late.
– All aspects of a child’s life – holistic perspective.
– A variety of measures emerging through Every Child Matters (2003).
– This brought the social agenda to schools and promoted an integrated approach.
– Initiatives such as Sure Start, Extended Schools, BEST (Behavioural, Educational Support Teams).
Every Child Matters 2003: Placed the promotion of wellbeing at the centre of policy – marked shift, Signalled this as the responsibility of all – shared commitment/language
Ecclestone and Hayes (2019)
Kate Brown, 2016 – Vulnerability and Young people
Gillies (2016) Pushed to the edge
Carlisle (2008) critique and defence.
Part 2 of the assignment covers two areas:
Anti-oppressive practice – LO 4 (750 words)
Critically discuss how social workers can use anti-oppressive practice to counter the stigma and discrimination experienced by people with lived experience.
✓Briefly define and discuss the causes of stigma and discrimination. Then, discuss whether and to what extent to which the group you have selected lacks power and autonomy (both affect well-being). It may be helpful to consider self-stigma.
✓Discuss the ways in which people with lived experience often play a leading role in challenging stigma and discrimination as in the disabled people’s movement campaign for the social model of disability. Relate this to your chosen group.
✓Critically discuss how social workers can incorporate anti-oppressive (AOP) and anti-discriminatory practice (ADP) into their overall practice in an attempt to counter forms of stigma, discrimination and a lack of well-being faced by people with lived experience. It may be helpful to consider theories such as Thompson’s approach to anti-discriminatory practice, Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory or Dominelli’s approach to anti-oppressive practice.
Notes
Social Work Methods/Approaches – LO 3 (750 words)
Demonstrate understanding of the methods social workers can use to address social inequalities in health and promote well-being.
✓Focusing on the forms of ill-health and lack of well-being in your earlier discussion, how can the method of mutual aid be used to promote resilience, recovery and well-being for the group you have selected? Here, it may be helpful to recognise that people with lived experience are ‘experts by experience’ and can, and do,play an active part in overcoming their difficulties. You should also discuss how social workers can support this by seeking to promote resilience and recovery.
✓Identify and explore another method that a social worker can use to try to promote the well-being of people within your chosen group.
✓Critically discuss how and why social workers might experience difficulties using these methods in practice with the group you have selected. E.g. managing high caseloads, cuts in service, a lack of awareness; etc.
Notes
Additional information
Level 6 writing skills
• Please concentrate on ‘depth’ as opposed to ‘breadth’.
• For support, consult the Study Skills Plus Critical Thinking (Links to an external site.) resources and their Academic Writing Guides.
Presentation
• Number your pages
• Font: Arial 12
• Line spacing: 1.5
Referencing
• Use a variety of sources to deepen your discussion.
• Be sure to reference appropriately. Harvard Reference
See the On-line Library Guide on Harvard ReferencingLinksto an external site.
