Journal Critique - Essay Example

Journal Critique Introduction The article ‘Social Workers as Members of Community Mental Health Teams (CHMT) for Older People: What is the Added Value?’ by Abendstern et al., (2016) seeks to address the question of ‘Do social workers have an additional role in Community mental health teams?’ It reports the findings of a qualitative research done to ascertain the role of social workers within these CMHTs. Grounded theory approach was adopted in the analysis of the data obtained. The article focuses on three major themes which are; the limits of skills of social workers, the role of social workers in CHMTs and knowledge and attributes that social workers add to CHMTs practice. The research involved the use of interviews done on selected three selected groups of participants; non-integrated, hybrid and integrated. Non-integrated group comprised of only health workers while the integrated group had both health and social workers under a single management. The hybrid group had both health and social workers but separately managed. A total of nine teams were interviewed, five from the non-integrated group, one from the hybrid group and three teams from the integrated group. Some members of these teams gave their views about the presence of a social worker in the team. The group with only mental health workers acted as the control group. Findings from this research indicated that social health workers working within the CMHTs were indeed important. Unlike the generic social health care workers, this category of health workers within CMHTs are more knowledgeable than generic social health care workers. They have the advantage of having undergone specialist training. Moreover, integrating social and health workers ensures that other responsibilities are incorporated into the traditional social work functions. Nonetheless, the issue of role blurring was highlighted in this article as a major disadvantage of integration of social and health workers. Role blurring results to other team members relaxing and expecting social workers to take all the responsibilities. Another major advantage of having social worker integrated into the team is that of easier communication. Some mental cases require a social worker and by having one nearer, it means that there will be a direct referral and immediate feedback. The findings from this research conclusively find it is important to have social workers integrated into mental health facilities for older people. The article particularly highlights the importance of having both mental and social workers together because it will bring ‘multiplicative effect’ (Abendstern et al., 2016). Thus it was beneficial to have social workers within the team because it benefited both the CMHT staff and service users. The author has clearly introduced the reader by stating the problem. Moreover, the problem stated agrees with the title of the article. The problem identified is important and requires research. The abstract of the article summarizes what is in the article. As it is required for any abstract, the author has clearly stated the background, method used, findings and conclusion. Additionally, the author has written the abstract in a way that stimulates the reader. The author has provided a review of past literature on the problem. However, much needs to be done because the review of literature is shallow. The literature review section does not provide a good basis for this research. This section requires the author to give the findings and views of individuals who have done similar research studies in the past. Nonetheless, the author has succeeded in using titles in this section to bring clarity to this piece of work. Despite the fact that several suitable references have been used, most of them were published before 2010. In fact only five of these literature works were published after 2010. Therefore, the author has failed to use literature of recent works. The author should have provided adequate number of recent literature works of studies done in the past five years. The author has failed to state the objectives of this research. Suggested objectives of this work are: To establish the roles of social workers. To establish the importance of presence of social workers in CMHTs. It would have also been more suitable if the author would have stated the hypothesis. The objectives and hypothesis stated ought to be in line with the title of the study. The method used in obtaining the data is clearly stated in the article. Data was obtained through interviews on different groupings. The three groups highlighted are; the non-integrated, integrated and hybrid groups. The first group (non-integrated) had five teams while the second group (hybrid) had only one team. The integrated group had three teams. The author has failed to give a criterion used to select these teams such that the three groups had different number of teams. It would have been more appropriate if all the three groups had equal number of teams. Moreover, these teams were selected in separate localities in England which covered urban/rural/mixed communities, affluent and deprived populations (pg 67). The author has failed to state the locality of each of the teams that participated in research. It would have also been more appropriate to give a criteria of selection of each of the teams. Furthermore, the author highlighted that team G was disbanded but failed to give a reason and a reparation for this. The data obtained only contained the views of different staff within the health and social care spectrum. The research has excluded the views of other prospective participants such as service user. The author has however stated the limiting boundaries of the research as a major weakness. It would have been more appropriate to work with multidisciplinary teams so as to give a clear picture of the overall view. The findings of the study are clearly stated and discussed extensively. Moreover, the author has succeeded in linking the findings with that of past research studies. However, the author has exhibited some biasness by giving the views of teams from one group (integrated group). In fact, the author has not highlighted the views of some teams such as team I. Much focus has been put on the views of teams A, C and D. Moreover, no explanation has been given why some teams especially in non-integrated group remained dormant. Nevertheless, the views of those teams interviewed have been extensively discussed and linked to the previous research studies. It would have been much better if the author could have done so for other teams as well. Additionally, no summary was given for this article. The author need to have summarized the findings of the research and give a summative view of all the teams. There is no precise conclusion that has been given for the research. The conclusion need to be based on the findings and should be stated logically. The author has stated the recommendation for further research. The recommendation takes care of the weaknesses of the current research. The major weakness was that of failure to incorporate other relevant stakeholders in the research such as service user and generic social workers. In conclusion, the article was generally well written and characterized in-depth research that was done. The article is interesting and it makes a significant contribution to the topic of study. The abstract stimulated the reader to find out what is in the article. In the section of data analysis, simple methods were used which made the article easier to understand. Perhaps one major recommendation in addition to those aforementioned for the author is to make good use of section titles which simplifies the work for the reader. References Abendstern, M., Tucker, S., Wilberforce, M., Jasper, R., Brand, C. & Challis, D. (2016). Social Workers as Members of Community Mental Health Teams for Older People: What is the Added Value? British Journal of Social Work, 46(5): 63-80. Online: available at: http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/content/46/1/63 Read More