Health and Social Care

be threatened for people needing and receiving care services. Using one or more of the situations in Block 2, explain why this is so and what care workers can do to support a sense of self.

Identity is a continuing, lifelong journey, constructed on a foundation

established in the earliest relationship of one’s life, which Bowlby

(cited in The Open University, 2010 p.26) associated with the

‘attachment theory’. This essay will consider what factors may

prevent jeopordising the sustainment of a child’s identity and debate

approaches used by care workers to improve the child’s sense of self.

The case study of Jordan Morgan (The Open University, 2010, p.21)

together with the research of Howard Mitchell (cited in The Open

University, 2010, p.112) and Vijay Patel (cited in The Open

University, 2010, p. 71) will be used to support theoretical relevance.

If a secure base to explore the world has not been established, the

demands of everyday life may challenge a child’s individuality

encountering care services as they require ways to handle

separation and bereavement to confidently transition through life

emotionally and socially (The Open University, 2010, p.11).

This belief connects to Bowlby’s (cited in The Open University, p.26)

attachment theory - believing a sole objective of childhood is to

sequentially create a self perception of ourselves and how we

harmonize into the population. Care workers must not take this

process for granted in their approach, assuming a child in their care

has formed a secure base through which to explore the world,

because young children may not have had many opportunities to

form secure attachments with parents because of family break up.

(The Open University, p.34). Even if an internal working model has

been formed, Ainsworth (as cited in The Open University, p.28)

argues that they can vary from secure to insecure.

With this...