Life histories as counter-narratives for people with learning disabilities

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Gerry Bennison examines an Icelandic study where four women with learning disabilities use life histories to challenge the historical, institutional accounts of their lives.

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Steps towards employment for disabled people: What works?

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In this blog, Gerry Bennison offers an analysis of and perspectives on a study of employment programmes for people with learning disabilities or mental health problems.

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The Learning Disabilities Elf welcomes you to the National Elf Service

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We are delighted to announce that the Learning Disabilities Elf is now part of the National Elf Service website. This means that you can sign up to become a member of the Elf Service and benefit from lots of exciting new members’ features.

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Parents’ experience of transition: support and struggle

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Hannah Morgan assesses a study on parents’ experience of support for transition to adulthood for children with Autistic Spectrum Conditions and finds that although they want to support their children, they themselves are not always supported by services.

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Disabled people’s experiences of violent and hate crime

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Hannah Morgan examines a secondary analysis of the UK Life Opportunities Survey which explores disabled people’s experiences of violent and hate crime.

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‘More time for what’? Leisure, life and learning disabilities

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Hannah Morgan from the Centre for Disability Research at Lancaster University takes a critical look at a Swedish study on leisure and people with learning disabilities and discusses what the findings mean for the UK context.

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Preventing and responding to violence against disabled people – what works?

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Professor Jill Manthorpe begins 2015 with a blog considering a systematic review on interventions to prevent and respond to violence against disabled people. She reflects on how social workers use systematic review papers as part of evidence based practice and gives some useful pointers for reading and getting the most from such studies.

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What do rights and choice in social care mean for people with learning disabilities?

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In his debut Social Care Elf blog, Mike Clark, of the NIHR School for Social Care Research, London School for Economics, reflects on a conceptual study looking at the human rights of people with learning disabilities in an era of ‘choice’.

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Meta-review presents the risks of all-cause and suicide mortality in mental disorders

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This recent and well-conducted meta-review concludes that the impact on mortality and suicide of mental disorders is substantial, and probably poorly appreciated as a public health problem. Raphael Underwood’s blog summarises the data for all-cause and suicide mortality in mental disorders.

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Department of Health publish new guidance on reducing the need for restrictive interventions

A handout photo, issued by the BBC, of a screen grab from the Panorama investigation into abuse at Winterbourne View. Photograph: BBC/PA

In Scandal, Social Work and Social Welfare (Policy Press 2005), Butler and Drakeford examine the ways, in which, social welfare policy is often formulated in a response to scandals or inquiries. These scandals highlight areas of abuse or neglect but also can act as an engine for change. This is true across all areas of [read the full story…]