The Relationship of Social Service Director’s and Director of Nursing Leadership Style and its Effect to Nursing
Home Resident’s Psychosocial Well-Being
The quality of care in nursing homes is largely dependent on the type of leadership employed by the nursing administrators. Therefore, the leadership style used by both the Social Service Director and Director of Nursing in the nursing homes should relate in a manner that produces positive results on the nursing home residents. Of great importance is the psychological needs of the home residents, which must be met by the leaders, to ensure the overall high quality of life of the patients. Therefore, the leadership styles employed by the Social Service Director and Director of Nursing can serve as a measure of quality of care, including psychological care of residents in nursing homes (Ford, 1997).
Nursing homes, apart from other functions, serve to ensure that the psychological needs of elderly patients are met. These needs include anxiety, loss of identity, depression, dementia, loss of personal control, and adjusting to the new environment. In addressing these needs, social workers and leaders in nursing homes seek ways of how to help the residents in the best manner. It is therefore essential that the leaders in these nursing homes have the right professional qualifications. For instance, they must have the professional capacity to address psychological needs of the residents. According to the Social Work Policy Institute (2010), lack of professional qualifications has resulted in the failure to cater for the residents’ needs effectively in most nursing homes.
Both the Social Service Director and Director of Nursing in nursing homes must play the role of monitoring and assessing resident psychological care. By using different indicators, the effectiveness of the care of the nursing home can be determined. This is important as loopholes in care can be identified, and corrected. Similarly, they could use survey agencies and accrediting organizations, which will use data collection and analysis to determine the quality of care, with specific interest to psychological care (National Association of Social Workers [NASW], 2012).
The Social Service Director and Director of Nursing in nursing homes should adopt leadership styles that closely relate. Most importantly is that their leadership should focus on coordination, monitoring and assessment of operations in the nursing home, and specification of roles of staff. A relationship-oriented kind of leadership is more capable of ensuring that the psychological needs of residents are met. In this type of leadership, there is supporting, developing, and recognizing the subordinate staff, who are the core to care provision in nursing homes. If these are appreciated by the Social Service Director and Director of Nursing, who are their seniors, they will be motivated to provide quality care to the residents (Nagelkerk, 2005).
The use of American Psychological Association (APA) style of writing and formatting has been beneficial for this essay. The most essential application of APA formatting style in this essay is how it has helped in the refining of my critical thinking. This is through the fact that APA has required me to organize my essay in different parts to ensure flow of ideas. This includes the introduction, body, and conclusion, which have different content, some drawn from different literature, but presented in a logical manner. Further use of APA formatting in my papers will most likely help me improve my writing skills (Dunn, Halonen & Smith, 2009).
In conclusion, the leadership forms adopted by the nursing leadership teams influences the quality of care in nursing homes. Leadership that is based on personal relationships stands a greater chance of affecting positively on the psychological well-being of residents in nursing homes. However, more research needs to be conducted in this area to affirm further the relationship between leadership styles of nursing directors and social services directors to the quality of care provided in nursing homes, and especially the psychological well-being of residents.
References
National Association of Social Workers [NASW]. (2012). NASW Clinical Indicators for
Social Work and Psychosocial Services in Nursing Homes. Retrieved from http://www.socialworkers.org/practice/standards/nursing_homes.asp
Social Work Policy Institute. (2010, May). Social Work Services in Nursing Homes: Toward
Quality Psychosocial Care. Retrieved from http://www.socialworkpolicy.org/research/social-work-services-in-nursing-homes-toward-quality-psychosocial-care.html
Dunn, D., Halonen, J. & Smith, R. (2009). Teaching Critical Thinking in Psychology: A
Handbook of Best Practices. London: John Wiley & Sons.
Ford, W. (1997). Nursing Home Leadership. London: The Management Advantage, Inc.
Nagelkerk, J. (2005). Leadership and Nursing Care Management. New York: Elsevier Health
Sciences.
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