Policy and practice guidelines for working with people with learning disabilities state that users and carers must be consulted in the provision of services. However, whether this is useful or effective in practice has not yet been adequately considered.
This book traces the development of services for people with disabilities and discusses how much things have really changed for today's 'service users' since the days of asylums. It also assesses whether the policy of involvement, such as that outlined in Valuing People, is achievable in practice or simply places unrealistic burdens on professionals and service users.
Based on findings from original research and interviews, the author argues that involving people with learning disabilities in service planning is difficult to achieve successfully and is currently, to a large extent, tokenistic. This area of challenging practice and emotive debate is brought to life by the voices of service providers, carers and the service users themselves, and illustrates the realities of working with people with learning disabilties.
"Planning for Life" will be valuable and informative for students of social work, social care and social policy, and will be enlightening reading for those working with adults with learning disabilities, in learning and in practice.

This book investigates how being diagnosed with various disabilities impacts on identity. Once diagnosed with a disability, there is a risk that this label can become the primary status both for the person diagnosed as well as for their family. This reification of the diagnosis can be oppressive because it subjugates humanity in such a way that everything a person does can be interpreted as linked to their disability. Drawing on narrative approaches to identity in psychology and social sciences, the bio-psycho-social model and a holistic approach to disabilities, the chapters in this book understand disability as constructed in discourse, as negotiated among speaking subjects in social contexts, and as emergent. By doing so, they amplify voices that may have otherwise remained silent and use storytelling as a way of communicating the participants' realities to provide a more in-depth understanding of their point of view. This book will be of interest to all scholars and students of disability studies, sociology, medical humanities, disability research methods, narrative theory, and rehabilitation studies.

Learn how to include multiculturalism in disability-related social work! International Perspectives on Disability Services: The Same but Different presents different cultural and societal contexts on services for people with disabilities. This book covers a range of topics on disabilities related to physical status, emotional conditions, and community settings. This useful introductory reference will help you develop culturally sensitive disability services both locally and overseas, and it will promote better understanding of people with disabilities. This book is a unique examination of services for people with disabilities as they exist in several countries. Until recently, cultural context was used to describe race or ethnicity, but this innovative text recognizes people with disabilities as a worldwide community that is advocating for equality and respect. International Perspectives on Disability Services focuses on the need for human and social services that endorse capability and empowermentpromoting the person rather than the disability. In International Perspectives on Disability Services, you'll learn about: using the term culture to describe the community of people with disabilitieshow cultural sensitivity and competency can be applied to the disability culture the dynamics of a transcultural relationship between psychotherapist and deaf or hard-of-hearing individuals the recent development in aphasia treatmentLife Participation Approach to Aphasia (LPAA)and the international perspective of communication therapy a comparison of attitudes among social work students in the United States and Japan toward people with disabilitiespeople with disabilities are not yet integrated into Japanese society, but both groups showed room for needed improvement a comparison of disability-related services and experiences in the United States and in Germanychild-raising leave, child-raising money, and Kindergeld (child money) helps support parents financially for the first few years, but the United States has more options for integrated schooling later in life Hong Kong's 25-year-old objective to encourage community integration and normalization for people with disabilities to live in the community the primary support network of family, community leaders, and shaman for people with disabilities among Hmong Americans in Northern California The informative reports, research findings, case studies, and international comparisons offer new directions for human service professionals and students to help them better meet the social, psychological, and cultural needs of people with disabilities. International Perspectives on Disability Services provides clear-cut evidence that disability-oriented social workers need to improve their perspectives as the disability culture gains momentum as a social entity. This book is a must-read for anyone who works or provides disability-related services, as well as for people with disabilities who need more information on other countries' services.

Jennifer Arnold and Bill Klein have faced some big challenges in their lives. On the way to becoming a preeminent neonatologist and a successful entrepreneur, as well as parents and television stars, these two have faced prejudice, medical scares, and the uncertainty and daily pressures of life with special needs children. Now they share their wisdom and encouragement with everyone who is facing their own challenges. Drawn from their most popular speaking presentation, Think Big is the inspirational guide for dreaming big, setting goals, and taking the steps to get there. Each section includes heartwarming anecdotes full of grace, humor, and wit plus a never-before-seen look inside their personal and professional lives. They have plenty of stories to tell and their unique approach to encountering life's greatest difficulties will inspire a call to action in all of us.

