Jan Walmsley argues that some powerful and progressive ideas become excuses for inactivity once the dead hand of government latches onto them.
The headlines are not encouraging. Creeping institutionalisation, despite government promises. Deaths of young people in institutional care. Those uninvestigated deaths identified by Mazars and CQC. Budget cuts. Families struggling with little support. No money for self-advocacy or the National Forums. Manipulation of the benefits system to pressurise people into employment, even when there is no possibility of it.
How has this happened? It’s only 16 years since Valuing People, that beacon of promise for equal citizenship.
We can name the usual suspects. Austerity. The decline of the welfare consensus. The triumph of individualism and erosion of communities. But I think we need to look again at the ideas behind Valuing People, and how they have been distorted to justify policy which stresses work participation, personal budgets and self-directed support; and the closure of those services which once provided activity, support and connections.
Powerful ideas
The prelude to Valuing People saw unprecedented energy and idealism in learning disability matters. Institutions were closing. Self-advocacy flourished. Social inclusion became a real prospect. This was partly down to some powerful ideas – social role valorisation, and the social model of disability.
Probably most influential was social role valorisation (SRV), associated with the late Wolf Wolfensberger. He argued that to counteract ‘devaluation’ we must give people ‘valued social roles’ like paid worker, author, researcher and so on. To achieve this we must dismantle segregated services, remove stigmatising labels, and promote association with ‘valued’, i.e. non-disabled people. It was hard in the late 1980s to find professionals working in learning disability who had not been on an SRV course. And they were effective. People were enthused and energised in a way that feels unthinkable today.
More familiar to many is the social model of disability, home grown in the UK by disabled campaigners. The social model argument is that disablement is not the fault of bodily impairment. It’s caused by the barriers society creates. They can be physical, like stairs, but also attitudes, assumptions that because you are disabled you can’t do things. The social model rejects ‘care’ in favour of money to employ personal assistants, hence Direct Payments and Individual Budgets. And, of course, reducing barriers to employment resulting in schemes like Access to Work.
Although sworn enemies, partly because SRV was the creation of non-disabled people, while the social model was created and passionately owned by disabled people, they have quite a lot in common. Both inspired people to campaign for change, often with some success.
Another thing they had in common was that both minimised the impairment, arguing that if you get the environment right, then the impairment matters less, if at all. There is truth in this. People do better with the right supports, when they have positive relationships, and when the ‘community’ is friendly. But, the impairment does not disappear, however good the supports, or benign the community. Most people with learning disabilities still struggle with some aspects of life.
Dismantle services
However, for governments intent on rolling back the state, saving money on welfare, the assumption in both SRV and the social model that all can be solved if we dismantle segregated services, portray paid employment as the height of ambition, and make buses accessible, is manna from heaven.
A senior academic who works with government said to me, “When government takes up your best ideas be scared, be very scared.” He was right. Half baked interpretations of the idealism of SRV and the social model have led to grave consequences for people with learning disabilities and their families, where neglect prevails – justified by the very ideologies which inspired positive change.
Jan Walmsley is Professor of Learning Disability at the Open University and author of numerous books and articles on learning disability.
