Category: Incident

Introduction

Incident response plan presents a list of responses to an intrusion and a series of actions to stop an intrusion before it will cause damage an action plan has to include all possible result of analysis as well as actions it has too to cover critical and informational alerts and it should of course be accessible to all employees in the workplace..

Preparation

Preparation presents how employees should be trained to respond to incidents in the workplace, an employee should contact the IT Help Desk immediately after discovering an incident. The Help Desk will store information about an incident like the name of the employee who calls him, the source of the incident, the time, the location of equipment.Next; he has to contact the responsible employee referring to the contact list of the Incident Response team. He has to log the information received and add information to the report like the name of the attacked systems, IP address.

Identification

The incident response team members contacted will meet to discuss the situation and assure that the event is a security incident, and discuss the response strategy that they will apply for example installation of security information and event management (SIEM), so that even logbooks can be proactively analyzed and acted upon or using a honeypot system to log all the attackers’ activities and study their behavior which is nothing but a server that offers any kind of services to the attacker with critical vulnerabilities, the type of incident (high, medium or Low),kind of incident because computer incidents require specific Incident Response Team activation.

Confinement

Here they try to limit the damage and isolate the affected systems to avoid probable damage, so usually, they shut down the systems so they stop the attack and assure preserving evidence.

Eradication

It’s time to do a root cause analysis to find out why the incident occurred and how to prevent it from occurring again. Act immediately to get the investigation started before valuable evidence is deleted including reviewing of system logs, reviewing intrusion detection or firewall logs, collection, and revision of log files, Reports from network monitoring programs, Detection of unauthorized services installed, any changes in the password file..

Recovery

In this phase they will restore the affected systems to be sure that all vulnerabilities have been removed, the vulnerability must be analyzed on each system before any correction.

Lessons learned

The IT team will revise the incident response plan they should update it according to what they learn from the incident, and improve future response so the incident doesn’t happen again. They must complete an incident report and outline it. they should make sure that the logs have been configured to be sent to a commercial log collection, and that their analysis product runs various logs summaries like trends to observe the big picture(Most Attacked Ports, Main Event Types) As well as Previously Invisible Events to discover rare but critical events in newspapers..

On December 1, 2019, at 08:30 PM, workers suffered benzene inhalation while working in the Tilray production factory in Petrolia. Follow up investigations are required.

Background

At the time, the workers were as usual working there shift in the production department; workers were following the instructions provided to them as the inspection for these department was coming soon. The batch prepared was for almost 2000 Liters. there were 50 workers on floor during the night shift present.

Incident

The event began at 08:45 PM, when the workers started thee process of production after the brief meeting with their Manager and Assistant Managers.

1. The workers were given different task in the production department and everyone were resuming their duties.
2. One of the worker who works in the factory for last 10 years was starting the machinery and also the process for production of benzene.
3. The Supervisor/Assistant Manger was overlooking the documents needed too be prepared for upcoming building inspection. Suddenly the loud blast was heard of cylinder blast. This blast got every on shocked and the one working near the cylinder were injured.
4. The Medical team provided the First-Aid instantly and waited for the ambulance to arrive.
5. Two fire fighter trucks arrived there at around 09:05 PM
6. Paramedic team arrived at 09:15 PM and facilitated the workers who were extremely injured due to accident and benzene inhalation.

Benzene

Benzene is a reasonable, dry fluid with a sweet fragrant smell. It is utilized for the most part as a beginning material in assembling different synthetic substances, including cleansers, pesticides, plastics and saps, engineered elastic, aeronautics fuel, pharmaceuticals, color, explosives, PCB gas, flavors and fragrances, paints and coatings, nylon intermediates, photographic synthetics (NIH, TOXNET)

Benzene Poisoning

Prompt signs and side effects of introduction to benzene: Individuals who take in significant levels of benzene may create tiredness, tipsiness, quick or unpredictable heartbeat, cerebral pains, tremors, perplexity obviousness, demise. Eating nourishments or drinking refreshments containing elevated levels of benzene can cause heaving, aggravation of the stomach, wooziness, drowsiness, spasms, fast or unpredictable heartbeat, passing. Long haul (a year or more) introduction to benzene causes unsafe consequences for the bone marrow, bringing about paleness and over the top dying.

