Inter-Agency Working: Supporting the Cultural Needs of War Victims

As part of the formal assessment for the programme you are required to submit an Inter-Agency Working assignment. Please refer to your Student Handbook for full details of the programme assessment scheme and general information on preparing and submitting assignments.

1. Discuss the complex factors in a multi-cultural community and how this impact on the delivery of healthcare
2. Understand the differing cultural needs of communities in the UK
3. Evaluate the impact of leadership on a multi-disciplinary team
4. Appraise the attributes of an effective multi-disciplinary team

Case study

Mr and Mrs Musa are a couple and are war victims originally from Sudan. They sought asylum in the United Kingdom because of a civil war in their country, which had a devastating effect on their family. They came to the United Kingdom and were supported by a caseworker, having been through an assessment process. The couple were found to be traumatised, largely due to the events of the war, which impacted on their mental wellbeing. The couple informed their caseworker about their faith and cultural needs, butthe leadership of the agency showed little or no interest in meeting their identified needs.As a direct consequence, the perceived lack of interest was seen as a cultural barrier, in part due to the lack of care and support from the concerned Healthcare agency. Thisavoidable situation has made the couple unwilling to engage with support service providers in the community. Thus, the couple felt frustrated and reluctance to disclose their cultural needs to any support network in the community. As a result, the couple started to isolate themselves from support services that would have potentially supported them to meet their faith and cultural needs.

Question 1

Using both examples from your own practice as well as the information from the above case study:

• Assess some of the complex challenges and opportunities of inter-Agency working - with emphasis on the need to meet service user’s cultural needs in the community.
• With examples, describe how your identified challenges faced by the couple could have negative impact on the particular healthcare agency. You must draw upon relevant theory, concepts, models and appropriate organisational examples. Also note that your work must be presented with research evidence as well as practical examples to showcase the breath and depth of your understanding.

Question 2

In care provision, service users and carers may have complex needs, which may require different types of help being provided by a range of agencies:

• Analyse how lack of good leadership amongst healthcare agencies would impact negatively on the ethic of care as well as the multidisciplinary working initiative in healthcare.

1) In reference to the case study above, outline some of the leadership issues faced by the couple in terms of how healthcare agencies could have efficiently managed their needs.

2) What could you have done differently from a professional point of view to address the couple’s cultural need/s?

You must draw upon relevant theory, concepts, models and appropriate organisational examples. Also note that your work must be presented with research evidence as well as practical examples to showcase the breadth and depth of your understanding.

Question 3

The white paper “Caring for People” was published in 1998 after the NHS and Community Care Act 1990. Both papers seem to have increased awareness of the need to develop both Inter-professional and inter-agency collaboration (IPIAC) in the last decades. Besides, the government issued several policy documents, which requirescollaboration or partnership working arrangement to improve efficiency and effectiveness amongsthealthcare services. While all of these initiatives were clearly declared in several papers, such as the 1998 white paper and, the Modernising Social Services white paper 1998,they all shared the views that “people do not fit into neat service categories, and that if partner agencies are not working together, it is the user who suffers” (DH, 1998 cited in Community Care, 2019).

• Appraise some of the values of multi-disciplinary teamwork in healthcare
• Explain with examples how multi-disciplinary teams can achieve effective delivery, particularly when supporting the couple.