Social care and social work are important in end-of-life care.
Malcolm Payne's blog focuses on developments in social care and social work that affect palliative and end-of-life care. It is part of the information work of St Christopher's Hospice, London.
What with the state of the government, you wonder if it’s worthwhile looking at any government documents at the moment, because you wonder if they can carry them out, However, in the spirit of enlightenment, as always they often contain useful information and analysis; so here, over the next series of posts, goes.
A commentator asks if there is a Twitter site allied to this blog. You can follow me (MalcolmPayne) on Twitter, which is not a St Christopher’s project, and I tend to make more personal comments there, and only do it occasionally.
I originally took up Twitter because an executive of a major American palliative care organisation announced you could follow her and I took this up to see what it was all about. When I’m ready I’ll comment further in this blog. But there are a number of palliative care and social work people on Twitter, and one or two organisations that make a big effort to put stuff up there. Really, it’s about people promoting their organisations through providing information. Can be useful.
A really nice idea was an apparently giant American conference on palliative care (you know, one of those where you cannot go to numerous parallel session) got Tweeters to post 140 character comments on the session that they went to, and I thought this was a really useful thing to do with the technology.
There seem to be some people who almost instantly view posts, when I’m having a bout of posting, and may wonder why there is a moment or two of unsteadiness as I post a post (so to speak). This is because the progam does not have a spell-check and transferring a post from the word-processor is not a seamless process, so I have to amend posts in the first few moments after I can see them published. And it’s why there’s the odd typo in most posts because I haven’t noticed it – sorry.
A Happy Christmas and successful new year to all readers of this blog.
In among the rebuilding works, we had the usual remembrance tree ceremony at St Christopher’s, this year using an existing tree, rather than a specially bought one.
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Resource doucments are documents of several pages prepared to provide more comprehensive information and more considered views than the daily posts. They might be useful for people, including students, who want a fairly comprehensive introduction to a topic.
I have prepared a number over the time that I have been working up to startingthis blog, and I am uploading a series of posts this week containing available documents.
As from today, I’m on to my second tranche of rebuilding photos. Just to remind you, I am posting photos of the rebuilding works at St Christopher’s Hospice, in solidarity with colleagues who are working in difficult conditions, so that things can be better in the future. This first photo of the new lot is of the new chapel; a while ago I posted a photo of the closure notice of the old chapel, and here is the new one finished, although not yet open. But this is the glimmer of a new era coming.
New Chapel
Mostly so far I have just included pictures in this blog that are relevant to the post. In April, for a while, though, I offered a series of photos of memorials in St Nick’s churchyard, Sutton, and in May of St Christopher’s Hospice taken before this year. This is because building works for the new anniversary project started in June. Since then, I have been offering an occasional picture of the rebuilding works. When it’s all finished, I plan to show you some pictures of the renewed St C’s.
In the meantime, you’re welcome to let me know your favourite building works pic. click on comment to tell me.
Malcolm Payne is Policy and Development Advisor with St Christopher’s Hospice, one of the world’s leading hospices, responsible for policy work, projects and management and social work practice issues. He was previously Director of Psycho-social and Spiritual Care at the Hospice, responsible for social work, welfare and bereavement services, the creative living centre, spiritual care, psychiatry and volunteers working with patients and carers. He is also Honorary Professor at Kingston University/St George’s University of London, the joint faculty of health and social care sciences, Visiting Professor, Opole University, Poland, Emeritus Professor at Manchester Metropolitan Univerity and Docent in social work with the Department of Social Policy, Helsinki Univerity, Finland.
After a career in probation and social services, he worked in academic posts and voluntary sector management and practice in local and national organisations.
Among more than 250 publications are his widely known books: Modern Social Work Theory (3rd ed., Palgrave Macmillan/Lyceum, 2005), What is Professional Social Work? (2nd ed., Policy Press/Lyceum, 2006), Social Cae Practice in Context (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), Globalisation and International Social Work (with Gurid Aga Askeland, Ashgate, 2008) and as editor, with Nigel Hartley Creative Arts in Palliative Care (Jessica Kingsley, 2008).
This blog is written by Malcolm Payne as part of the information work of St Christopher’s Hospice.
St Christopher’s, a constant innovator in end-of-life care, is one of the UK’s largest hospices, a leading palliative care charity and a founding source of the worldwide hospice movement.
Website: http://www.stchristophers.org.uk/
St Christopher’s has one of the largest and most comprehensive programmes of palliative care education for professionals and others: you can see the programme and book courses here.
St Christopher’s is also a partner with Help the Hospices in Hospice Information, one of the most comprehensive information services on palliative care in the world: http://www.hospiceinformation.info/