This book explores what happens to people with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMD) when they reach adulthood. It provides an examination of various terms and definitions in use and a critical exploration of current UK policies. The author brings a wealth of many years' experience as a family carer, independent consultant and trainer to demonstrate the significant changes that a person-centred, specialised therapeutic and incremental approach can make to an individual's life. Advances in medical science mean more than ever, people with (PIMD) are growing into adulthood. What is this experience like for an adult who needs support in all aspects of their life? How do we include them in planning support when their intellectual disability means they cannot tell us first hand, what they want or need? Too often this group are overlooked or considered as an afterthought in policy and planning. Notions of independence, employment and mainstream inclusion are all problematic policy ideas for this group of people. Within one-size-fits-all service planning this focus means there is less capacity to meet their life-long specialist, complex and individualised needs. Understanding Profound and Intellectual and Multiple Disabilities in Adults is essential reading for anyone who is involved in the lives of adults with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities, whether as a researcher, student, carer or policy-maker.

Increase your awareness of the concerns facing the black disabled community! Disability and the Black Community addresses physical, mental, and learning disabilities experienced across age, gender, and ethics groups by the black race in the United States. This unique book works to increase understanding and awareness of those working with the disabled by mobilizing advocates, providing alternatives for successful intervention and planning, and encouraging research in disability and rehabilitation. A distinguished panel of researchers and practitioners provide commentary on topics that include selected physical disabilities, disabled children learning and program concerns, welfare reform, public housing issues, domestic violence, and disability curriculum contentall in accordance with the broadening of the definition of disability as supported by the American Disabilities Act. Disability and the Black Community raises the level of understanding and awareness of the complex and diverse concerns facing the disabled and their families in the community and the workplace. The book is at once motivational, influential, and empowering, examining social and political issues that compound the ordeals confronting the black disabled. Topics addressed include: learning disabilities, academic achievements, and mental health issues of children health disparities and access to care welfare reform, disability, and race practice, program, and curriculum models and much more! Disability and the Black Community is an essential resource for health professionals and advocates who work with the black disabled. The book keeps practitioners up to date on what is needed in terms of funding, facilities, and resources in order to keep the larger society and significant resource systems appraised of the needs of the disabled.

the generative and resistant value of human vulnerability the importance of vulnerability in motivating engagement with social networks and material ecologies for productive thinking, communication, and community how relational ethics emerge as important for social and communicative life

This book explores the intricate connections that link the current digitalization of manufacturing to our daily lives and identities as members of highly technologized societies. Based on extensive research on the prosthetics industry in Germany, the USA, Canada, and Haiti, the author demonstrates the socio-material construction of users, examining the ways in which the introduction of 3D printing changes how artificial limbs are designed, manufactured, distributed and used. Addressing questions surrounding the capacity of flexible production to afford greater diversity of user roles, and the likelihood of 3D printing allowing for open-source hardware and the democratization of production, the author presents a theory of digitalization that sheds light on the dynamics of industrial transformation and the future of use. An empirically grounded and conceptually informed study, The Socio-Material Construction of Users will appeal to researchers in the fields of sociology, science and technology studies and organization studies, as well as readers interested in 3D printing and the digitalization of society.

Sports coaches apply their skills in a wider variety of contexts, and with a more diverse range of athletes and participants, than ever before. This book introduces the professional competencies and knowledge needed to build successful working relationships across the different communities and groups with which coaches operate. The book offers important insight for coaches who work with specific populations including different age groups; black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people; those of different gender or sexual orientation; individuals with disabilities or illness; the socio-economically disadvantaged; and refugees. Drawing on real-world case studies, such as coaching girls in combat sports and coaching cardiac rehab patients, and adopting a critical approach to values, philosophy and pedagogic process, this book argues that understanding the recipient of coaching and their particular needs is as important as content knowledge. With contributions from leading coaching researchers and practitioners, this is important reading for developing coaches, students on sports courses and other individuals involved in the sport pedagogy domain who seek to gain a better understanding of the demands of meeting the specific needs of people in the coaching process.

