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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Exploring the relationships between choice and independence
— experiences of disabled and older people | | Author(s) | Parvaneh Rabiee |
| Journal title | British Journal of Social Work, vol 43, no 5, July 2013 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press, July 2013 |
| Pages | pp 872-888 |
| Source | www.bjsw.oxfordjournals.org |
| Keywords | Physical disabilities ; Independence ; Consumer choice ; Services ; Longitudinal surveys ; England. |
| Annotation | Extending choice and control to the users of publicly-funded services is a cornerstone in the personalisation agenda, which was central to the previous Labour government's policies in England (from 2006) and is supported by the Coalition Government. It is assumed that giving service users greater choice and control will promote their independence. As service users are increasingly given the responsibility to determine their support, social work practitioners need to work differently with service users, in order to provide personalised support in exercising choice. This requires practitioners to have a nuanced understanding of people's concepts of independence, how people make choices about support services, and how those choices can affect their perceived independence in the longer term. This paper reports new findings from a longitudinal qualitative study of choice and control over the life course in England. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with 50 adults and older people experiencing fluctuating support needs and/or a sudden deterioration in health. The paper discusses the relationships between choice and independence as experienced by disabled and older people. The findings show that independence is not a fixed concept, but is relative and multidimensional. There are multiple relationships between the choices people make and the consequences of those choices for people's subjective views of their independence. The paper concludes by highlighting the implications of findings for the role of social work practitioners. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-130823200 A |
| Classmark | BN: C3: WYC: I: 3J: 82 |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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