Table of Contents

1.0 Introduction

2.0 Learning disabilities

2.1 Benefits of Individualised budgets and self-directed support for

individual with moderate learning disability

2.2 Challenges of Individualised budgets and self-directed support

for individual with moderate learning disability

3.0 Policy recommendations, social worker and people with moderate

learning disability

4.0 Conclusion

5.0 References
1.0 Introduction

Social work is specifically concern with alleviating human suffering and

deprivation, improving the living condition of people and increasing the
engagement of particularly disadvantage groups in all facets of society.
Postle and Lymbery (2007, p. 3) note the importance and relevance of
social work to the society and the relevant of social workers within their
environments. The social work profession promotes social change,
problem solving in human relationships and the empowerment and
liberation of people to enhance wellbeing. Social work intervenes at the
point where people interact with their environment (IFSW/IASSW 2000 in
Postle and Lymbery 2007, p. 3).

Social work therefore encompasses people doing what can possibly be

done to improve the condition of people particularly the vulnerable people
who are at disadvantage. The vulnerable are mostly older people and
other categories of people that are not benefiting as much benefit the
society can offer compare to others. These categories of people are often
homeless people, sick people, and people with learning disabilities, both
young and old. Social work simply revolves helping people to overcome
their problems in other to improve their lives. In fact, it is increasingly
being used as an umbrella concept for social justice that is with increasing
the fairness and equity in our society so that all portions of society will be
represented in our society.

Accordingly, the aim of this paper is to explore the opportunities and

challenges in individualise budgets and self-directed support for people
with moderate learning disability. Learning disability (LD) affects how
people learn. According to Lyon (1996, p. 55) learning disability is not a
single disorder, but includes disabilities in any of seven areas: (1)
receptive language (listening), (2) expressive language (speaking),
(3) basic reading skills, (4) reading comprehension, (5) written
expression, (6) mathematics calculation, and (7) mathematical reasoning.
“These separate types of learning disabilities frequently co-occur with one
another and also with certain social skill deficits and emotional or
behavioural disorders such as attention deficit disorder” (Ibid p. 54).

Learning disabilities are part of the wider social problems that constitute
the facets social workers respond to improve the condition of people in
this category. Social problems are conditions evaluated as wrong,
widespread and changeable (Loseke 1999, p. 7). These are conditions that
are seen as undesirable and portray in negative light which needs social
workers attention. As a social problem that falls within the category of
health and wellbeing, moderate learning disability directly or indirectly
affect significant number of people in the society. This paper proceeds
below with analysis of the opportunities of self-help directed approach for
older people with moderate learning disabilities particularly as a
percussive to empowerment in the society. It further examines the
challenges that may arise from this approach in regard to older people
with learning disabilities and social worker.

This paper is divided into four parts. The first section, which is this
section, is the introduction. The second section provides overview of
learning disabilities and discusses the opportunities of
individualised budgets and self-directed support for adults with moderate
learning disabilities, their well being and towards meeting their
aspirations. The challenges towards achieving these are also discussed.
The third part explores the role of the social workers in ensuring the
accommodation and adaptation of older people with moderate learning
disabilities in other to fully participate in society. Social workers are
particularly seen as providing services to individuals but in actual fact,
social workers deals in the whole spectrum of human affairs from the
micro focus of individual work to the macro focus social policy at
international and national level. This section also recommends policies to
protect the interest of this category of people. The last section concludes
the paper.

2.0 Learning disabilities

In the UK, the term ‘learning disability’ is used to mean ‘mental

retardation’ (Rennie 2001, p. 3). Learning disabilities is usually evaluated
in terms of impaired intellectual capacity (Niedecken 2003, p. 19). Thus
most of the available information concerning learning disabilities relates to
reading disabilities, and the majority of children with learning disabilities
have their primary deficits in basic reading skill (Lyon 1996, p. 55). “The
World Health Organisation defines learning disabilities as a state of
arrested or incomplete development of mind'. Somebody with a learning
disability is said also to have significant impairment of intellectual
functioning' and 'significant impairment of adaptive/social functioning”
(British Institute of Learning Disabilities). This implies a person with
learning disability will have difficulties in understanding, learning and
remembering new things and in generalising any learning to new
situations (Ibid).

