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A model of self-determination
- Authors:
- GILSON Stephen French, DePOY Elizabeth
- Journal article citation:
- Journal of Social Work in Disability and Rehabilitation, 3(4), 2004, pp.3-17.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
- Place of publication:
- Philadelphia, USA
Social work literature and practice are replete with reference to the concepts of self-determination, choice, empowerment, and self-advocacy. These concepts take on particular importance when considered in relation to individuals with disabilities and to the work of social work professionals with disabled individuals. However, despite a common perception that general understanding and agreement on the meaning and actualization of these concepts exists, there is significant variation among individuals and groups in how the concepts are defined and used. In this discussion the authors clarify the terms and place them in a contextual model comprised of three axes: foundation, thinking, and action. (Copies of this article are available from: Haworth Document Delivery Centre, Haworth Press Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580)
What is a disability?: a guide for children
- Author:
- ARGENT Hedi
- Publisher:
- British Association for Adoption and Fostering
- Publication year:
- 2004
- Pagination:
- 22p.
- Place of publication:
- London
What does disabled mean? It means that someone is not able to do everything as well as other people can. But no one can do everything - everyone is disabled in some way. This guide for children explains what disabilities are, and what it can mean for children who might have them. It tells the stories of some children who are disabled and explains what they can and can't do. Many children who can't do one thing, because they may have a disability, are very good at doing something else and simple questions will encourage the reader to think about what having a disability may mean. This guide makes the point that whatever a child can or can't do, and however a child looks or acts, each child is special. Children with disabilities are just more special in a different way. The examples of famous people who have achieved despite their disability will offer encouragement and inspiration and the booklet also contains a list of common disabilities with simple definitions.
The centrality of impairment in the empowerment of people with severe physical impairments: independent living and the threat of incarceration: a human right
- Author:
- HOUSTON Stewart
- Journal article citation:
- Disability and Society, 19(4), June 2004, pp.307-321.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
To research what empowerment and independent living meant to physically impaired people with severe impairments, and to consider whether their understanding and interpretation of empowerment equates to the politically generated version of empowerment and independent living as described in the Direct Payments Act 1996. An important element of the research was to consider the issue of impairment in the empowerment of physically impaired people with severe impairments within current social models of disability, i.e. current field of disability studies the need for a social model of impairment. As the research progressed it became evident that the Direct Payments Act was not about empowerment, but rather a process of 'enablement' in which the principles of empowerment and independent living espoused by physically impaired people was fundamentally different to the politically-generated version inherent within the Act itself. The findings revealed that empowerment and independent living transcended the realms of the political rhetoric of 'enablement' and was seen as a rights issue in which 'the right to live in ones own home or accommodation within mainstream society and community without fear of incarceration in a residential institution' was accorded the status of a fundamental human right.
Still lives: narratives of spinal cord injury
- Author:
- COLE Jonathan
- Publisher:
- MIT Press
- Publication year:
- 2004
- Pagination:
- 330p.,bibliog.
- Place of publication:
- London
The author wanted to find out about living in a wheelchair, without having what he calls "the doctor/patient thing" intervene. He has done this by asking people with spinal cord injuries the simple question of what it is like to live without sensation and movement in the body. If the body has absented itself, where does the person reside? He describes his method in the first chapter: "I have gone to people, not with a white coat or a stethoscope...[but] to listen to their lives as they express them," and it is the narratives of twelve people with spinal cord injuries that form the heart of the book. The twelve people with tetraplegia (known as quadriplegia in the US) or paraplegia whose stories he tells testify to similar impairments but widely differing experiences. The author employs their individual responses to shape the book into six main sections: "Enduring," "Exploring," "Experimenting," "Observing," "Empowering," and, finally, "Continuing." Each concludes with a commentary on the broader issues raised. The book moves from a view of impairment as tragedy to reveal the possibilities and richness of experience available to those living with spinal injuries. In exploring the creative and imaginative adjustments required to construct a "still life," it makes a plea for the able-bodied to adjust their view of this most profound of impairments.
The paradox of disability culture: the need to combine versus the imperative to let go
- Author:
- GAVIN Rose
- Journal article citation:
- Disability and Society, 18(5), August 2003, pp.675-690.
- Publisher:
- Taylor and Francis
This article seeks to demonstrate that, to function as a truly emancipatory phenomenon, disability culture must be relieved of the paradox that keeps it trapped in modernist assumptions that serve to reinforce its marginalised status. The paradox of disability culture may be stated as follows. How can disabled people claim unity without falling into the same exclusionary practices that have served to create their divisive identifications in the first place? Conversely, how can they relinquish the practices of identification that are based on binary oppositions without losing the ability to claim identities at all? The author argues that, by extricating it from its origins in essentialist assumptions, disability culture can be reinvigorated as a truly emancipatory device, which is capable of devising positive identities which, rather than celebrating the 'disabled identity', rely on its dissolution.