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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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