Will community-based support services make direct payments a viable option for black and minority ethnic service users and carers?

Authors:
SOCIAL CARE INSTITUTE FOR EXCELLENCE, STUART Ossie
Publisher:
Social Care Institute for Excellence
Publication year:
2006
Pagination:
17p.
Place of publication:
London

This discussion paper considers the characteristics of social care organisations that successfully promote diversity, and explores research on barriers to promoting diversity, as well as how these can be overcome. After exploring use of the term ‘diversity’, the authors suggest that diversity is used to mean taking account of the complexities of the lives of individuals and of groups of people, and the impact of these complexities on their experience of discrimination and disadvantage. In this context, the focus is on black and minority ethnic people as a group with multiple identities. So an organisation that successfully promotes diversity will take account of age, disability, gender and ‘race’ issues. In practice this could mean extending choice and control to a disabled Asian woman wanting to live ‘independently’ in an extension to her parents’ home, as well as to a 70-year-old Caribbean man with chronic arthritis living on his own in a council flat. This discussion paper draws on census data to demonstrate higher rates of long-term limiting illness and disability among black and minority ethnic communities in comparison to white communities, and in women in these communities more than men. This data is supplemented by evidence of a greater risk of unemployment and lower incomes amongst black and minority ethnic groups, and of poorer-quality housing. Black and minority ethnic communities are also less likely to benefit from a range of government initiatives that deal with social exclusion.

Subject terms:
physical disabilities, race relations, racial discrimination, social care provision, black and minority ethnic people, diversity, employment, equal opportunities, gender;
Content type:
research
Location(s):
United Kingdom
Link:
Register/Log in to view this resource
Series name:
Race Equality Discussion Paper
Series no:
1

Key to icons

  • Free resource Free resource
  • Journal article Journal article
  • Book Book
  • Digital media Digital media
  • Journal Journal

Give us your feedback

Social Care Online continues to be developed in response to user feedback.

Contact us with your comments and for any problems using the website.

Sign up/login for more

Register/login to access resource links, advanced search and email alerts