I'm going to wade back in here, because I'd really like to see the debate
developing between disability practitioners and activists/researchers.
I'd like more suggestions how to make my practice as ethically responsible
as possible.
A fair amount of my work as an NHS clinical psychologist is gatekeeping
for the community learning disability service; deciding on who is eligible
for this specialist service. We use the bog standard medical model
definition of 'learning disability' based on IQ and 'functional skills'.
social workers have slightly different criteria, based on Access to Care
which looks more at the individual's social care needs and risk and
vulnerability.
I'm going to outline some responses without declaring any attachment to
one over the others - I'd really like to learn other people's views.
a) Resign, and devote myself to organic gardening and community activism
(funnily enough I would not really consider going into one of the other
branches of clinical psychology, which seem to be even more allied to
oppressive normalising ideologies than learning disabilities services)
b) Argue that as resources are limited, there has to be some way of
determining who needs them most and this should be someone like me who has
lots of training in being able sensitively to look at and understand how
different aspects of someone's life interact; including their life
histories, ethnicity, wider social and cultural factors etc, and who is
good at involving users in this process etc.
c) Ally myself more explicitly with services users, offering advice and
advocacy about how to negotiate the system (a quick shout out here to one
of my clinical psychology trainers, the heroic John Kenworthy, who mounted
a sit-in the local education authority offices when they refused to
support mainstream education for a boy that he had assessed. I think he
then lost his job...)
d) Focus on training and consultation for 'mainstream' agencies so that
they can be more responsive to the needs of people with all sorts of
abilities/disabilities.
Any other ideas?
Deborah
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