Meet Michelle Rodriguez…
Michelle is a mental health support worker at Ace Services, a community service organization dedicated to providing mental health support to individuals in need. She plays a crucial role in assisting clients with their mental health challenges and ensuring they receive the necessary support and care.
Her duties include:
- Providing emotional support and reassurance to patients and their families.
- Providing day-to-day care and living assistance to patients.
- Developing treatment plans in collaboration with other health care professionals administering medication.
- Monitoring patients' physical and mental health and keeping accurate records.
- Educating patients' families and those patients live with about mental health issues and how they can help.
- Ensuring staff awareness of changes in mental health legislation
- Attending networking events to build professional relationships
Michelle recognises that to perform these duties well, her critical thinking skills need to be sharp.
In this module, you will learn more about the knowledge and skills that enable Michelle to:
- establish an environment that fosters critical thinking
- lead critical thinking processes and approaches for problem-solving and decision-making
- develop a critical thinking mindset in self and others.
You will be introduced to the key characteristics of critical thinking and the value of such approaches in a work environment and follow a seven-step process for resolving a work issue. You will learn about Bloom's Taxonomy framework that demonstrates people's thinking levels (from lower-order thinking to higher-order critical thinking), along with the Eisenhower Matrix and the SPADE framework to help with solving problems and making decisions.
Throughout the module, there will be opportunities to develop your knowledge and critical thinking skills so you are ready for your assessment, including looking at Ace Services Decision Making Policy and Procedure.
Let us begin by asking Michelle the following three questions.
Michelle responds:
As a mental health support worker, my role at Ace Services involves constantly assessing and addressing the complex needs of our clients. This requires me to think critically and apply problem-solving skills to develop effective treatment plans and provide appropriate care. By demonstrating critical thinking in my role, I encourage my colleagues to approach their work with a similar mindset, fostering a culture of critical thinking within our team and the organization. In meetings, we use techniques such as:
- asking questions of each other
- listening and paraphrasing to check understanding
- considering the perspectives of other team members
- identifying the pros and cons of possible solutions.
Michelle responds:
Absolutely, promoting a critical thinking mindset is crucial in our workplace. Mental health support is a field where decisions can significantly impact individuals' lives. By encouraging critical thinking, we ensure that our team members:
- thoroughly analyze situations
- consider multiple perspectives
- make informed decisions.
Critical thinking allows us to approach challenges creatively, adapt to changing circumstances, and deliver the best possible care to our clients.
Demonstrating and promoting critical thinking as a desirable and valuable skill encourages critical thinking behaviours in others. This is a win-win scenario for all of us. It encourages staff to be more analytical when solving problems or evaluating processes and to derive a logical conclusion or solution to a problem. This results in employees becoming more effective at performing work tasks which helps to meet the goals of the team and contribute to achieving the organisation’s strategic objectives.
Michelle responds:
The benefits of applying critical thinking in the workplace include:
- promoting respect for diverse ways of thinking
- increasing the range of approaches to problem-solving
- solving complex problems
- fostering creativity through unexpected outcomes (for example, different from the original issue)
- increasing teamwork and efficiency
- analyse information objectively
- reducing the likelihood of workplace conflict through effective decision making.
Critical thinking is a skill that an individual can use in every area of life. Overall, it improves our efficiency, effectiveness, and the quality of care we provide to our clients at Ace Services.
Now let's dive into the learning!
