3.15 Exploring anti-oppressive practice Click view document to read: Anti-Oppressive Practice 3.14 Challenging racism Section 2.3 explored strategies for ‘working with difference’ in care services, based on an approach that acknowledges diversity in communication needs. You saw that there are dangers in strategies that adopt too rigid a notion of ethnicity, such as the danger of homogenising diverse groups of people. There is also a danger that such strategies might result in a reinforcement of discriminatory practice. Although the approach to inter-ethnic or cross-cultural communication described 3.13 Employing interpreters and link workers in health and social care Read the report on the previous screen of the RCN Health Visitors Forum in 2002 and, as you do so, list the key reasons Sandra Rote gives for employin 3.12 Services for inter-ethnic communications Another way in which services have attempted to respond to issues of inter-ethnic communication is the provision of services for people whose first language is not English. You may remember this appeared to be the key ‘problem’ in the case study which launched the discussion of ‘difference’ in Section 1. As noted there, poor communication in health services can have serious consequences, leading to misdiagnosis, ineffective interventions and, in extreme circumstances, preventable deat 3.10 Working with difference If ‘racial’ or ethnic differences are produced as part of a process that ‘racialises’ certain groups as ‘other’, how should services respond to the issue of difference? What practical steps can service providers take to ensure all members of the population, whatever their assumed ethnicity, have equal access to services and can participate fully? Lena Robinson is a psychologist and social work educator who has written extensively on issues of cross-cultural communication for References References Introduction The unit you are about to study is exciting and stimulating. Working with adults in the community is changing at a pace that can sometimes feel bewildering. Practitioners are being asked to review what they are doing in a critical way and to adopt new approaches. For example, the word ‘community’ is one that we all use quite readily and is at the heart of many social work policies. However, we tend to take it for granted that everyone means the same thing when they talk about a com 2.2.9 Professionalisation Care of frail older people provides an example. Many were cared for in the old Poor Law infirmaries which had become the responsibility of local authorities by the early decades of the twentieth century. These tended to be considered, by patients, doctors and nurses alike, as very much second class to voluntary aided hospitals (Timmins, 1996, p. 106). Nevertheless, even within the voluntary hospitals older people often fared least well, living for years on ‘back wards’ allocated for the â 2.2.8 Campaigns for change Here we consider where some of the pressure for change was coming from in the earlier part of the twentieth century. Throughout the period of institutional domination there were, as we've seen from the early 1800s, voices which called out for change. Some contrasted the treatment of the sick and disabled poor with their richer counterparts in the private asylums. Others protested at the general inhumanity of regimented, mass care. Patients and their relatives had mixed experiences to draw on, 2.2.7 Resistance to institutions Click on 'View document' below to read R. A. Parker's piece 'The persistent image'. 2.2.6 Skills for the attendants In the box below are the examination questions for attendants sitting the MPA's Diploma in 1893. Candidates were charged 2s 6d (approximately one tenth of an average weekly wage) and resits cost one shilling. Remember that at this stage, before the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act, asylums included many people with learning difficulties as well as those who were regarded as mentally ill. 2.2.4 Activity: segregation today 2.2.2 Treatment regimes As well as asylums which housed people with mental illness and learning difficulties there was a turn towards a style of mass provision generally. Development of special schools for disabled children began in 1750 when the first private schools for blind and deaf children were opened in Britain. The earliest public institution, run on a charitable basis, the London Asylum for the ‘support and education of the deaf and dumb children of the poor’, was opened in Bermondsey, south Londo 2.1 Institutions and segregation In this section I'll be compressing most of the history of legislation and provision which came to form the basis of health and social care over the last two centuries into quite a small space! You may want to find out more about particular aspects and developments. If you do, then you'll find the list of references to books and articles at the end of the unit useful. At one time, poverty, madness, disability and criminality were thought of as unchangeable God-given or demonic states. I 3: The five giants At this point let us examine the idea of the ‘five giants’ (Want, Ignorance, Disease, Squalor and Idleness). Beveridge, remember, was not just writing about income protection; he had a vision of social reconstruction and social progress. The five giants represented the key areas of need for all of us – the areas where we should pool resources to tackle our needs collectively (see the box below). 1.2.2 Problems with implementation Writing a report is one thing – getting it implemented as policy is another. In the full version of An Introduction to the Beveridge Report, Jacobs (1992a) makes clear that there were a number of departures from the blueprint when the Labour government came to steering the legislation through parliament. One was a move to greater generosity. The report had recommended that the new pensions should be phased in over a period of 20 years to allow people to build up their contributions. 1: The Beveridge vision It was not until after the Second World War that the British welfare state took its mature form. In a climate of relief after the war, a climate diffused with an idealism for a new, more just society, welfare legislation had bipartisan support. There was a clear sense of rebuilding a better Britain. (Bryson, 1992, p. 82) These words, drawn from an Australian commentator, sum up some of the 1.4.13 Defining a ‘good death’ 1.4.10 Unfinished business When people die suddenly we can never be sure that they have done and said what they want and are able to do. Meg’s long term-illness gave her a lot of time for reflection and preparation, so that while her death was sudden and she was unable to see her younger son, she also had the opportunity for conversations with people about her death. However, there may have been last-minute wishes that Meg was unable to express. Li’s sudden stroke may have left her with things unsaid, but her
Activity 11

Activity 4 What about segregation today?
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