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emotional wellbeing

Professional distance

versus human touch

Do keeping professional boundaries and promoting autonomy to expect they will present more difficulties
risk denying people emotional connections that are an essential for others, such as those with learning
disabilities, who experience cognitive and
part of being human? Anthropologist Carys Banks fears so sometimes physical impairments, which,
depending on the severity of their
condition, will arguably affect their ability
hen we think about have shaped learning disability policy and to empower themselves in these ways.
empowerment in the lives of practice in the UK, as well as in services in From this point, an inherent tension
Wpeople with learning other nations that define themselves as exists in learning disability social care
disabilities, what do we really mean? liberal and social democracies. policy. How can independence and
If we think of empowerment in the The impetus largely boils down to community inclusion be promoted for
sense of liberal individualism – of determining how “the good life”, as people when their condition means that,
autonomy and self-determination – this philosophers have called it, might be in varying ways, they are eligible for and
can be described as the capacity of a achieved for both individuals and society require support to manage aspects of
rational individual to make an informed, at large, the definition of which has come their lives? This tension was the central
un-coerced decision. to encompass a variety of forms. focus of my research.
Conversely, at what point should people Liberal ideas of what it means to live Broadly, my research interests span
with learning disabilities be stopped from well have, in the last half century, become health and social care support for people
doing something they want to because it is inextricably entwined with the with learning disabilities. I am particularly
considered unwise or unsafe? How far can management and delivery of professional interested in relations of care and what
acts of protective intervention be taken care that some people with learning care in the lives of people with learning
before legitimate coercion to keep people disabilities require every day. disabilities might indicate about the
safe becomes a violation of their liberty? Perhaps most notably in recent human experience.
These questions are of interest to me decades, such ideas have formed the basis I spent 10 months in learning disability
because they came to form the focus of of the theoretical approach of the social support settings provided by two
my doctoral research in which I explored model of disability which, as well as acting community organisations in south-west
how such values are played out in the as a counter to the dominance of the England. To observe how the
lives of people with learning disabilities. medical model that tended to define consequences of government policy were
Although the aims of current policy to people too heavily by their pathology, has experienced, I spent time with people with
empower people with learning disabilities also called for people with disabilities to learning disabilities and those supporting
are benevolent, there are negative have access to the same opportunities as them in a range of places, including
implications of focusing heavily on liberal those generally available to other citizens. supported living and residential care, as well
individualism; we may unintentionally be as daytime services such as day centres and
depriving such vulnerable people of Independent aims employment training. I also spent time with
important emotional connections. Yet this kind of approach to achieving the third-sector bodies, including an advocacy
Certainly, the basis of these questions good life is not without its problems, group and a community church group.
has been a central component of Anglo- particularly regarding equality, as such I explored how government policies Matthias Zomer/Wikimedia Commons
American and European political ideas require individuals to have the that are shaped by liberal notions of
philosophy and social-legal thought for understanding and resources needed to individual autonomy and self-
hundreds of years. In turn, from the flourish. If these aspirations cause problems determination are experienced in the
middle of the 20th century, these ideas for the general population, it is reasonable everyday. The narratives of three young

10 Vol 33 No 1 | Autumn 2019 Community Living www.cl-initiatives.co.uk