K101 Tma04

This essay looks at the importance to enable adult service users to talk about their past experiences and how this can be achieved. Ill also talk about when it’s not appropriate for care workers to encourage this.
A life story gathers facts and images of the life given to an individual and the people in it. It is one way of working with people to receive the information about their personal development background, history and.   The results can be in a ‘product’ - a book or video, an audio tape, or computer file - although it doesn’t have to.   For some service users, the process itself of making a life story, rather than the product, can be beneficial for the individual involved.   Life story work is used to help individuals who are vulnerable, or who may be going through difficult challenging life transitions. It can be in many forms including; people with learning disabilities, with children going through fostering and adoption processes, people in hospices, or with elderly people who have dementia also with those in long term residential care.  
Talking about the past and listening to accounts of personal experience are popular and well documented activities (OU, K101, Unit 5, p. 17).   All around us we have, life stories, autobiographies and personal accounts. From television and radio programmes, to newspapers and magazines, and even advertising and fundraising.   Because of this sharing experiences usually begins naturally at an early age. So remembering and telling becomes part of an individual’s inner life, and helps them to build up a meaningful account of who they are and establish a secure sense of identity.  
Life story work is important because, when receiving care, people’s life stories are often unknown or unexplored, and care receivers can have a particular need to talk about their past. During some research I done on my own Robert N. Butler states, ‘They live by memory rather than by hope’.   Therefore it could be considered prudent to allow time to...