Promoting Effective Communication

Promoting communication in health, social care or children’s and young people’s settings.
Communication is a way of helping a person express their thoughts, feelings and ideas. One of the main reasons that we learn to communicate is to share information. Sharing information relies upon having the interest to do so. Communicating is a two way process involving a sender and receiver of information. A person can use a variety of methods to get a message across. This information is received and then interpreted. To respond, the receiver must become the sender. Communicating is a complex process where information is being passed and interpreted all the time. The communication process is complete once the receiver has understood the sender. Communication allows people to express their needs and offers equal opportunities.
Good communication in the workplace builds trust between workers. This allows people to build good working relationships and value each other’s efforts. It enables the staff to know what their roles and responsibilities are within their job and promotes staff development through team meetings, individual meetings and ongoing training. By staying informed, individuals are naturally more trusting of their colleagues and surer that any dependent work is being done. Rapid communications can also mean that issues and risks or opportunities are being quickly raised and can be acted upon. All messages need to be clear in order to ensure there is no lack of understanding. Regular communications ensures that constant progress updates are be maintained and that issues or risks are being raised.
Effective communication allows service users to make informed choices. To enable service users to do this we must establish the best way to communicate. By using communication aids that are tailored to their specific needs we can establish better communication. It can often help to speak to family members or healthcare professionals to establish if there is a preferred...