Learning disability is a lifelong disability. It is usually acquired before,

during or soon after birth and it affects someone ability to learn. Certainly
there have been several debates on it causes, that doctor, psychologist
and even teacher’s has ascribed one meaning or the other as the source
and cause of learning disability. There is a convergence on what is meant
by learning disabilities as “an indication of a suspected or obvious organic
‘defect’, awaiting medical corroboration” (Niedecken, 2003, p. 20).
However, the social model can be used to describe learning disability.
According to the social model view, people are not disable by their
individual situation instead it is society’s lack of accessibility which
disables people for example, national curriculum which is inaccessible to
slow learners disable people.

Niedecken (2003, p. xvii) submits that it is necessary to take into account

the culture of a particular society to understand people with learning
disability. This draws on the aspect of culture and thus involves the
understanding of the life process of individuals, the way they shape their
lives and ascribe meaning and significance to their actions. From this
perspective, ‘learning disability’ is not just to be viewed as medical fate
but rather as a cultural phenomenon, and, moreover, one that says
something about the future possibilities of the culture in question”
(Niedecken, 2003, p.xvii).

2.1 Benefits of Individualised budgets and self-directed support for

individual with moderate learning disability

The term self-help broadly refers to any self-directed undertaking aimed

at personal improvement (Brown and Wituk 2010, p. 2). It is seen as an
expression of independence and individualism, since it denotes capacities
to carry out activities in dealing with own problems. The role of
professionals is largely limited to exhorting people to take responsibility
for solving their own problems, with a little material and spiritual support
for those whose efforts prove they deserve it (Lymbery and Postle 2007,
p.20). Effective individualised budgets and self-directed support for older
people with moderate learning disability is about ensuring the social care
users are well supported through inclusion thereby strengthening
community and building supportive relationship. Smile (1890) notes that
the spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual;
and, exhibited in the lives of many; it constitutes the true source of
national vigour and strength (Lymbery and Postle 2007, p. 21).

Individualised budgets and self-directed support ensure the recipient of

support remains central to and in control of the process by which they
receive it so that they can live the life they want to live. It is essentially to
help social care users to take control of their own support arrangements.
In this regard, individualised budgets and self-directed support enable the
care users control of their choice and do some certain things such as
choosing who to teach them and where to do their study; things that
ordinarily would not have been possible if the finances are under the
control of the agencies. The social care agencies concentrate mainly on
the care aspects, leaving out the empowerment aspect which is important
towards equality and social justice. With individualised budgets and self-
directed support adults with moderate learning disability would have the
financial independent to make own arrangement, arrangements that
suited the care users and that included choosing who supports him/her
and when.

Older people with moderate learning disabilities are socially empowered

under social care programme that is based on individualised budgets and
self-directed support. In fact the actual term of empowerment has been
linked with self-help in Britain since the 1980s (Adams 2003, p.24). “It is
increasingly common for social workers, who believe strongly in the
principle of people moving towards improving their control over their
circumstances, to get involved in self-help activities” (Ibid). Individualised
budget is more than just controlling how money is spent, it empowered
older people with moderate learning disabilities to be able to design
support packages for themselves. Empowerment involves a person
developing skills and acquiring information that can enhance self-
determination (Brown and Wituk 2010, p.25). In the long term, it make
older people with moderate learning disabilities feel part of the
community, take part in social activities on their own terms and
encourage interdependency. The issue of interdependency in a community
is crucial for care users to feel a sense of responsibility rather seeing
themselves as societal burden. In this way, self directed support create
the opportunity for older people with moderate learning disabilities to
contributes to community development and be able to work together with
the younger people in the community to form common cause and be
involve in project together.

