I've finally taken the plunge and put some of my work on the Amazon Kindle store. This means that anyone with a Kindle (or who has downloaded the free Kindle app for PC, Mac, Android, iphone or ipad) can read my stuff with ease. You can even download them to your mobile 'phone to read or refer to 'on the go'.
All these books are designed to help 'hands on' workers in health or social care without being so lengthy and 'waffling' that they become too difficult to make sense of. Because they're on Kindle they're searchable through keywords and easy to carry around. Click the underlined hyperlinks below to go to the Kindle store.
The mental health workers' guide
The mental health workers' guide is much longer than previous books but is written in the same accessible style. It's aimed at workers who may be new to mental health care or who simply want to develop an overall understanding to complement their studies or existing knowledge. It is intended to be as useful to professionals and students (nurses, social workers, occupational therapists etc) as well as workers who don't have professional qualifications. In fact it was for support workers that the book was originally intended.
I first decided to write this book because I feel very strongly about the fact that workers in social care often find themselves effectively abandoned by over-stretched statutory services who are unable (or occasionally unwilling) to provide the necessary input to help them fulfil their roles properly.
This is a great shame because many of the unsung mental health workers I come across are capable of extremely sophisticated work if only they had the necessary support. This book is my attempt to redress the balance a little and ‘fill the gap’.
It's no substitute for actual training but for those workers and organisations who don't have the resources to pay for lengthy courses a book like this comes a close second. It incorporates some of the concepts introduced in the earlier books, 'Introduction to mental health' and 'challenging behaviour' but also covers a wealth of additional information not found in either.
It's fully searchable via keywords as well as being arranged by chapters and sub-headings to help you navigate through the different sections. It can be read as a whole or section by section for reference as needed.
Challenging behaviour in health and social care
Health and social care workers sometimes feel obliged to ‘deal with’ behaviours that they don’t personally agree with. However this isn’t always necessary. By respecting service-users' choices we can avoid many of the conflicts that make health and social care work so difficult in practice.
Sometimes the things that workers think of as ‘challenging’ are really just ‘different’. Knowing the difference between ‘choice’ & ‘challenge’ is a key part of social care work.
But workers also have the right to be free from abuse, assault & harassment. In this book Stuart Sorensen (The Care Guy) consider ways to strike a realistic and reasonable balance between the needs of all concerned and everyone's right to be safe and free from abuse.
Sometimes we really do need to get involved and 'deal with' challenging behaviour. This often means having very firm boundaries and an awareness of what we should and should not ‘get into’ with service-users.
Once we know what behaviours really are 'our business' we need to understand what to do about them. This book brings a refreshing 'common-sense' approach to established theories of behaviour management that has a truly practical flavour to it.
"I decided to buy this ebook as i feel it's something of a weakness of mine and an area in which I am tested on most days in my work environment. I was not disappointed by its breadth of subject, of course within each section a whole book could be written, but Stuart gives just the right amount of detail to help the professional develop as a healer and as a person."
(Robert Philips, nurse)
Adult Protection has been well and truly 'in the spotlight' over the last ten years or so. High profile abuses of vulnerable people have prompted the government to look again at UK Safeguarding systems. The result has been new legislation and a new way to regulate health and social care provision.
This book is for people working in the practical, ‘front line’ of health and social care. It is not written for those managers and investigators who design and implement the wider systems we need to ensure compliance.
It has an altogether more practical feel to meet the needs of hands on workers who are much more likely to be ‘alerters’ than ‘investigators’.
The aim is to help people to make sure that their own practice is 'clean' and to recognise safeguarding problems if and when they do arise.
Introducing mental health and disorder
This guidebook explores the meaning of psychiatric diagnosis and the principles that underpin them. It broadly outlines the causes of mental health difficulties and points the way toward recovery. The aim is to provide workers with a useful overview of the world of mental health and disorder.
Other guides from The Care Guy examine particular issues in practice and strategies for coping with them. That is not the focus here. Before we can know ‘what’ to do it is helpful to understand ‘why’. This book deals with the realities that lead to the ‘why’ of practice.
The book aims to be accessible and understandable without being too 'heavy' or so long that it becomes unusable in practice.
"A great introduction to the world of mental health care!
This short but concise introduction provides everything you need to know about mental health and illness. There are simple but clear explanations around the different terms used and a good explanation about why we need a diagnosis and how recovery happens. I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to know more about mental health but with little time to read some of the huge books already out there."
(Marjorie Lloyd - nursing tutor, author and academic)
Bulk and paper purchases
If you'd like to arrange to purchase paper copies for yourself or your workforce please get in touch. These (and other) books are available in A5 paper format with discounts for bulk purchases