Disabled people are regularly denied their human rights, since policies and laws are hard to translate literally into practice. This article aims to make connections between social practice theories and Disability Studies, in order to understand the problems faced by disabled people, using different methods to look in detail at how practices are shaped and how disabled people get excluded. Disabled people are active agents in making change, both informally on an everyday basis and through formal actions. Thus we also suggest that the insights of disabled people could bring a fresh perspective to social practice theories, by troubling the taken-for-granted in our everyday lives.
This paper discusses the key role played by a specialist Parents with Learning Disabilities team in supporting parents with learning disabilities who are involved with child protection services. This team is recognized as working through three levels of relationships to enable parents to engage firstly with this service and then with services concerned with the welfare of their children. The team also promotes positive multi‐agency relationships. The service is praised, by parents, for its respectful, trusting yet honest and challenging relationships and was also respected and trusted by child protection workers, who are sure of the team's commitment to the welfare of the children and who see them as central to the support that is provided to parents with learning disabilities. Parents who have previously had children removed are engaged with children's services and being supported to parent by this service which is living out the principles of positive support for this group of parents discussed in the Good Practice Guidance on Working with Parents with Learning Disabilities (Department of Health and Department for Education and Skills) and Finding the Right Support (2006).
Practitioners need to take into account the spectrum of ways in which people may make decisions. Action needs to be taken both at the micro level of support interactions and at the macro level, with a clearer articulation of independent living in policy and strategy for people with intellectual disabilities.
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