Empowering practice of social workers in helping people with intellectual disabilities to solve (themselves) and live independently

Abstract

Lithuania’s ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2010 is a commitment to protect the dignity and respect of people with disabilities and to ensure their equal rights. This document commits to concrete actions at national level, making social workers an important participant in ensuring the rights of people with disabilities in this area. Subject of the study: social workers’ practices in supporting people with intellectual disabilities in decision-making and independent living; Aim of the study: to identify the practical experiences of social workers in working with people with intellectual disabilities; Objectives of the study: To describe the perspectives of people with disabilities in decision-making and independent living, using a human rights perspective; To reveal the types of social work practice with people with intellectual disabilities from the perspective of critical theory; To investigate how social workers empower people with intellectual disabilities to live independently and to make decisions for themselves; To collect data, the interview method was used (narrative-biographical in the form of a semi-structured interview). Criterial sampling was used to include participants in the study. The interviews were conducted with 9 people: social workers. The data collected in the interviews were analysed partly through grounded theory thematic analysis of qualitative data – text coding, sub-coding, sub-categorisation of sub-categories into main categories, interpretation of the information obtained during the research and the creation of concept maps based on the data. The analysis of the data revealed that social workers empower people with intellectual disabilities to make decisions and live independently in some ways: Promoting awareness, empathy, and the ability to accept others by creating an enabling environment; Building trust between social workers and service users over time; Maintaining a professional relationship and setting boundaries; Social workers promote the traits of autonomy in service users; Social workers ensure that people with intellectual disabilities participate in decision-making and activities; Emphasis is placed on giving service users the freedom and support they need to learn independence and self-reliance; Social workers identify potential defeating aspects, such as parental “hyper-protection” or the effects of the institutional social system and seek to address them and ensure their independence and active participation.