Disability as a context

Disability is an underappreciated element of development. Disabled persons make up a

significantly large part of the world’s vulnerable, and they are often impoverished than
their contemporaries. Disabled persons deserve similar spectrum of health care as non
- disabled people for diagnostic procedures, as well as preventive care, management,
and recovery.
Academic, medical, and scientific debates have various definitions regarding disability
as a concept and its various means of evaluation. The International Classification of
Functioning and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities sees the state of been disabled as the result of accumulated interplay
involving medical issues and individual's physical, psychosocial, and psychological
surroundings that prevent them from participating fully and effectively in societal
structure. Most people will be disabled at certain age in their lives. In the latter ages, the
majority of those who live long will become progressively disabled. Individuals with
various disabilities have always been perceived through a clinical perspective.
Disabilities have always been associated with a person's health, incapacity, or capability
constraint. This excessively medicalization perspective ignores social variables such as
stigma, stereotyping, and inaccessibility, which all lead to the ultimate problem
associated with disability. The state of disability is a societal problem, and thus by
removing such obstacles, society can allow people with disabilities to enjoy full rights
as everyone else.
Removing obstacles is an issue of human rights, not of benevolence or compassion.
People with disabilities have equal right just as people without any disability.
Although, these rights are often not upheld in the past. Individuals with disabilities have
commonly been deprived the right to be educated and access to job
opportunities amongst other rights. Other rights such as the ability to engage in
communal life, the freedom to choose how much they use accessible health-care
services, and having the right to one's life. Even, if people living with various disabilities
have the same generic rights just like people without disability; extra precautions (such
as accessibility to support programs, counseling services, or other skills training
services) may be required to enable them to exercise their rights, as they ought to.   
Policy makers, government’s leaders, and the citizens owe it to disabled persons to do
everything possible to enable them to exercise their democratic rights. Another type of
infringement of such rights is the refusal to prevent impediments.

Frequently in recent times, perspective about disability has been full with disputes, and
the attention has shifted from a health and humanitarian perspective and humanitarian
to a societal context. While the medical model emphasizes the individual's specific
condition and health requirements as debilitating variables; the social context sees
society's organization as debilitating instead of the person's disability. Take for instance;
the social model will consider the cognitive and emotional limitations with other physical
limitations in addressing disability.
Legislative Framework  
The framework to guide how member countries are to promote the rights of people
living with various disabilities was adopted by the UNCRPD in 2006. This convention
has helped member countries to view disability from another lens than that of a medical
context. Ireland ratified this convention in 2018. And it has so far become a guiding light
to person centered treatment for people living with disability in Ireland. 
The framework aims at promoting, preserve, and guarantee that individuals with
disabilities have full and equivalent opportunities to all fundamental rights and freedoms,
as well as to advocate for their in - born dignity and worth. (UNCRPD, 2006) Article 31,
which mandates that member countries shall gather relevant information and statistics
on individuals with disabilities, is a prominent component of the UNCRPD. This permits
the countries to recognize the difficulties that individuals with disabilities experiences, it
also helps to give verifiable facts to assess if persons with disabilities have fair route to
all rights and liberties, and to assist shape legislation in this regard. Among other
important factors of social inclusions; access to equal education and job opportunities
are two major variable of measurement in disability context. It is very important that the
society ensures that all disabled individuals have fair and equal opportunities in these
two areas. 
In Ireland, the Past decades is witnessing significant policy and legislative progress for
disabled persons. The Irish Disability Act (2005), was passed to enhance the livelihood
of disabled individuals by putting duties on the government. As earlier mentioned,
education rights takes the lead role in enhancing social inclusion for people living with
disabilities. The education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act (2004) aligns
with the UNCRDP. This act formed a major portion of Ireland’s National Disability
Strategy (2004).
The act expressly defines disability as a "substantial restriction in a person's capacity to
carry on a profession, business, or occupation in the State, or to participate in social or
cultural life in the State, as a result of an enduring physical, sensory, mental health, or
intellectual impairment." National Disability Strategy (2004)
Disability Models
There are various ways to think about; and explain the concept of disability. Various
models are construed either based on opinions, state of mind or physical state of some
scholars. Each model has its unique believe, facts and theories to prove how the society
sees disability and various kind of services available to disables individuals. For the
context of this study; we will look into the medical/traditional, functioning model, and the
social model.

- The medical/Traditional model: Disability is viewed as anything 'abnormal' with

an individual's physicality in the medical model. This concept can indicate, for
instance, that a incapacitated individual that has a certain sickness, impairment,
or disability that should be "given adequate treatment and is expected to be
healed." This school of thought frequently leads to medical solutions. It could also
encourage service users to act by avoiding the disability challenge from
spreading to descendants through any medical procedure.

 Though the medical model aims at eliminating the root cause of the disability; it
is not without certain critics. It has been castigated for considering disability as a
major noteworthy factor of an individual and inferring that the individual has no
control over it. It is also predictive because it accepts that particular issues will
always makes an individual not to be equal. Due to this opinion, a disabled
person's chances and prospect are restricted. This is to satisfy
Becker's  (1963) Labeling Theory, which proposes that society establishes
standards that people must obey in order to be recognized. These opinions and
society conclusion has been helpful in the formation and realization of various
disability law. It has also resulted in widespread discrimination and harmful
empathy that is capable of diminishing disabled person's personal dignity. Galvin
(2005), a disabled person himself, researched the impact of the medicalized
‘disability’ labels and found that these became the “primary mode of
identification”. Also; Stalker et al (1999) argues that it encourages people to
assume the values of those who devalue them such that “normalization can,
ironically, be seen as itself devaluing disabled people.

