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ANOTHER POINT OF VIEW
Author(s) -
Barker Beth
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
journal of the british institute of mental handicap (apex)
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.633
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1468-3156
pISSN - 0261-9997
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-3156.1989.tb00547.x
Subject(s) - borough , independence (probability theory) , social psychology , psychology , test (biology) , point (geometry) , public relations , medicine , political science , paleontology , statistics , geometry , mathematics , biology , pathology
Burnside is a London Borough of Redbridge social education centre for men and women with mental handicaps. Its staff see their role as helping centre members claim their role as adults with some independence. If members' relatives take the role of protective parents of children, they may prevent their adult sons and daughters from claiming this right. A working party of centre members, relatives, and staff designed a questionnaire to ask members and the relatives with whom they lived about the centre and learning to be independent. It was expected that members and relatives would have different views on: reasons for members attending the centre; whether and in what respects the centre should be changed; whether independence was encouraged at home; and estimates of independence. The findings held some surprises and challenges. Clearly, staff and relatives need to learn more about the points of view of centre members. Asking the right questions is not as easy as it sounds, but it surely should come before trying to decide whether relatives or staff know better than members themselves what action will promote their rights. It was found that, on the measures chosen to test the opposite assumption, families sometimes encourage independence more than staff. The work also shows that centre staff do not assess members' overall independence reliably between themselves.