People with learning disabilities are often seen as a homogenous group

defined by their learning disability. Often confused with a mental health
problem, learning disability does not necessary mean learning difficulty. It
does not mean people with learning disability cannot learn they might just
need extra support to do so. Individualised budgets and self-directed
support for individuals with learning disability thus offers a greatest
potential for self-representation, to have real control of their live. It gives
them the opportunity to make the choices they need so they can be sure
of getting the care and support that just right for them and that can make
a huge difference to their life. In particular, self-directed support allows
people with learning disabilities to represent themselves as members of
society, and develop independence. Like everyone else, older people with
moderate learning disabilities would like to be independence as much as
possible rather than depending on too many people for everyday things.
Individualised budgets and self-directed support offers them such
opportunity to be able to arrange their own support and to become active
rather than passive recipient social care and support.

Individualised budgets and self-directed support for individuals with

learning disability also serves as recognition of personal dignity of the care
user. The issue here is that self-directed support is a way of taking the
step that help individuals achieve their independent goals, which on the
whole is to build self esteem of the care user. For instance, the
accessibility to such opportunity of being able to control own budgets by
an older person with moderate disability will make such individual feel a
sense of belonging and not to feel loose in a society with a sense of
having less value. It provides the capacity for an older person with
moderate learning disability to be able to control his circumstances like for
example some might prefer to use support workers provided by agency,
others may prefer their own personal assistant. Therefore,
Individualised budgets and self-directed support will ensure
personalisation which will in turn suit the real need of the person. It gives
them as much flexibility to lead a full life as they would like it.

Personalisation through individualised budgets and self-directed support

simultaneously provides choice for the individual care user, relief the
family and benefits the community as a whole. It gives a care user that is
older people with moderate learning disability the benefit to be able to
choose, make decision on their own about what school and methods that
suits their needs. This will make such individual fits in to the society more
and not total reliance on lots of other people. Certainly, being in charge of
own destiny and living out life is something we are all entitled to, and
having control that one needs to live independently can give more
freedom and flexibility to lead the life we want. It is an alternative to
traditional social care homes and it ensures the care user takes control of
his/her support programme. This gives more independent and more
dignity.

Central to personalisation is the recognition of the creativity of social care

practitioners with systems designed to make the most of the skills of the
care users, in this case older people with moderate learning disabilities.
Personalisation will allow for evidence based practice by the social worker.
“Evidence-based practice (EBP) describes a philosophy and process
designed to forward effective use of professional judgment in integrating
information regarding each client’s unique circumstances and
characteristics, including their preferences and actions, and external
research findings” (Gambrill 208, p. 3). This makes social workers
empower people and not solely to fix a person problem but to encourage
and empower care users to fix their problems themselves. It allows
everyone, which of course includes the people with learning difficulty to
being part of the community and building more inclusive society. In this
way, older people with moderate learning disability become actively
involved in the society which in turn makes the society more sensitive to
the aspiration of that group. It makes them active part of pluralistic
society in which we live and contributes to shape our society in a way that
it would not be shape, will but be influence with those people categorically
excluded.

2.2 Challenges of Individualised budgets and self-directed support for

individual with moderate learning disability
The challenge for social work is to face the challenges in a way that it can
be address effectively. Similarly, the challenges of Individualised budgets
and self-directed support for individual with moderate learning disability
will arose from the implementation of individualised budgets and self-
directed supports for this category. It is a two prone challenge, the short
term challenge and the long term challenge. The short term challenge is
one of accommodation and adaptation in other for older people with
moderate learning disability to fully participate in society. The long term
challenge emanates from the perceptions of the care users to see the
society as accommodating and to safeguard older people with moderate
learning disability perhaps being the victims of crime or victim of abuse.
This underscores the idea of the social justice for everyone in the
community.

The challenge of accommodation is in terms of the need to make older

people with moderate learning disability have control over where and how
they live. The rule of the thumb is on the basis that adults are capable of
making their own decision which is a presumption in favour of capacity.
The question of capacity or legal competence is central to any
consideration of the law and learning disability. It is a complex area of
practice, involving significant ethical dilemmas, made more complex by
the absence of a clear framework for substitute decision-making
(Brammer 2005, p. 93). Central to this is the limited options available for
care users which restrict the applicability of individualised budgets and
self-directed support. Non availability of these services will therefore
undermine the capacity of care users to organise personalised packages of
support for themselves. This challenge can be overcome through a long
term planning that ensures housing options for people with learning
disabilities. It is to ensure everyone have access to services without
limitations.