First published in 1992, The Creatures Time Forgot examines the representation of disabled people - in advertising, particularly that produced by disability charities, and in the work of photographers such as Diane Arbus and Gary Winogrand. He shows how such images construct disabled people as 'creatures,' the tragic-but-brave objects of photographic gaze, or as the ''appy 'andicapped' of 'positive imagery' advertising. As a disabled photographer and writer, David Hevey has been a pioneer in challenging such visual representations of disabled people. His work advocates a move away from medical, charity or impairment-fixated imagery towards a visual equivalent of 'Rights not Charity'. The book outlines David Hevey's own photographic practice and includes wide-ranging selections from his work to create a visual form which reflects the new social presence of disabled people. This book will be of interest to students of media studies, cultural studies, and disability studies.

Universal Design is Selwyn Goldsmith's new authoritative design manual, the successor to his internationally acclaimed Designing for the Disabled. A clear and concise design guide for practising and student architects, it describes and illustrates the differences there are between universal design and 'for the disabled' design Universal Design presents detailed design guidance for architects in an easily referenced form. Covering both public buildings and private housing, it includes informative anthropometric data, along with illustrative examples of the planning of circulation spaces, sanitary facilities, car parking spaces and seating spaces for wheelchair users in cinemas and theatres. It is a valuable manual in enhancing understanding of the basic principles of 'universal design'.The aim - to encourage architects to extend the parameters of normal provision, by looking to go beyond the prescribed minimum design standards of the Part M building regulation, Access and facilities for disabled people.

A unique work that brings together a number of specialist disciplines, such as archaeology, anthropology, disability studies and psychiatry to create a new perspective on social and physical exclusion from society. A range of evidence throws light on such things as the causes and consequences of social exclusion stigma, marginality and dangerousness.
It is an important work that breaks down traditional academic disciplinary boundaries and brings a much needed comparative approach to the subject.

Examines current theories and practices relating to disability in 1999. The focus of the work is not disabled people as "objects" of study but rather an analysis of disability as it has been historically and culturally constructed. The chapters cover: language and discourse; the Disabled People's Movement; the "disability" professions; public policy; unconscious investments and interpersonal relationships; knowledge and the politics of disability. The text should be of value to students on the growing number of Disability Studies courses, as well as students, policy-makers and professionals in social policy, social work and nursing.

The rubric "Quality of Life" first came to the explicit attention of the medical profession a little over thirty years ago. Despite the undoubted fact that each one of us has his or her own Quality of Life, be it good or bad, there is still no general agreement about its definition, or the manner in which it should be evaluated. Although much has been written about quality of life, this work has been largely concerned with population-based studies, especially in health policy and health economics. The importance of "individual" quality of life has been neglected, in part because of a failure to define quality of life itself with sufficient care, in part perhaps because of a belief that it is impossible to develop a meaningful method of measuring individual variables.
The editors of this book believe that the primary focus of quality of life is and must continue to be the individual, who alone can define it and assess its changing personal significance. The challenge of presenting this belief

Deborah Marks examines current theories and practices relating to disability. The focus of the work is not disabled people as 'objects' of study but rather an analysis of disability as it has been historically and culturally constructed and psychically experienced.
The chapters cover:
* language and discourse
* the disabled people's movement
* the 'disability' professions
* public policy
* unconscious investments and interpersonal relationships
* knowledge and the politics of disability.
This text will be essential reading for students on the 0415115175mber of Disability Studies courses, as well as students, policy-makers and professionals in social policy, social work, cultural studies and nursing.