It can likewise influence the invulnerable framework, expanding the opportunity for contamination. A few ladies who inhaled elevated levels of benzene for a long time had sporadic menstrual periods and an abatement in the size of their ovaries. Intense passing from benzene introduction at high fixations have been because of ventricular fibrillation brought about by effort and arrival of epinephrine. Benzene causes disease in people. A review accomplice study was led in 233 benzene processing plants and 83 control manufacturing plants in 12 urban communities in China.

The benzene associate and the control accomplice comprised of 28,460 benzene uncovered specialists and 28,257 control laborers. The leukemia death rate was 14/100,000 man a long time in the benzene accomplice and 2/100,000 man a very long time in the control associate. Generally, (76.6%) instances of benzene leukemia were of the intense sort. The mortality because of benzene leukemia was high in natural amalgamation plants pursued by painting and elastic combination enterprises. The centralization of benzene to which patients with a leukemia were uncovered run from 10 to 1000 mg/cu m (generally from 50 to 500 mg/cu m).

Benzene is genotoxic in people: an altogether expanded recurrence of chromatid and isochromatid breaks in the refined lymphocytes of uncovered laborers has been accounted for, just as a critical increment of fringe blood lymphocyte chromosomal deviations. Metabolic initiation of benzene by rodent liver microsomes prompted sister chromatid trades and cell division delays in refined human lymphocytes. Word related presentation to benzene may happen through inward breath and dermal contact. The all inclusive community might be presented to benzene by means of inward breath of encompassing air, ingestion of nourishment and drinking water, and dermal contact with buyer items containing benzene (NIH, TOXNET).

Outcome

The Petrolia Fire Department was able to cover the fire quickly; it did not spread elsewhere. First responders were wearing PPE and were not affected by the fumes. Injured workers were taken to hospital and the treatment for poisoning was started. The supervisor notified the board about this incident while the workers were still being treated.

The Insurance Company and the union of workers has been notified, and the investigators will be visiting the site to assess damage and formulate a plan for repair. Currently, production has been stopped and the department is waiting for further instruction from the head office.

Recommendations

Based on this incident, I would recommend the following:

• The company should bee prepared for this kind of incidents.
• Workers should be trained for safe distance during ongoing production.
• Workers should always wear their PPE and follow the safety measures.
• All staff must take fire extinguisher training.
• Workers should be made aware of possibilities of occurring this kind of accidents and be well prepared.

We were grateful that there was no loss of life as the consequence of this event, but we must ensure that nothing like this incident ever arises once more.

Reference

1. U. S. National Library of Medicine (NIH), Toxicology Data Network(TOXNET). Benzene. Retrieved from https://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/search2/r?dbs+hsdb:@term+@DOCNO+35

Introduction

It is pointless to mention this stat, that the firms all over planet are on the risk/target of cybercrimes, it’s important for a banking-institute like SSU Inc. to deal with the cyber-attacks/risks to remain open as a service to clients while negligence from this area could make a huge loss for SSU Inc., the cyberattacks are increasing rapidly and it became a need for the SSU Inc. to implement a plan for the cyber-incident so that it can thwarts the digital-offenses.

Cybersecurity-incident recovery-plan steps:

According to SSU Inc. type of business and requirement the following point present the procedure to deal with the incidences that could face the company and how to deal with it:

• Team-germination: It is advisable to SSU Inc. to first filter out the most skilled and experienced employees of your establishment and assign them responsibilities to properly assess/identify the type and affects and the reasons of the breach. Ensure that your team will contain most skilled-IT-related personal and if necessary hire an outside investigation team for best results (BIS, 2019).
• Risk-mitigating: After the SSU-assigned team has identified the type of offense it is time to take feasible steps to resolve the security-issues. In order for to enduringly fix the security-loopholes it is best the a proper vulnerability-investigation is conducted throughout the SSU branches and company-assets/resources to find further issues so that they can be fixed beforehand.
• Data safety/privacy: As SSU Inc. is a financial-institute and the information/data that it can possess can be highly confidential, so it is vitally imperative that SSU protect its data/information by using high-class security-measures like using Encryption-tactics like End-to-end conciliation method that will ensure the data-privacy/security. Moreover It is very crucial for SSU that they held responsible a team that will create latest data-backups that can be used if original data/information gets hi-jacked/damaged (Creasey, 2013).
• SSU-infrastructural-security: It is vital that along with digital-security infrastructure of SSU Inc. is also being safeguarded by its assigned personals. For this purpose proper Intrusion-detection-solutions can be installed along with creating strict access-limitation policies so that no unknown-user can gain control/access to high-profile data/information.
• Network-Security: Networks can be targeted by adversaries and SSU Inc. must have a huge network that may also be linked to all of its organizational-computers present in all the braches of the SSU at many different place not only in one branch. Third-party firewall that regularly scans the network for issues/attacks must be used by SSU to protect is LAN/WAN (Marinescu, 2018).
• Cyber-insurance: It can come in handy for SSU Inc, even that SSU have a lot of employees it does not mean they are all tech-savvy experts. It is best that SSU consider outside professional assistance by cyber-insurance firms that can be control any cyber-incident with tools that SSU may not even have.

References

1. BIS. (2019). 7 Steps to Improve Security-Incident-Handling. Retrieved June 21, 2020, from www.bankinfosecurity.com website: https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/7-steps-to-improve-security-incident-handling-a-4465
2. Creasey, J. (2013). Cyber-Security-Incident-Response-Guide. Retrieved from https://www.crest-approved.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/CSIR-Procurement-Guide.pdf
3. Dan C. Marinescu. (2018). Cloud Computing: Theory and practices (Second Edition, Vol. 2, pp. 1–487). 50 Hampshire Street, 5th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers.

Coming by a strange occurrence in the field of Information and Technology is always a moment of worry as it is an indication of something bad that’s about to happen. The HIPAA Security Standards define an incident as “The attempted or successful unauthorized access, use, disclosure, modification, or destruction of information or interference with system operations in an information system.”

This would seem to be a rather broad terminology used in the terms of IT, but in general, it could be said to be something like a breach of the security system for various reasons. Now when a breach occurs in a security system, you must be available with a full-fledge robust plan as the following.

Preparation Is Most Important

Preparation for the worst is always the most successful strategy in carrying out organized operations and tasks of the day, and the incident response plan stands no different.

The preparation in advance for a set of protocols and procedures to follow in case of the occurrence of an incident is always the most important thing to do. Have a set of procedures and protocols that are practiced by your employees and the management is your best shot at ensuring that when an actual incident happens, the recovery and remediation will be swift and the quickest.

Now when you react quickly and take less time to recover, you would have potentially saved yourself from bigger damages before they could even occur.

Identify The Nature Of The Incident

Now once that you have an incident and crisis at hand, you will never have a good shot at recovery if you do not know the nature and threat level of the problem. The first and foremost thing to do when an incident occurs is looking for the cause of it.

The identification is important and it can be done by consulting a series of question regarding:

• The type of incident that has occurred.
• Is it an attempt towards data theft from the system?
• Is the threat an external one or is it the one from the inside?
• Whether or not it is a network threat?

These are all examples of the type of questions that needs answering when you are identifying the type of threat. Once the threat has been identified, you can then switch to procedures and protocols that your company has prepared (as mentioned above) and tackle the problem before bigger concerns arise and more damage is done.

Containment Of The Threat

After the identification phase, your best policy should be dealing with the incident in a manner as quick as you can. The quicker you are at acting to contain the problem, the better chance you would have against data theft or any security breach.

The notification of the right people is of the utmost importance. When the right people in your organization are notified on time, you can always arrive at the best possible solution for the containment of the threat in time, whether it would mean the isolation of the area that has been infected or not, all is left to the experts to decide.

This is also the phase where you properly equip yourself with the right tools and ensure you have all the brains needed to contain the incident.

Remediation Of The Breach

By now you should be in decent control over the situation as you have settled all the information regarding the incident and stopped it from spreading and growing even more. The next step would be to proceed towards the termination and expulsion of the threat.

Remediation is the resolving of the identified issue at hand that can be:

• The removal of malicious code if there is any.
• The termination of the threat.
• Even the removal and termination of any employees or personnel onboard that are linked to the happening of the incident.

You also need to decide at this point whether or not the backups will need to be implemented and the nature of the security weakness that should be immediately addressed.