As with other categories of social care users, challenges of communication

impede the applicability of individualised budgets and self-directed support
for individual with moderate learning disability. The development of
language and communication skills seems to be inextricably bound up with
achieving personal autonomy and independence for an adult (Cogher
2005, p. 268). For people with learning disability communication can be a
big issue when it comes to teaching them some certain things. For
instance, teaching this category of care user effective self help approach
to ensure confidence building in such individual would be difficult.
Research has shown that people with learning difficulties reveal delays in
all aspects of their speech, language and communication performance
(Ibid, p. 273). This has the potential to influence other aspect of their life
such as the better way to communicate with these people for examples in
drawing out an outline of expectations to boost the confidence and
promotes individual empowerment. They also show delays in their use of
social information to make decisions about the appropriate social style to
adopt, and may be delayed in understanding social motivations. This can
limit the care worker or agency potential in the aspect of safeguard.
Safeguarding is concern with the social worker looking at this people so
that they are not victim of crime, or victim of abuse. Limited language use
and problems with speech intelligibility would also have negative effect
towards the capacity of the care worker in safeguarding this category of
care user.

3.0 Policy recommendations, social worker and people with moderate

learning disability

As stated earlier, social workers are particularly seen as providing services

to individuals but there work transcends this to dealing in the whole
spectrum of human affairs from the micro focus of individual work to the
macro focus social policy at international and national level. In facts, as in
any fields, there are debates over the exact parameters around social
work itself, in other words, what are its goals, and what does it
encompasses. It must however be stated that social services encompasses
such services as looking at the effectiveness and efficiency of those
services and how responsive they are to individual service users. Social
worker service therefore covers the aspect of public goods like access to
community participation for service users.

Individualised budgets and self directed supports particularly for people

that needs the services of social workers is founded on the need to
empower these people to be able to do things by themselves. In the case
of older people with moderate learning disability, the development of
supported housing for this people are essential. Therefore, governments
have to develop a policy that compels private developers to put into
consideration in housing development houses that can meet age related
needs and people with moderate learning disability. In essence, the
government should not be left alone in funding extra-care houses that
meets the needs of older people with moderate learning disabilities. In
summary, there is a need for government policy on housing adaptation as
a form of people’s empowerment.

Certainly social work roots remain working with poverty and poverty
remain a centre piece of social work practise and research. However, it
must be noted that not all older people are suffering from poverty. There
are people across the social economic spectrums that are facing
challenges in life in which social work has to be offered. In this light, social
work also should also be focusing on people’s aspiration not simply their
needs, so social work is about dreams as much as it is about concrete
needs. The is a urgent need for policy initiatives that provides enabling
environment for social workers to serve this other important role of
helping people to help themselves achieve their aspirations. Postle and
Lymbery (2007, p. 3) states that social worker need to accept, and adjust
to, periods of intense change in the management and organization of their
work.

Social policy is about promoting welfare and wellbeing. Accordingly, for

care users, government policy development and delivery should focus on
the operation of health and wellbeing schemes. The policy initiatives must
revolved how to deliver appropriate material and financial needs for care
users or how to help meet or replace the income that these categories of
people might have lose due to their circumstance. Therefore there is a
need for robust policy on the aspect of social care assessment. This sort of
policy would allow the social care workers to assess the needs of care user
in communities and to see what services are available to meet to needs. It
will bind the family relations of, for instance, people with learning
disabilities to respond questions related to a particular care user.

