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This article focuses on the development and current situation of services for people with learning disabilities in England. Deinstitutionalisation started in the 1960s, when a series of scandals in hospitals were brought to public attention. In response, the 1971 government White Paper Better Services for the Mentally Handicapped was published, and the first community‐based services were introduced. Further policy papers attempted to modernise social services in the following period. The 2001 White paper Valuing People is the most recent policy framework specific to people with intellectual disabilities. It identifies rights, independence, choice and inclusion as the four leading principles for services and support, and will be of primary importance for future development. However, at present implementation is in the very early stages. Not least, the intense implementation of market mechanisms by the Thatcher Government in the 1980s and 1990s has led to a situation that is hard to grasp, the organisation of care and support varying from authority to authority.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a commentary on “Spirituality and learning disability: a review of UK Government guidance” by Sango and Forrester-Jones.

The commentary examines the interplay between spirituality and health care in caring for people with a learning disability from a personal perspective and considers the reasons why healthcare professionals and caregivers may not facilitate expression of spirituality in this group.

Carers with a religious affiliation of their own are more likely to engage people with learning disability in exploration of religion and spirituality than those with no religious affiliation. Although government policy in this area is limited, spirituality is an integral part of holistic care and should be addressed by all healthcare professionals and paid carers.

This paper explores reasons why carers may find it hard to talk about spirituality and provides guidance and resources for talking about spirituality to people with learning disability.

Training in research ethics in higher education institutions tends to be increasingly focussed on operational instruction and how to navigate review processes. This has largely come about as a result of the gradual extension of the ‘medical model’ of prospective ethics review to all research involving human participants over the last few decades. Often devolved to an administrator, the purpose of instruction in research ethics is sometimes reduced to form-filling techniques. While this may serve to facilitate researchers’ compliance with ‘auditable’ regulatory requirements, and to reassure risk-averse universities that they can demonstrate rigorous oversight, it does nothing to skill researchers in assessing the ethical implications of their own research. Mastering the skills to address and mitigate the moral dilemmas that can emerge during a research project involves more than having a pre-determined set of options for research practice. Changing their perception means enabling researchers to view themselves as ethical practitioners within a broader community of researchers. In this chapter we discuss the implementation of a university training programme that has been designed to improve both the moral character, and thus the moral competence of researchers. Using a virtue ethics approach, we employed case studies and discussion, backed up by provision of individualised advice, to help researchers to consider the moral implications of research and to improve their moral decision-making skills. Attendees reported greater engagement with the issues and increased confidence in facing ethical dilemmas in their own research.

Despite spirituality being a key aspect of quality of life, it appears to remain a low-priority area for social and health care government policy. The purpose of this paper is to identify and describe what, if at all, UK policy says about spirituality in relation to the care of people with learning disabilities (LD).

A systematic policy review using three government databases: legislation.gov.uk; Department of Health and Directgov (now known as gov.uk) was carried out.

The review identified policy gaps and a general lack of government directives in relation to the spiritual care of people with LD. Whilst research in this area is gathering momentum, practical implementation which makes a real difference to the spiritual experiences of people with LD appears to be sparse.

To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first systematic policy review on this subject area, highlighting the need for spirituality to become a more supported aspect of social care within LD services.

The purpose of this paper is to provide some thoughts following on from reading: “Experiential learning: changing student attitudes towards learning disability”.

This commentary outlines some considerations for the continued development of using service users in tertiary education as educators.

The literature is not clear on the involvement of people with more profound and multiple learning disabilities, or for those who do not use much spoken language in tertiary level teaching.

A further cultural shift is needed to ensure that all people with learning disabilities regardless of their communication style have the opportunity to share their experiences within a teaching and learning context.