Time To Recover

If you find yourself at this point in the incident response plan, you have dealt with all the threats and the breach that had happened to your security system. Now you need to focus all your energies back on getting your system up and running again.

Although the threat has been dealt with, you need to closely monitor the activities for a designated time even now to make sure that all of the threat has been dealt with and that no anomalies remain now. Monitoring should aid you in detecting any suspicious activity if there is any happening at all. This is ensuring the fact that all of the policies and procedures of your company are up and running in a well-monitored condition.

Lessons Learned For The Future

Even though you have dealt with all the threats and breaches that had happened to your system, it may not be the time celebrate and get going with the affairs of the day just yet. There is a dire need for compiling a detailed report right now that should cover the complete peculiarities of the information and the incident.

This report should include:

• The possibilities because of which the breach or the incident took place.
• What could possibly have been an ideal precautionary measure that could have prevented it in the first place?
• Whether or not your security system requires an update to make sure nothing of the sort will happen again?
• And also the intended person to whom the information should be processed and forwarded.

The preparation for the worst-case scenarios when it comes to the protection of your business is equal in importance to prevention. Incidents and breaches are going to happen no matter how immaculate you think your designs are, but it should always be taken as something to learn from rather than regretting that it happened. Having a robust Incident Response Training of your employees and management could possibly save you fortunes and peace of mind.

This essay regards a significant incident that occurred during my first social work placement in an educational setting. The incident involves a child who holds negative feelings towards social workers, and how this has affected my practice. Gibbs (1988) suggests a “reflective cycle” which underpins the necessary steps of manipulating an effective reflection; the steps consist of a “description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion, and an action plan” (cited by Beesley et al, 2018, pg. 15). This essay will incorporate this model throughout, and focus on how I managed the situation, and how I have learnt from this incident, with reference to lifespan theories and communicational skills. It will evidence how I have developed professional competence through learning from this specific event and entails personal reflection to ensure my own future development.

During the time at placement, I was shadowing a hockey lesson of young adolescent students. A student I was introduced to just before the lesson engaged in conversation with me. This is where I remembered the importance of active listening, with the intentions of proving to the service user that I care about what they have to say (Egan, 2002). During this conversation, I disclosed that I was a social work student. This led to ‘M’ replying, “I had bad experiences with my two last social workers in the past, they were rubbish”. I then thought about the topic of anti-oppressive practice, as I did not want to seem over-powering in my response so that it would not disregard the service user’s opinion (Social Work England, 2019). At last, I responded, “oh no that is a shame; social workers should always aim to work with the best interests of the person they are working with”. I also said, “you are always going to have good and bad professionals, a bit like how you think you might have good or bad teachers, because unfortunately not everyone is perfect and not everyone works well together”. The student then agreed and said, “that is why you are here then, to learn so that you can be a good social worker”. I replied with a nod, and returned, “that’s right, I’m learning to become a good social worker, I definitely don’t want to be a bad one”. Then, ‘M’ smiled with a nod in agreement and replied, “that’s good then”. In terms of a strengths-based approach, I responded “you must be very resilient then dealing with two social workers you didn’t really get on with”. The child then said “yeah I suppose so” whilst we continued to walk to the hockey pitch. At this point, we were interrupted by other students, asking me questions of what my name was, and if I was a teacher, as to which ‘M’ replied the answers.

Prior to this incident, I was working with the SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) lead, where we discussed the background of ‘M’. At this time, I found myself appreciating multi-agency work because I valued that the SEND lead knew a lot of information about the individual that would benefit my understanding (Kent and Medway Safeguarding, n.d.). The staff member explained to me that ‘M’ was a looked after child (LAC), who is fostered by and living with her grandparents. After the brief background and history of the service user was explained to me, the staff member introduced ‘M’ to me before her hockey lesson. The child seemed happy to engage in conversation with me, where topics easily flowed between us, such as birthdays and school lessons. After the incident of where she disclosed her negative feelings towards social workers, other students interrupted us, so we engaged in general discussion with them. During the physical education lesson, ‘M’ often stayed with me by my side throughout the lesson and engaged little with her peers unless I was present in the conversation. At the end of the lesson, we said our goodbyes and parted from the physical education block. Since that day, ‘M’ engages in a 1:1 session with me weekly, where we complete tailored activities together. Furthermore, after the second 1:1 session we had, the school counsellor that ‘M’ was previously seeing before me, said that the child visited her office to tell her that she “likes” me, and that I “am much better than her other social workers”.