There is also an urgent need for local districts to encourage the

appointment of educated people with learning disability to take charge of
affairs at the local government on people with learning disability. This will
ensure that the interest of people with learning disability are kept on high
agenda, since this people are in similar situation will be able to respond
adequately to the needs of older people with moderate learning disability.
The inclusion of people with learning difficulty within the care service will
allow the mainstreaming of the needs of this category of people and the
larger vulnerable people in the society. In this regards, government
should developed a policy that will mandate all local councils to include at
least one person, perhaps with moderate learning disability or any other
form of disability that will not impede normal administration.

4.0 Conclusion

This essay has explored the challenges and opportunities

individualised budgets and self-directed support present to vulnerable
adult and their carers. Particular attention was focused on the situation for
adults with moderate learning disability. Social work calls attention to
problems or potential problem and the process of such problems. In the
United Kingdom, about 2% of the population are people with moderate
learning disability (Emerson and Hatton 2004). This is estimated to be
around 985,000 people and growing (Ibid). In this light, it is essential to
create institutional arrangements that will focus of enabling environment
and social justice and equality for vulnerable people. While this is
important, enforcing or putting into practice such arrangements is crucial
to the social justice system. Styring and Grant (2005, p.128) maintains
that a commitment by the social worker to quality in the planning, design,
delivery and review of services for people with learning disabilities is an
important requirement in ensuring that public money is wisely spent.
Apart from underlining the social justice system, it is to empower
individual in a process that ensure significant control of their needs by
themselves. Social empowerment is about providing a conducive
environment for care users to have the capacity to do things
autonomously.

Social work is a helping profession and social worker fulfils this mission in
many ways. This includes but not limited to helping the disabled in the
society. However, even after the apparent importance and contribution of
social work in our society, there are those that believe social work or
social worker helps no one except the bureaucracy. It is based on the
premise the main purpose of social service is to regulate, dominate and
control people that are seen as outside formal system of things such as
the poor, the unemployed, addicts, people with mental issues and
homeless people. These categories of people are perceived as those the
officials have written out and do no longer fits into the system and
therefore need to be purified. It justified the arguments that social worker
has too much power and authority. Above all it is important to note the
benefits of social work far outweigh the criticism. The criticisms mostly
follow from the criticisms of individual social workers attitudes in a
particular situation or circumstance. Social work in summary is a job of
the activist for those that are at disadvantage in our society to ensure a
just society.

5.0 References:

Adams, R. (2003) Social Work and Empowerment. New York: Palgrave

Macmillan
Brammer, A. (2005) Learning disability and the Law in Grant, G et al.
(ed.) Learning disability: A life cycle approach to valuing people.
Berkshire: McGraw Hill pp. 90-107

Brown, L. D and Wituk, S. (2010) Mental Health Self-Help: Consumer and

Family Initiatives. New York and London: Springer.

Cogher, L. (2005) Communication and people with learning disability in

Grant, G et al. (ed.) Learning disability: A life cycle approach to valuing
people. Berkshire: McGraw Hill pp.260-284

Emerson, E. and Hatton, C. (2004) Estimating the Current Need/Demand

for Supports for Adults with Learning Disabilities in England Lancaster.
Institute for Health Research.

Gambrill, E (2008) Evidence Informed Practice in Rowe, W. & Rapp-

Paglicci, L. A. (eds.) Comprehensive Handbook of Social Work and Social
Welfare, Volume 3. New Jersey: John Willey

Loseke D. R. 1999. Thinking about social problems: introduction to

constructionist perspectives. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.

Lymbery, M. and Postle, K. (2007) Social work: a companion to learning.

London, California and New Delhi: Sage Publication.

Lyon, R. G. (1996) Learning Disabilities. The Future of Children, Vol. 6,

No. 1 Special Education for Children with Disabilities (Spring), pp. 54-76

Niedecken, D. (2003) Nameless: Understanding Learning Disability.

Sussex and New York: Brunner-Routledge.

Rennie, J. (2001) Learning Disability: Physical therapy, treatment and

management. London and Philadelphia: Whurr publishers.

Styring, L. and Grant, G (2005) Maintaining a commitment to quality

Grant, G et al. (ed.) Learning disability: A life cycle approach to valuing
people. Berkshire: McGraw Hill pp. 128-149