errr... been a week liao... no time to blog oso... so i post my HRM Tutorial 1 for you to read loh =P
1. Describe your experience in contacting and visiting your social service provider.
Upon receiving the task of establish “First Contact with The Community”, I was feeling excited and anxious. With my experience of being a volunteer since my Junior College days, community work was no stranger to me. I called my friend, who is the Regular Service Project Elders Coordinator in my extra-curricular activity, to get the contact number of the person-in-charge of the home which they were volunteering with. I managed to call the person to arrange for a visit to the home. The first conversion with Mr. Tan, the person-in-charge, was a pleasant experience. He was friendly and granted my request of a visitation promptly. Personally, I feel that it is not what you know but who you know that matters.
The social service provider that I visited is the Asian Women's Welfare Association Community Home for Senior Citizens, located a stone’s throw away from the bustling Ang Mo Kio Central. Finding the place was a breeze, equipped with a map, I took a 10mins walk from the Ang Mo Kio MRT Station to the home. Upon reaching the place, I went took a detour to visit the two other social service providers located in the same block, namely the Seniors Activity Centre and the READYCARE Centre. All three social service providers are under the wing of the Asian Women's Welfare Association Elderly Services.
I proceeded to the second level of the block where the office is located. When I was in the office, Mr. Tan was still busy with his work. In the mist of waiting, I took the opportunity to observe the normal administration operations of the home. The office settings gave me further understanding of the place even before the interview started. This also provided me with some of the questions I had in mind and at the same time triggered off more questions. The visitation was a great experience; I had an interactive session with Mr. Tan. He gave me an overview of the daily operations of the home and we discussed about the challenges faced with running a home. Mr. Tan was also gave me a tour around the place.
Speaking from the point of a volunteer, this home is one of the best I have been to, I am truly impressed with their concept of a home within the community and how the home has managed to integrate with the rest of the resident living in the same block. Mr. Tan and his colleagues are full-time staff at the home, but I feel that the effort, dedication and love they put into their work is much greater than the monetary returns they receive. Indeed, to work as though you never needed the money.
2. Which 3 technovations did you identify to be useful to your SSP?
The residents in the home consist of senior citizens above the age of 60; most of them are independent and require little or no medication. To cater for emergencies, all units in the block of flats are installed with an Alert Alarm System. In the event of an emergency, residents can pull the cord, which are located both in the living room and in the toilet). Upon activation, the stay-in nurses will immediately attend to the residents in their units. From the current system in place, one can see that the home places top priority in the safety of their residents.
Although most of the residents are healthy and some are still working, unforeseen situations could arise, simply because of the age of these residents. A lot of the chronic diseases are silent killers and very often, the person would be caught off guard, the current Alert Alarm System will only work when the resident has sufficient strength to go and pull the cord. In view of this, I proposed a device that works both as an emergency alarm and as a tracking system. This device is to be worn at the wrist of the resident at all times. In an emergency, the resident only need to press a button on this device to activated the alarm system. Help can then be provided promptly regardless of where the resident might be.
Another function of this wrist-worn device is its tracking capability. To ensure the safety of the residents, the home will close its gates at 2000 hrs. After which they would have to do a head count to ensure all the residents are in the home. Failing which, the person-in-charge will have to telephone all the hospitals in Singapore to check whether this missing resident is hospitalised. If the resident is not hospitalised, they would have to search the surrounding neighbourhood for the missing resident. To ease the work of the staff and improve the efficiency of the searching process, this tracking mechanism within the device will be able to track the location of the resident with the help of a computer program. To prevent resistance from the residents on wearing the device, the device also serves as a watch.
For elderly that require medication, a “Pills Dispenser Machine” will aid the nurses in distributing the medicine to the residents. The nurses will key in the information on prescribed amount of medication, timing of consumption and duration of medication for each resident in the system. Next, the different types of medicine will be put into individual containers. The machine will dispense the drugs based on the information keyed in by the nurses at the stipulated timings. The drugs for each session will be placed in a small cup that bears the name of the resident. This machine will ease the work of the nurses and prevent accidental mixed up of medication for different resident.
A major barrier between the foreign nurses and volunteer with the residents would be the communication barrier. These foreign nurses speak no dialects while most residents cannot understand English. Many of the volunteers especially students faced this difficulty as well. A translator which translates English and the various dialects will be able to break this language barrier.
3. What specific skills are needed to establish and follow-up on first contact successfully in the outside world?
To establish first contact with the outside world, the essential skills are communication skills and listening skills. To communicate effectively, we need to be sincere in our actions. For example, instead of sending a generic email to all the social service providers and hope that at least one will reply favourably, we can make a phone call to the organisation. By doing this, it shows your sincerity and adds a personal touch. Also the tone you use is crucial. Since we are requesting a favour from the organisation, we have to be courteous. Smile when you are speaking to the person, although he cannot see you, the smile can still be heard. Before making the call, understand the purpose of the making the call and the objective of doing follow-ups. Do some research on the organisation and prepare the list of questions that you might get. Always be prepared to go the extra mile if you want to get the job done.
4. How would you go about developing the skills described in your answer to Question 3 so as to be ready for the world?
In our daily activities, we have to train to listen to others more and to think fast and slow to speak. Most of the time, people talk without thinking and in the process, others might be offended without you knowing. The tongue is like a double-edged sword, some people use it to encourage and motivate others, while others use it for slandering and causing hurt. Therefore, we have to guard our words.
Our attitude towards others plays an important role. The world does not revolve around you and it did not exist because of you. When you require a favour from others, you have to ask. Even in school, when you need others to lend you their notes, they would be more willing to lend to you if you speak nicely to them. Being meek is not being weak, if we can think of ourselves less and think of others more and make the effort to go the extra mile for others, others will treat you better too.
In a nutshell, be wise and be nice to others.