Reflecting on my own thoughts, prior to the incident, I was intrigued to learn the history of the child before meeting them, which I found to be useful as it generated a better understanding of the child before I could form my own interpretations. I firstly found myself empathising with the child when I heard that she was a foster child. My thoughts during the incident, when ‘M’ disclosed that she had bad experiences with social workers, I felt startled and worried that she would then be defensive towards me. For example, Beesley, et al (2018, pg. 93), explains that resistance and reluctance to work with social workers can arise when individuals consider they are “under threat”, which may be as a consequence of their “personal autonomy or someone they care for”. The sensitivity of the service users’ negative impressions of social workers was significant to acknowledge because it could have unravelled unsettling memories. Favourably, I reflected on my previously learnt communicational skills such as sufficient eye-contact and an open posture (Egan, 2002). As well as social work values, such as anti-oppressive practice, before I replied to the child (Social Work England, 2019). Regarding my response and actions, I empathised with the child. I believe that if I were to become defensive to ‘M’ about the social work profession, it would be detrimental and unfair because I did not know the relationship’s she formed with the social workers previously, which could have been poor practice on their behalves. I found this beneficial as empathy highlighted how I appreciated her feelings. Also, by explaining the role of the social worker, it helped to embed a new positive perspective of the profession and reassure the child. This was evident as she then expressed the concept of a ‘good’ social worker in her reply, generating a new positive perspective, different from her previous beliefs. After this response, I was relieved that she now did not perceive every social worker poorly, which gave me hope in building a positive relationship with her. Reflecting on the overall incident, I believe that I acted accordingly by empathising and relaying the purpose of a social worker as it generated a positive and willing response, with the service user content with my answers. In addition, it did not push the service user away from me, instead, it built the foundations of an honest and respectful professional relationship.

Nevertheless, supervision also helped to develop my professional competence. Supervision aims to enhance the student’s “effectiveness” by providing “theoretical knowledge; professional development; and practical skills” (Ferguson, 2005, pp. 294). The supervision session I had with my practice educator after this incident encouraged me to look at the positives of this incident. For example, it was suggested that I now currently have more of an incentive to better my practice and become the best possible practitioner that I am able to be, to prove to service users that the social work profession is based upon good and helping incentives, and is enforced to provide better outcomes and improve service users quality of life. In addition, another positive that came out of this incident is that it became a learning curve which will ultimately benefit my practice. For example, it allowed for discussion in supervision based on the fact that the social work profession is not ultimately perfect, and some practitioners may have flaws when dealing with real life cases. Moreover, during this supervision time, I reflected on how I acted and responded to the child’s statement and used this time to gather feedback on whether I managed the situation appropriately. I found this helpful because it meant that I could then better my practice by understanding how to respond if the situation was to occur again. Furthermore, it heightened my confidence as the professional educator applauded my reactions and response and claimed that I acted appropriately considering the sensitive and maybe traumatic experiences the child endured.

Theoretical concepts surround social work practice. Regarding non-verbal communication skills, I recalled on Egan’s (2002, pg. 68-70) acronym ‘SOLER’, which stands for facing “squarely, open posture, lean, eye contact, relaxed”. This theory concept reminded me how to create an open and comfortable environment for the interaction with the service user. For example, I kept sufficient eye-contact, leant in when answering the service user’s question, and had an open posture with uncrossed arms. In addition, I used verbal communication skills, and based my response around empathy by appreciating and responding to the child’s statement with empathetic language. Seden (2005, pg. 74-75) describes empathy as “the capacity to enter into the feelings and experiences of another”. Within social work, it is important to understand the emotions of the service user and their experiences so that you can respond and advise appropriately. If empathy is non-existent it can impact on service users who are choosing to express their emotions, negatively. For example, Howe (2013, pg. 106 & 110) explains that without empathy, “the world feels harsh, indifferent, less caring, even brutal”. This heavily contradicts social work values and ethics, as practitioners should respect service users alongside an empathetic understanding with integrity and non-judgemental traits. Moreover, lifespan theories can also help to highlight the potential reasons for the child’s actions and responses. In this case, the student is now a young adolescent, whereas when she experienced and worked with her previous social workers, she was a lot younger. This may explain her positive and welcoming response as to working with me, a student social worker, because she is now old enough to appreciate new experiences. This is highlighted through Gibson and Gibson (2016), when they describe adolescents should move from having very solid, set ideas to valuing that there are different perspectives.

