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A community specialist social work team for people with severe mental handicaps: THE PRIORITIES
Author(s) -
Kavanagh Mike
Publication year - 1990
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.1468-3156.1990.tb00577.x
Subject(s) - teamwork , work (physics) , mental handicap , task (project management) , social work , psychology , nursing , medicine , psychiatry , management , political science , engineering , mechanical engineering , law , economics
This article outlines the setting up of a specialist social work team, whose responsibility included working with people with severe mental handicaps of all ages. The way in which team members went about their task is described, including the use of a collaborative teamwork approach. An index of all local people with severe mental handicaps led to the formulation of goals for team members, which were additional to their individually allocated work. Adults living with older parents were given priority, as were ways of widening choice in occupation and leisure, work with families whose child with a severe mental handicap was under five years of age, and means of establishing contact with families of Asian origin or background. The article concludes that a team collaborative approach was valuable. The team's experiences might offer some guidance to others.