Communicating Effectively one to one and in a Group

Communicating effectively one to one and in a group

In this report I will be assessing and evaluating the way I communicated and factors that influenced the effectiveness of two types of communication activity. The first communication activity I completed was a group interaction with colleagues (in a residential home). This is where I handed over information from the previous shift to the new members of staff that where taking over the shift. This group interaction was completed with 3 other staff members not including myself. The other interaction was with a service user and was one-to-one. I was helping the service user complete his homework. Also, within this report I was being discussing what I believe to be my strengths and weakness’ are. I also will be discussing how I used listening and responding, voice volume, tone of voice, pace of speech, use of language, clarifying, repeating, questioning, facial expressions, proximity, and body language. I will be providing witness statements from my health and social care setting that also includes these points.

When I was in my group communication activity - I was handing over to 3 other members off staff that where taking over the shift. I understood that I needed to make sure that all the information was passed over correctly in order not to miss anything. ‘Shift handover has been defined as being an activity directed towards the goal of achieving understanding. An effective handover is therefore free from miscommunication or misunderstanding.’ (http://www.hse.gov.uk/humanfactors/topics/standards.pdf) The first thing I considered was making sure I had all the information to hand. Then I ensured that all the members of staff where sitting in an appropriate proximity in order to receive the information correctly that is given to them. If they were sitting too far away they may not be able to hear me. But too close could put me off and make staff members uncomfortable. In this case, staff members had to sit in slightly smaller room than normal and do the hand over. I had to adjust my volume slightly as other young people her in the building and they may have over heard any of the handover, because it may have been relating to another service user it would not be fair for the service users to overhear something about someone else. This maintained confidentially. I ensured that my body language and facial expressions were welcoming. This is important as people are more likely to listen openly if you appear to be happy to share the information. If you appear upset or distracted then this may influence the staff and they may have disengaged. One of main areas of development was my pace of speech. This was because I was trying to rush through the handover as there was a lot of information needed to be passed on and only half an hour to do so. This was not a good idea as sometimes I had to be asked to repeat myself, which I did. But if I had slowed down then I wouldn’t have needed to repeat and the handover may have finished earlier.