Rationale and background

Rationale and background As Senior lecturers we have been involved in teaching students studying for the Diploma/Degree in Professional Studies in Nursing and Social Work. The three-year programme is designed and delivered as a partnership between the School of Nursing at Manchester University and the School of Community, Health Sciences and Social Work at Salford University. The programme aims to professionally prepare workers going into the field of learning disabilities. One of the key aspects of the programmes is to consider how people with learning disabilities have been oppressed by society and to consider ways of working which may help redress this experience. Although empowerment is a contested concept (Means and Smith 1993) some of the existing literature on this topic presents empowerment as a key to redressing oppressions (Ward and Mullender 1991). However, empowerment tends to be presented as a vague concept with no practical models offered to help students learn how to 'do it'. It is suggested that the term empowerment has become a buzz word in recent years (Adams 1990), indicating that there is much rhetoric but little action. Other methods suggested to redress oppression are working in partnership (Rose and Jones 1994: Dalrymple & Burke 1995) and the development of advocacy skills (Walmsley & Downer 1997). The Literature tends to focus on empowerment, partnership, and advocacy as separate entitities rather than, as we believe, activities which not only bear some relationship to each other but are inextricably linked. There appeared to us to be a deficiency in the current literature and our response was to 'fill the gap'. We have been working for some time, on developing this teaching resource which is intended to help students to consider how empowerment, partnership and advocacy are integral processes. The teaching resource takes the form of a flow chart and is referred to as the 'Etcheton' model (see attached). The model illustrates various stages to show how powerless or powerful a person with learning disabilities might be and how the actions of others working in a partnership with them might be helping or hindering the process. The model makes a practical contribution to the students' learning by offering a visual resource which enables them to apply theory to practice and relates directly to the requirements of the programmes validating bodies e.g. The General Social Care Council and the Nursing and Midwifery Council. We have a background in social work …