Furthermore, attachment theories can be useful to understand this service user. For example, regarding foster care children, Howe (1995, pp. 110) explains that the child’s “previous attachment experiences will initially affect the way they relate to their new caregivers”. Therefore, the child may uphold the avoidant attachment theory, where they learn to cope on their own and mistrust other relationships. This makes building relationships hard for the individual, as they do not want to face rejection once again (Howe, 1995). Regarding the physical education lesson that I was present in, the child did not interact well with her peers, and often stayed with me throughout the class. This could be an example of “nonattachment” or an avoidant technique, as Howe explains children who do not have the ability to form close relationships “do not enjoy good peer relations” and “are often unpopular with their agemates” (Howe, 1995, pp. 106). This was later addressed in a 1-1 session after the incident, when the child confided in me that they do not have any friends at school and struggle to get along with everyone. Lastly, in relation to social work theory, I used the strengths-based theory when I applauded the service user for being “resilient”. This theory is grounded upon the principle that you focus on working with the strengths of individuals rather than their problems (Pulla and Kay, 2016). This was beneficial to use as it “appears as a powerful way for individuals to create preferred futures for themselves and the communities they live in” (Saleebey, 2009, cited by Pulla & Kay, 2016, pp. 1418-1432). Consequently, it helps to empower the service user which correlates with social work values and ethics (BASW, 2014).

In the British Association of Social Work (BASW) Code of Ethics (2014), it underlines the values and ethics in which social workers should behave. Firstly, whilst upholding the value of human rights, the guidance outlines supporting people’s right to form their own decisions and choices despite our own values (BASW, 2014). Regarding the significant incident, I believe I acted in accordance to this guidance as I respected the service user’s decision of viewing social worker’s in a negative light, despite my own beliefs of social work being a significantly positive profession. I acted in a way that was not defensive towards their decision, instead I empathised and outlined the purpose of social work without patronising the student. Secondly, social justice is also valued in the BASW Code of Ethics (2014). This explains my actions of why I empathised with the service user and went on to explain that her social workers should have built a positive relationship with her, challenging the poor practice that occurred. Furthermore, I maintained my professional integrity by creating an honest and open environment where the service user could express their thoughts and opinions. I also introduced myself in a manner where I explained my role as a social work student, continuing then to explain the role of social work practitioners and how they should behave, without manipulating her previous experiences.

Considering my own learning, I believe this incident has broadened my perspective on the social work profession as it highlights that poor practice can occur, which ultimately motivates me to become the best practitioner that I can be to further help service users. It has allowed me to examine an outside perspective towards social workers and emphasises the importance of rekindling that poor association and replacing it with positive relationships instead. I learnt that this is beneficial because building positive relationships are essential in order to carry out effective practice. For example, we have a duty of care towards our clients, where we engage in their “well-being” and are “expected to work to the best of your ability” (Cooper, 2012, pp. 43). This is achieved by partaking a good relationship with the client, hence the positive consequence of the build of trust, which enables them to confide in you, where you can more appropriately help them achieve their goals and improve their well-being. Furthermore, the incident forced me to learn about my own skills, as it proved to me that I could personally create an inviting environment. This was evident as the child felt comfortable enough to share their beliefs, encouraging a trusting relationship. Moreover, regarding my actions and responses to the incident, I learnt how to actively show empathy when communicating with a service user. For example, I expressed this by the language I used when conveying my empathetic thoughts to the explanation of the unfortunate experiences she endured.

