Advocacy and Inquiry Model as A Communication Tool

Advocacy and inquiry model is a tool of communication which includes different skills; “listen to understand, suspend judgment, respect all and speak your voice.” It facilitates the conversation and task to move forward. Advocacy means to be a voice of someone which helps to provide support and assurance to an individual. It involves “I” statements which empower and encourage others to express their interest. Whereas, inquiry is to ask set of question according to the situation to explore the issue or to know other person’s point of view. It helps to find out the other end of the problem by asking open ended questions to clarify. The A-I model helps to prevent uncomfortable question which may cause conflicts among individuals.

This model is related to the Community Support Worker’s job as CSW advocate for people in everyday situations. The situation could be related to equal rights, violation, abuse and access to resources. Inquiry is another wheel to proceed towards solution of the problem. CSW ask questions to inquire about the problem in an effective manner to make their work productive, It is really a strong tool which gives a framework of conversation between care giver and client. The care givers also balance this model by using skills of listening, non-judgmental, respect and by being a voice.

The simulation exercise is a great in class teaching or training which gives opportunity to confront the real life scenarios. This exercise give me insight of my capabilities to work in the community. I was given a scenario where I had to handle a aggressive and uncooperative client who wanted to get service first without respecting other people in the queue. It was challenging for me at first but eventually I get to know the situation. I have learned that every individual is different and react differently. I cannot prepared myself for each and every task. I noticed that these kinds of scenarios give stress which cause to lose patient. 

Moreover, I am sure that I do need a practice in the field before starting my actual job. Undoubtedly, the simulation gave me confidence to handle the diverse nature of people. I would always be self reflected while dealing with client as that will help me to enhance the productivity of the care. I also learned the importance of group work and accountability. These kind of exercises helps to be responsible and decision maker for a particular situation.

The learning of simulation exercises will definitely be helpful in my future practicum and field job. The skills such as good listening, critical thinking, decision making, which I have learned in short time period will be a great source to work as a CSW student, In addition, human simulation is different from classroom learning as in the class it is easy to answer the question or situation but simulation gives a real life experiential learning. This helps to confront the situation and make critical thinker. Moreover, the simulation exercise also helps to get job easily as individual can learn skills before getting in to it. “Teamwork training conducted in the simulated environment may offer an additive benefit to the traditional didactic instruction, enhance performance, and possibly also help reduce errors.” 

There are many benefits of simulation exercise; it helps to see the situations close to the real life, improves confidence in regard to particular situation, and provides opportunity to make decision in the best interest of the individual and organization. “This technique helps in linking theory with practice of teaching, student-teachers are given an opportunity to study and analyze critical teaching problems, student-teacher understands the behavioral problems of the classroom and develops insight to encounter them, and simulated training provides feedback to student teachers to modify their behavior. It helps in developing social skills like social manners and etiquettes among the student-teachers. There is self-monitoring in simulated-training. It reinforces the student-teachers for the desired behavior. It helps in developing efficiency in student- teachers and in predicting consequences of teaching before going to actual classroom.

At the same time there are few disadvantages as well. “In simulation role-playing is done in artificial situations which are un-psychological and impracticable. Simulation is like socio-drama or sort of gaming, which reduces seriousness of learning. No emphasis is given on teaching skills or content-taught only the social behavior is considered. It requires the supervision by training personnel which are generally not available or not devoted to their duties.” Advantages and Disadvantages of Simulated Teaching Method | SLN. Simulation attempts to portray the real situations in a simple way which is very complex and difficult. Sometimes the time frame is very short for the students to come in a shape.