Disabilty Discrimination Act: Implications for Practice Placements

Group Discussion

Group 2

Although the group's brief as to focus on two areas, namely:

A. provision of resources/facilities, and

B. setting up of problem management systems and processes,

the discussion was wide-ranging and centered on the following main points:

• It is clear that the proposed legislation will require general course and specific placement provision to move away from an ad hoc, reactive approach to addressing the needs of disabled students to an approach that clearly and explicitly anticipates and plans for the inclusion of disabled students on programmes, and therefore on placement. Among other things this shift may make providers less reliant on the disclosure by individual students of their disabilities, but at the same time may make such disclosure easier because of a clearer perception that it is safer to disclose in the more inclusive and supportive environment that would result.
  

• There is a pressing need to develop the awareness (of issues concerning disability and their implications for students) of those members of agencies who are involved in the planning and provision of student placements. This needs to be tackled in the first instance through appropriate training, and must target workers and managers at all relevant levels, rather than being focused only on practice teachers.
  

• The approaches adopted must build on such good practice as already exists in current work with both service users and students.
  

• Agencies require to consider their own recruitment and employment practices, and to end the discrimination which currently exists, in many forms, against disabled employees and potential employees.
  

• Related to the above, we (collectively) need to clarify the essential elements of the social worker's role, so that the implications for employment practice become clearer. Only once this is done will employment practices come to be based on what a social worker requires to be able to do, rather than on the particular, current organisational practices of agencies. Only then will agencies become sufficiently disability-friendly to operate inclusively towards disabled students.
  

• Related to the above, work needs to be done to clarify whether there are any specific forms of disability which might disqualify an individual from ever being able to become a social worker. The Group tended to the view that there are probably very few, if any, such disqualifying disabilities, but identification of what they might be would help to clarify what needs to be done to develop a more inclusive approach towards others.
  

• Work needs to be done to convert existing placement-related materials into a form which is more accessible to students with a range of disabilities.
  

• Overall, the work that requires to be done is very considerable and the obstacles to be overcome are formidable. However progress is not beyond us, and the difficulties are not insurmountable. There is little doubt that recent developments in information technology have opened up a wide range of opportunities which did not previously exist.
  

  ....Group 3