Self Care
What is self care?
Self care is an integral part of daily life and is all about individuals taking responsibility for their own health and wellbeing, with support from the people involved in their care and in conjunction with care received from health and social care professionals. Self care includes the actions people take every day in order to stay fit and maintain good physical and mental health, meet their social and psychological needs, prevent illness or accidents and care more effectively for minor ailments and long term conditions.
People living with a long term condition can benefit enormously from being supported to self care. They can live longer, suffer less pain, anxiety, depression and fatigue, have a better quality of life, and be more active and independent.
Skills for Care has produced a number of resources around self care (produced jointly with Skills for Health) which can be found further down this page. In addition to the shared Common Core Principles to support Self Care (published in May 2008), there is a whole Self Care Training Manual aimed at domiciliary workers to help them understand self care.
Skills for Care has also produced a questionnaire (see link below) that can be used by individuals with their carers and care services including care managers / assessors and personal assistants. It aims to help identify the most important ways that workers can help an individual to take responsibility for their own health and wellbeing and to be as independent as possible.
Personalised questionnaire to support the 'self care' principles in practice (pdf)
Self Care Week
Skills for Care was proud to support Self Care Week 2011. Self Care Week is a national awareness week which focuses on "helping people to take care of themselves" by taking control of their own health and wellbeing by finding out about the information and support that already exists to help them self care. Last year's week built upon the success of Self Care Week in 2009 and 2010. See links below to our case studies that link in with this year's technology theme.
For more information on self care please click on the links below:
Common core principles to support self care
The ambition of 'Putting People First' is to enable people to live their own lives as they wish, confident that services are of high quality and safe, and respect independence well-being, choice and dignity. Supporting self care is part of making this happen.
Skills for Care has worked in partnership with Skills for Health to develop a set Common Core Principles for Self Care. The purpose of the principles is to enable organisations and all those who work in health and social care, whether as commissioners, service provider or educators to make personalised services a reality.
Consistent with the personalisation agenda they put people at the centre of the planning process, and recognise that they are best placed to understand their own needs and how to meet them.
The principles can be implemented through service delivery, appraisal, supervision, and training and development planning.
Common Core Principles to Support Self-Care (pdf, 40pp, 1.1mb)
Self Care Training Manual
Skills for Care and Skills for Health, in partnership with Lancashire County Council, has developed a Self Care Training Manual - a comprehensive and effective training programme that clearly lays out how organisations and individual care workers can provide support that places the user at the centre of the process.
The training manual and supporting material is available to download below:
Self Care Training Manual
module 1:
Self Care Training Manual - module 1
module 2:
Self Care Training Manual - module 2
worksheet 2.1
worksheet 2.3
worksheet 2.4
module 3:
Self Care Training Manual - module 3
module 4:
Self Care Training Manual - module 4
module 5:
Self Care Training Manual - module 5
module 6:
Self Care Training Manual - module 6
worksheet 6.2
worksheet 6.3
worksheet 6.4
module 7:
Self Care Training Manual - module 7
module 8:
Self Care Training Manual - module 8
module 9:
Self Care Training Manual - module 9
self care module 9 presentation
module 10:
Self Care Training Manual - module 10
self care module 10 presentation
worksheet 10.3
worksheet 10.4
Outcomes of the Self Care Programme 'demonstration sites'
Three demonstration sites were commissioned to explore the workforce development implications of the Common Core Principles to Support Self Care in health and social care settings.
The full report and executive summary is now available to download below:
developing skills
- introduction
- autism
- carers matter everybodys business
- CPD & career pathways
- dementia
- e-learning
- end of life care
- Infection prevention and control competences
- leadership & management
- living with risk
- national occupational standards (NOS)
- safety guidance for social care staff
self care- skills for life & employability