In regard to how I would act and things I would do differently in the future, I would try to ensure to have this sensitive type of conversation in a more private setting, to allow further discussions and questions without becoming interrupted. This would allow time for the service user to explain their opinions in more detail about their experiences with their social workers, in order to highlight poor practice and help me to understand why they have formed that opinion. Consequently, this would also allow the service user to inform my practice positively, by further helping me to understand what went wrong with her relationships built, and what to avoid in my future practice when trying to build positive relationships with other clients. Significantly, by the service user being able to explain their personal opinions in a private setting, I believe it would also benefit them. For example, it will allow significant time for them to express themselves further, which may help them to arise from their poor experiences, empowering them, by knowing that I would listen and take on their advice willingly.

In conclusion, this incident highlights the negative impacts that can occur when a lack of trust and reliability becomes evident within a professional relationship. Communicational skills were most important throughout the interaction because they set the foundations for the building of a positive relationship. Lifespan and attachment theories are key for helping to understand the feelings and actions of adolescents. Multi-agency and working positively with other professionals are paramount for the continuity of effective practice because it allows for accurate interpretations of service users, and information shared helps to explain the background of service users more thoroughly and considerately. Reflection and supervision have proved to be useful when developing professional competence as it allows for the development of practice because it helps to highlight what went well and what needs to be changed for further effectiveness.

References

1. BASW. (2014) “Code of Ethics”. [online] Available at: https://www.basw.co.uk/about-basw/code-ethics [Accessed 26 October 2020].
2. Beesley, P., Watts, M. and Harrison, M., 2018. ‘Developing Your Communication Skills in Social Work’. Los Angeles [etc.]: Sage.
3. Cooper, F., 2012. ‘Professional Boundaries in Social Work and Social Care’. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
4. Egan, G. (2002) ‘The skilled helper’.
5. Ferguson, K. (2005) ‘Professional supervision’. In M. Rune and D. Best (eds) Transforming Practice through Clinical Education, Professional Supervision and Monitoring. Edinburgh: Churchill Livingstone.
6. Gibson, A. and Gibson, N. (2016) ‘Human Growth, Behaviour and Development’. London: Sage.
7. Howe, D. (2013) ‘Empathy, what is it and why it matters’. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
8. Howe, D., 1995. Attachment Theory for Social Work Practice. Basingstoke: Macmillan.
9. Kscb.melearning.university. n.d. ‘Kent And Medway Safeguarding’. [online] Available at: [Accessed 5 November 2020].
10. Pulla, V. and Kay, A., 2016. Response to a strengths-based approach in social work in schools: An Indian school in Dubai. International Social Work, [online] 60(6), pp.1418-1432. Available at: [Accessed 3 November 2020].
11. Seden, J. (2005) ‘Counselling skills in social work practice’. 2nd ed. Maidenhead: Open Univ.Press.
12. Social work England (SWE) (2019). Professional Standards. [Online] Available at: https://www.socialworkengland.org.uk/standards/professional-standards/ [Accessed 26 October 2020].

In Mark Haddon’s novel The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, Haddon writes about a boy named Christopher Boone who tries to solve a murder mystery. He is met with different challenges such as an unspecified form of autism that holds him back from understanding other’s feelings and why they are feeling the way they are. He also wants to be understood by people who question the way he acts. In this novel, Haddon shows that even though people are different in their way they all want one thing and this is to be understood.

Christopher finds a dog, Wellington, dead with a pitchfork sticking out of it. But instead of getting help he kneels by it and hugs it under the night sky.

Mark opens with Christopher showing the characteristics of his autism leaving the readers questioning why? In the first few pages, he has memorized every country on the map and their capitals, he claims to relate to animals more than humans, the way he treats his pet rat is evidence of this because they are easier to understand due to people often hiding their emotions making it difficult for him to understand. while animals clearly show their emotions. Also, he hates the colors yellow and brown to where he will even not eat them. At this point in the novel, Christopher is acting just like regular people because they all have likes and dislikes, and the feeling that no one gets them when they are going through a difficult time but their pets.

Haddon, again, shows Chris’ characteristics by using climax. In the middle of the novel, Chris’ dad comes forward and confesses that he was the one who killed Wellington. Shocking Chris, he tries to run away because of the rising distrust in his father. Telling lies does not go with what Chris believes in: “I do not tell lies. Mother used to say that this was because I was a good person. But it is not because I am a good person. It is because I can’t tell lies” (Haddon 37.1). He expresses this because he relies on others to help him understand the aspects of life but somehow he gets to wiggle out of his own rule by allowing himself to tell fibs or white lies because he thinks of it as telling the truth but omitting parts of the story.