Through theoretical and empirical examination of legal frameworks for court diversion, this book interrogates law's complicity in the debilitation of disabled people. In a post-deinstitutionalisation era, diverting disabled people from criminal justice systems and into mental health and disability services is considered therapeutic, humane and socially just. Yet, by drawing on Foucauldian theory of biopolitics, critical legal and political theory and critical disability theory, Steele argues that court diversion continues disability oppression. It can facilitate criminalisation, control and punishment of disabled people who are not sentenced and might not even be convicted of any criminal offences. On a broader level, court diversion contributes to the longstanding phenomenon of disability-specific coercive intervention, legitimates prison incarceration and shores up the boundaries of foundational legal concepts at the core of jurisdiction, legal personhood and sovereignty. Steele shows that the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities cannot respond to the complexities of court diversion, suggesting the CRPD is of limited use in contesting carceral control and legal and settler colonial violence. The book not only offers new ways to understand relationships between disability, criminal justice and law; it also proposes theoretical and practical strategies that contribute to the development of a wider re-imagining of a more progressive and just socio-legal order. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of disability law, criminal law, medical law, socio-legal studies, disability studies, social work and criminology. It will also be of interest to disability, prisoner and social justice activists.

* A distinctive feature of the publication is its international representation. The book will include writers from France, Germany, Greece, India, Israel, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, UK and USA. The publication thus catches and celebrates cultural distinctiveness, while also presenting shared intercultural developments in the profession. * With its global perspective on the arts therapies and its focus on contemporary issues and new initiatives, it will be of interest and relevance not only to those in the arts therapeutic community, but also to a broader audience in related professions - for instance psychology, sociology, the arts, medicine, health and wellbeing and education. * University and professional education and training continue to grow across the world at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Most university programmes are set at Masters level. There is increasing research at Doctorate level and there is a strengthening and concentrated emphasis on building the evidence base of the field.

Fleeing from Nazi Europe in the late 1930s, Austrian-born Karl Koenig and his colleagues founded the first Camphill community, for children with special needs, outside Aberdeen in the north of Scotland. The seven essays by Koenig in this book explain the principles behind what would grow to become a worldwide movement. The insights in this book reveal the inner motivations that drove Koenig and his team to persevere with their social project, and help modern-day readers to understand how they succeeded in building a network that now numbers over one hundred communities in twenty countries around the world. Includes extensive diary excerpts, documents and photographs from the Karl Koenig Archive.

This book focuses on the ground-breaking coverage of the London 2012 Paralympic Games by the UK's publicly owned but commercially funded Channel 4 network, coverage which seemed to deliver a transformational shift in attitudes towards people with disabilities. It sheds important new light on our understanding of media production and its complex interactions with sport and wider society. Drawing on political economy and cultural studies, the book explores why and how a marginalised group was brought into the mainstream by the media, and the key influencing factors and decision-making processes. Featuring interviews with key people involved in the television and digital production structures, as well as organisational archives, it helps us to understand the interplay between creativity and commerce, between editorial and marketing workflows, and about the making of meaning. The book also looks at coverage of the Rio Paralympics, and ahead to the Tokyo Games, and at changing global perceptions of disability through sport. This is fascinating reading for any advanced students, researchers, or sport management or media professionals looking to better understand the media production process or the significance of sport and disability in wider society.

Our lives are preoccupied with bodily maintenance. We spend many of our waking hours eating, exercising, washing, grooming and dressing in order to maintain our sense of self. What happens after major physical impairment? How do we relate to a damaged body? Wendy Seymour interviews men and women who have suffered profound bodily paralysis, and explores how they deal with their appearance, relationships, sexuality, incontinence and sport. She finds that even major impairment hasn't annihilated these people's experience of an embodied self. She shows that the process of self-reconstruction is interwoven with social expectations and argues that the experience of disability highlights the continuous work involved in embodiment for everyone.;The book contributes to the field of the sociology of the body. It is intended for rehabilitation professionals and students.

