Social workers should be helping with disabled people and not for them. You can’t be there just to be there, like a day to day job. Working with disabled people isn’t something you should think of as a professional job. Being there with them means to bond with them and do what they need or want, and not do what their boss tells them to do. Social workers aren’t just there to do their job and leave. To be there for disabled people means to understand that they are a person too and having a disability won’t stop them from living their own life. To change how we work with disabled people social workers can change how they view the differences in disabilities and understand what the different needs are. Disabled people aren’t people you can look over because they ‘need’ more things than abled people. Social workers are there to find solutions, not finding what caused the problem.
Providing medical care can change how dependent disabled people are on other people and medical machines or equipment. Social workers are the ones who provide the medical care and they can change how much disabilities affect peoples’ lives. They provide the help, but helping is different when your there for disabled people and not just there for a paycheck. Social workers don’t need to understand how disabled people feel or what they go through, they need to understand the solutions that will best help or make disabled people view their disability as something that doesn’t involve thinking how it affects their daily life and lifestyles. Even if someone has a disability, their souls and conscience is still there.
The implementation of how social workers can provide meaningful involvement for disabled people shows how disabilities don’t impair how a person can be or lives. It shows how a social worker can provide a voice to them for what they need, what they want, how they want to live, and how independent they want to be. Living life with a disability doesn’t impact thinking, attitudes, souls, and energies. Yes, a physical disability may affect getting into a building but it doesn’t affect getting a job or having a baby. Social workers provide life to disabled people and the way they do it should be the way disabled people need.
Providing independence to disabled people or people with a disability also provides a sense of inclusion for everyone. Inclusion and equality for everyone blurs the lines of differences in people. Living life to where you feel included and heard is a life everyone wants. Social workers provide that by listening, providing solutions, working through problems together, and figuring out how to provide independency. Medical equipment and care is there to provide that independency, which is an addition to social workers providing independency too. Social workers are the ones who work the medical equipment and there can be multiple options on which equipment works best or provides the best care.
The languages and attitudes of social workers are the most important feature of social workers. If you don’t relate to the language needed to be equal with disabled people, the relationship between won’t work. The language and attitude needed is the one where you speak and voice where disabled people understand it. To ‘speak’ to disabled people, you must understand how a disabled person’s mind works and what needs to be done in order to be equal. Since disabilities have been moved into more of a minority group, equality has since been more involved. Social workers can understand what ‘language’ or attitudes disabled people have by working on how disabled see their disability as an ‘impairment’.
The authors seem to reference issues and solutions coming from the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1997, and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The American with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed in 1990. The purpose of the ADA was to help eliminate impediments. The ADA promotes physical and social accommodations. The authors seem to relate back to the ADA so much because of how much the world has adapted to and around people with disabilities. To have self-determination means one person determined to be dependent on one self. It is important to have self-determination when you have a disability because it shows how a person wants to not have to depend on other things and people.
Abbigale Wheeler
Hey Dilyn! I enjoyed reading your blog this week and I agree with you that when it comes to working with those with disabilities in the area of social work that we should have a more collaborative non ableist approach.
I believe that it is very important for social workers to care about their jobs and those that they work with, because social work is not something you can be good at without a lot of heart.
The Americans with disabilities act did make a lot of good changes in the United States but many more changes are still needed for society to be more equitable for those with disabilities. I believe a lot of this can be solved through awareness and normalization of those with disabilities.
Dilyn Martin
Hi Abbigale, I agree with how social workers should go into the field with a heart and caring about others. Without it I believe that social workers are doing their job for themselves and not helping others.
I also agree with how many more changes are needed for society to more equitable for those with disabilities. Society now is leaning towards everyone being equal, and to do that we do need more awareness about disabilities.
Kaylana Nations
Hello Dilyn,
I really enjoyed reading your blog and I think you chose a great topic to focus on. I liked how you continued to go back to the importance of not JUST working for a paycheck. As social workers, we need to prioritize the person or people we are working with. Social work isn’t like other jobs where you can show up get paid and then leave. We constantly have to broaden our knowledge, create bonds, and provide for people as best as we can. It is difficult though because we at the same time need to make money and create boundaries when it comes to our work and personal life. Working with a person with disabilities isn’t a job you can come to just to do mundane tasks. Every action or inaction we make will directly affect this person’s life. We must make decisions that will ultimately be in the best interest of the person.
Ariel Oviatt
Hey Dilyn,
I think that your blog was informative, but I would possibly ask to maybe not do yellow on yellow in the text because it can be sort of difficult on the eyes (not trying to be critical, simply constructive).
That out of the way, I found your blog interesting, and I saw that you focused on being solution oriented quite a bit. You talked about focusing on resolving barriers that people with disabilities might have, and then said that Social Workers do not need to understand how people with disabilities might feel, but this somewhat conflicts with the idea of meeting people where they are, but also, part of empathy is being able to connect with a feeling (not necessarily personally relate), and say, wow, that must be really challenging. However, later on you said that one must ‘understand how a person with a disability’s mind might work’, and I think to do this, you have to be able to find at least some understanding of how they might feel and how as a social worker you can help foster independence for this person. My question then, is, what barriers would you want to address first with someone who has a disability?
Nice job!