In this report I will be assessing my communication and interpersonal skills in relation to a one-to-one interaction and a group interaction in health and social care. For my one to one conversation I chose to record my communication skills in a health and social care context with a member of staff at Osborne house (a residential care home).My particular purpose for talking to this member of staff was to ask her about her career path and how she got to where she is today. We communicated in two different ways:
Un spoken communication using facial expressions- this is where a conversation takes place and instead of one member of the conversation responding to what the other is saying, they may nod appreciatively or smile to show interest and to let the other person know they are engaged in the conversation.
One to one spoken communication between individuals. - This is a conversation between people in which everyone takes part with speech. I started the conversation by asking her to tell me about her career path and giving her a few open questions to start off with to make sure she understood what the purpose of the conversation was, this was good as it meant that she could think about her answers carefully as I presented her with them at the start. The pace of the conversations was quite slow as she recognised I was recording her reply as part of my placement tasks. I liked this because I showed me that she was considerate and was happy to help me with my college work however it also helped me to take in what she was saying whilst I wrote it down meaning that I did not have to ask her to repeat herself.
The conversation took place within the home on a table far enough away to ensure what she said could be confidential if she so wished. This was good as it meant that she may not feel like others were listening in and she could speak more openly however she may have felt a little bit more pressured as there wasn’t really anyone else around. All in all the location and the conversation itself were informal, this worked effectively to help us communicate as there was no pressure felt and the conversation flowed. Moving onto posture I sat leant over a table as I was recording what the member of staff said as she said it. The staff member on the other hand was sat upright position however seemed relaxed, the way she sat showed her interest in the conversation and showed she was engaged with the topic. The overall tone of the conversation was calm as I spoke quietly and calmly and so did the member of staff. This worked effectively as it made the conversation enjoyable and relaxed making sure that neither me nor the member of staff felt any pressure etc. we were sat around a metre away from one another at the table, this meant that she didn’t have to speak to loud for me to hear her. Again this was effective because it ensured she felt no pressure within the conversation as she didn’t have to speak loudly, this in turn meant the probability of anyone overhearing out conversation was reduced.
During our conversation we did not have any struggles when it came to clarifying or repeating as she spoke clearly, this was effective as I didn’t have to ask her to say what she had said again and didn’t really use any professional jargon that I didn’t understand because she understood that I’m still a student and therefore may not be familiar with the words she could use to refer to health care related topics. This meant that the conversation was a lot smoother as I didn’t struggle to understand what she was saying and loose track. Sometimes when in a conversation and the other participant uses words you cannot understand it makes it hard to keep concentrating when you are thinking of so many questions to ask based on the words/phrases he/she said. But this wasn’t the case in this conversation and she used words I could clearly understand and record without query.
Our conversation did have 1 barrier as the other participant was also doing