This book deals with the narrative discourse--specifically lifestories--of 16 patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease (AD). It attempts to understand the discourse of these patients in contextual terms. Thus far, the dominant explanation for "incoherence" in AD speech has been largely provided by research in psycholinguistics, much of which has understood AD speech in terms of the progressively deteriorating nature of the disease. This study provides a complementary view by examining ways in which some social factors--audiences, setting, and time--influence the extensiveness and meaningfulness of AD talk.
By offering both an examination of interactions across the data as well as analyzing particular cases in detail, this unusual study attempts to juxtapose some general insights regarding AD discourse with case-specific ones. Sociolinguistic analyses of the data demonstrate how certain audiences and particular settings set in motion discourse activities that either facilitate the patients' ability to recall their pasts or impede it. This analysis also includes a critical look at the researcher's contribution in negotiating and reinforcing these activities. Ethnographic details about the social worlds of some of these patients shed light on how larger social contexts at least indirectly contribute to exacerbating the patients' conditions or stabilizing them. The analyses of both context and language provides a more global understanding of the Alzheimer experience. This study also discusses some interactional strategies by which professionals can begin to engage AD patients in meaningful talk as well as ways by which they can better "hear" AD patients' cues at narrating. Throughout, this book underscores the need to factor in social factors when making assessments regarding AD patients' communicative abilities.

Selwyn Goldsmith's Designing for the Disabled has, since it was first published in 1963, been a bible for practising architects around the world. Now, as a new book with a radical new vision, comes his Designing for the Disabled: The New Paradigm. Goldsmith's new paradigm is based on the concept of architectural disability. As a version of the social model of disability, it is not exclusively the property of physically disabled people. Others who are afflicted by it include women, since men customarily get proportionately four times as many amenities in public toilets as women - and women have to queue where men do not - and those with infants in pushchairs, because normal WC facilities are invariably too small to get a pushchair and infant into. To counter architectural disability, Goldsmith's line is that the axiom for legislation action has to be 'access for everyone' - it should not just be 'access for the disabled', as it presently is with the Part M building regulation and relevant provisions of the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act. In a 40-page annex to his book he sets out the terms that a new-style Part M regulation and its Approved Document might take, one that would cover alterations to existing buildings as well as new buildings. But architects and building control officers need not, he says, wait for new a legislation to apply new practical procedures to meet the requirements of the current Part M regulation; they can, as he advises, act positively now. This is a book which will oblige architects to rethink the methodology of designing for the disabled. It is a book that no practising architect, building control officer, local planning officer or access officer can afford to be without.

If you work with older adults who are developmentally disabled and are seeking ways to incorporate exercise, arts activities, and other activities into your program, this is the book for you! Older Adults With Developmental Disabilities and Leisure will help you improve your ability to instruct exercise and other fitness activities and, at the same time, increase your knowledge about aging and mental retardation and developmental disabilities. This combination of skills and knowledge is important to your understanding of your clients and their needs. You will assist them in leading a more active, structured life that will result in a higher sense of satisfaction in their daily living and health benefits that will speak for themselves.Older Adults With Developmental Disabilities and Leisure gives you specific guidelines for establishing fitness programs as well as ideas for offering clients goals and incentives that will evoke and maintain their enthusiasm to participate. Using a proven model, the Arts/Fitness Quality of Life Activities Program, the authors show how careful planning and sequencing can produce successful results, such as peer interaction, flexible thinking, self-expression, and improved mental health. As you learn about the key factors for programming for this group of clients, you will also learn about: the demographics of this population leisure education training and cross-training with aging specialists and mental retardation staff community integration and for whom it is appropriate inactivity in later life and the complications it causes life satisfaction and leisure participation differences in physical and cognitive functioning among this population consumer satisfaction among older adults with developmental disabilitiesIt is never too late to introduce leisure activities into the lives of those with developmental disabilities. With encouragement and careful guidance, you can lead your elders/clients into a more active and healthy life. Use Older Adults With Developmental Disabilities and Leisure as a guide to find activities and exercise programs that are appropriate, fun, and worthwhile!

From Idiocy to Mental Deficiency is the first book devoted to the social history of people with learning disabilities in Britain. Approaches to learning disabilities have changed dramatically in recent years. The implementation of 'Care in the Community', the campaign for disabled rights and the debate over the education of children with special needs have combined to make this one of the most controversial areas in social policy today.
The nine original research essays collected here cover the social history of learning disability from the Middle Ages through the establishment of the National Health Service. They will not only contribute to a neglected field of social and medical history but also illuminate and inform current debates.
The information presented here will have a profound impact on how professionals in mental health, psychiatric nursing, social work and disabled rights understand learning disability and society's responses to it over the course of history.

Related link: The Society for the Social History of Medicine
eBook available with sample pages: 0203162242