Search results for ‘Subject term:"learning disabilities"’ Sort:
Results 1 - 4 of 4
Making life work: freedom and disability in a community group home
- Author:
- LEVINSON Jack
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- Publication year:
- 2010
- Pagination:
- 304p.
- Place of publication:
- Minneapolis, MN
This ethnography is based on more than a year of research in a New York City group home for adults with intellectual disabilities. Group homes emerged in the US in the 1970s as a solution to the failure of large institutions. However critics claim that community services have not, for the most part, delivered on the promises of rights, self-determination, and integration and portray group homes simply as settings of social control. The author shows how group homes need the knowledgeable and voluntary participation of residents and counsellors alike. For the counsellors it is their workplace but for residents group home work involves working to become more autonomous. It is suggested that rather than being seen as the antithesis of freedom, the group home must be understood as demonstrating the fundamental dilemmas between authority and the individual that are seen more broadly in contemporary liberal societies. Drawing on his experience as a group home counsellor, the author demonstrates that a group home depends on the very capacities for independence and individuality it aims to cultivate in its residents. Chapters include: an introduction to disability in the context of the community and everyday life; how the group home works; group home technologies including administration and plans; and managing risk. The book concludes with a chapter entitled “Making Life Work”.
Is my story so different from yours? Comparing life stories, experiences of institutionalization and self-advocacy in England and Iceland
- Authors:
- HREINSDOTTIR Eyglo Ebba, et al
- Journal article citation:
- British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 34(3), September 2006, pp.157-166.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
This paper uses oral history and documentary materials to develop a cross-cultural comparison of the experiences of two self-advocates who spent significant parts of their lives in learning difficulty institutions in England and Iceland. Anne Lewthwaite from England, and Eyglo Ebba Hreinsdottir from Iceland, born in the same era (1948–1950) researched and recorded their life stories and in May 2004, jointly presented these at an Open University Conference. Their stories bring to life the history of the institutions and the experiences of those who 'spoke up' and challenged the system long before formal self-advocacy groups were established. Alongside this oral history work policy developments in each culture are described and compared to provide context to their life histories. The findings also highlight important similarities and differences between the two cultures in terms of the history of learning difficulty. The women's experience of participating in cross-cultural oral history work is discussed together with the contribution of a comparative approach in furthering historical understanding of self-advocacy.
"All the social workers could offer was a drink and a drip of sympathy"
- Author:
- ASPIS Simone
- Journal article citation:
- Professional Social Work, August 1995, p.7.
- Publisher:
- British Association of Social Workers
A service user with learning difficulties describes how she found a lack of support from social workers when challenging policies at a charity group home.
Duty of care and autonomy: how support workers managed the tension between protecting service users from risk and promoting their independence in a specialist group home
- Authors:
- HAWKINS R., REDLEY M., HOLLAND A. J.
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 55(9), September 2011, pp.873-884.
- Publisher:
- Wiley
In the UK those paid to support adults with intellectual disabilities have to manage two potentially conflicting duties that are described in policy documents as being vital to their role: protecting service users (their duty of care) and recognising service users' autonomy. This study examines these issues in the context of supporting people with the genetic condition, Prader–Willi syndrome (PWS). The authors believe that the behaviours associated with PWS clearly illustrates the tension between respect for autonomy and duty of care. This article explores how support workers in a residential group home managed their competing duties in practice. This was an ethnographic study, comprising of qualitative observations, semi-structured interviews (14 staff and 8 residents) and documentary analysis. Risk was central to care delivery and support workers often adhered to standardised risk management procedures. The organisation required support workers to promote service users' independence and many thought acknowledging service users' autonomy and promoting their independence was important. To manage tensions between their differing duties, some support workers deviated from standardised risk management procedures to allow service users a degree of independence. The authors suggest that further work is needed by both residential services and policy makers to facilitate the reconciliation of the duty of care with the duty to recognise service users' autonomy in practice.