Next, after snooping through his dad’s room he later finds out that his mom, Judy Boone, was having an affair with Mr. Shears and that she was still alive when thinking that she died of a heart attack when he was younger. Searching through his dad’s mail from his mom, he finds that she left Chris and his father because she claimed to be a bad parent. For the sake of her not being able to have patience with Chris as his father did.

Afterward, Chris gets sick to his stomach because he’s just now finding out not only that his mother is alive but that his father lied to him about it this whole time which drives him into a panic: “.Mother had not had a heart attack. Mother had not died. Mother had been alive all the time. And Father had lied about this” (Haddon 157.19). With his hate for lying, he is sick to his stomach but is feeling most of his hurt from his father who keeps it from him.

Chris’ mind is under a lot of stress to where he cannot function. He soon runs away to be with his mother in London while also being challenged throughout his life-changing journey with the very things he hates most: loud places, buses, and places that he has never seen or been before. And, once again, Haddon is giving Chris more characteristics of having feelings when he suffers from a mental disorder that blocks him from detecting them from other people. This is because Haddon wanted to put the readers in Chris’ shoes. Critic Jay Mclnenery states the novel’s great effect:

Haddon manages to bring us deep inside Christopher’s mind and situates us comfortably within his limited, severely logical point of view, to the extent that we begin to question the common sense and erratic emotionalism of the normal citizens who surround him, as well as our intuitions and habits of perception. (Osteen 294)

It goes into detail how the father picks up his son’s dislike for the color yellow. He walks another path to avoid the yellow cars on that was on his old path. Furthermore, when more people finish The Curious Incident more people feel more like Christopher to where they almost see eye to eye with him on everything. Whether it be disliking colors, loving animals more than humans, or having the feeling that everyone around should be dead.

Everyone has their favorite toy or object they have that will help them feel safe when times are rough. But, fortunately, that same coping mechanism for Christopher happens to be a Swiss army knife. This is backward because why would a 15-year-old with high autism be given a knife? But well it is just that it helps Chris feel safe when he is somewhere new: “ I opened my Swiss Army Knife in my pocket to make me feel safe and I held on to it tight”(Haddon 211.17). He is saying this because he is on a bus full of people. therefore his mind could not function properly. He does not know how to act or what to think. he also has the same thought process when he gets talked about by some kids when he is walking home: “If they hit me and if I kill them it will be self-defense and I won’t go to prison”(Haddon 44). The knife has a meaning of a sense of security to Chris but one could also assume that he thinks a little too highly of the knife he has in his hand.

Christopher proves time and time again that even though he is different from ‘normal’ people he is very much just like them. Throughout the novel, Christopher is a logical thinker. He does not like situations or things he cannot control or explain. Sounds familiar? Of course, it does! When things become too complicated people tend to shut down this goes for Christopher as well but like everyone else, he finds a way to cope and that is by imagining himself playing video games which lets him focus on his task at hand and nothing else.

Haddon focuses on having the reader see the novel through from Chris’ point of view. He wants the people who read Curious to understand that it is not easy being Chris but sometimes it is. Like honestly, who does not want to be able to recite every country and their capitals without stumbling or to know every prime number up to 7,057? Sometimes being special is a gift but also a curse. Beth Haller goes in-depth as to how Christopher’s point of view is an important part of the novel:

From a disability image standpoint, The Curious Incident has power because the running undercurrent in the book is that it is less that Christopher’s disability causes challenges than it is the disabling environment in which he lives. This disabling environment includes several adults in his life who don’t know how to deal with Christopher and his many unique requirements and rituals. (He only eats the food of certain colors, for example). Also, the conflicts that begin to swirl in Christopher’s family arise from the adults’ frustration and lack of acceptance of the teen’s differences. Mostly, Christopher himself manages his disability perfectly well through a set of strategic rituals such as doing complex math problems in his head. But his family causes his autistic symptoms to erupt through their collective inability to cope. (Haller)

Even though Christopher does not work like others he still thinks like everyone else Haddon brings forward that we should always get the chance to understand each other. Even if we do not fully see how others see.