- The Functioning Model: This model is related to medical model. It also views
disability from the deficiency lens. Just like the medical model, it sees disability
as an imperfection or deficiency. It further believes that biological or physiological
abnormalities produce disability. It also believes that a person's capacity to do
functional tasks is restricted by their disability. Hence they often conclude that the
level an individual’s functional capability is the level of their disability. Efforts are
then placed on helping the individual to be able to function properly using
medical/surgical procedure for the correction.

- The social model: Scullion (2000b) suggest that if the traditional medical model
is causing discrimination and destruction of self-dignity of disabled individuals;
 then nurses and social care workers are required to move towards a more
accepted model; The social model. This model is all about inclusion and person
centered service delivery. This model is at the conceptual contrary to the medical
model. In a nutshell, it arose from the examination of exposed disabled people's
experiences, which was mostly filtered by the prevailing medical model. The
model rather transfers the blame for disabled people's unfair life experiences
squarely on the society. Individual deficiencies do not produce disability; rather,
social mentality that excludes and devalues disabled people is to blame.
Disabled individuals interpret the term "disability" as a limitation imposed by a
modern social structure that marginalizes persons with physical disabilities, thus
barring individuals from normal communal interactions. This model is also
concerned with various barriers disabled persons faces. Barriers might also be
academic, socioeconomic, or psychological in nature. Low expectancies from
teachers and isolated schooling result in below par academic standard. This
further limits disabled individuals from achieving excellence.  (Schriner 2005).
When compared to abled persons, this leads to increased joblessness and
occupation in lower-income professions. Government Policies, customs,
and unfavourable preconceptions all limit access to affordable healthcare support
and knowledge, further excluding disabled individuals. 
As the model focuses on barrier; it also focuses on inclusion. Borrowing from the
john Obrien; what a disabled person want is to be treated fairly, have equal
access to education and social amenities, treated with dignity, have undenied
right to good jobs and participating in societal activities. John O brien
summarized the service accomplishments as:
1. Sharing ordinary places
2. Making Choices. 
3. Developing abilities. 
4. Being treated with respect and having a valued social role. 
5. Growing in relationships.
The social model also found its root in the person centered planning which has
the main aim of selecting services and render supports for people living with
disability for them to live and thrive in their various communities.

Roles of social care workers in working with disabled person

Disabled persons have about equal aspirations as every other person. They
desire companionship, a rewarding profession, sustainable revenue, recreational
activities, and suitable accommodation. Unluckily, the general public's opinion
toward the disabled persons is unfavorable. This is as a result of shame that
comes with having a disabled friend or close associate. Usually, few families
have the necessary love and tolerance to take care of the disabled in their care.
Ideally, a handicapped person is the family's exclusive duty. Now that the
governments have validated their entitlement and fundamental rights, there
should be continuous effort to provide them with quality schools education and
collaborative works between social care workers and other health practitioners in
an multi - disciplinary approach.
The role of social care workers can’t be overestimated in addressing the
concerns of disabled individuals in the society.
 Supporting clients to choose right while presenting range of services that
can benefit them as a service user.
 Encourage service users to be prepared against lots of bottlenecks and to
deal better with people who do not support their need for person centered
care
 Using various therapy model and approaches tos
 Social Work bases its interventions on a systematic body of evidence
based knowledge and practice. The primary area of Social Work
intervention is therapeutic work. Different therapeutic methods can be
used i.e. Casework, Meditation, Counseling Group Work, Crisis
Intervention, Family Therapy; Solution focused Brief Therapy and
Bereavement Work. Central to the role of Social Work is developing and
maintaining relationships with service users and their families. Social Work
involves seeking, developing and delivering appropriate services to
service users and their families / careers.
 Participation in Person-Centered Plans with service users their families
and other team members.
 Maintaining communicatison and networking with relevant people and
services.
 Empowering people to access information / service around entitlements
benefits and legislation.
 Living. Identifying gapss in current provision and seeing or developing new
services.
 Promotion of Equal Opportunities and nondiscriminatory practices.
 Developing and maintaining best practice in the field of disability in line
with professional social workers association.
 Person Centered Plan enable people with a disability to direct the planning
process to the greatest extent possible and make their own choices about
how they wish to live their life, plan in a way that respects the needs of
family members and careers and their role in the person's life, be assisted
to identify goals and the way these can be achieved, explore supports that
are flexible and wide-ranging and be included and fully participate in
community life. Person centered Plan may assist people with a disability to
continue living in the community by providing a range of supports to
maintain independence, keep living in their own home, move to more
independent living arrangements, learn new skills and participate in the
local community.
Refrences
 WHO. International classifi cation of functioning, disability and health (ICF). 2001.
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 UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Convention on the rights of persons
with disabilities. 2006.
 http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=259 (accessed Feb 30, 2022)
 Wispelaere, Jurgen & Walsh, Judy. (2007). Disability Rights in Ireland: Chronicle
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 Disability Act 2005;
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/2005/en/act/pub/0014/index.html
 EDUCATION FOR PERSONS WITH SPECIAL EDUCATIONAL NEEDS ACT
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https://www.justice.ie/en/jelr/nds.pdf/files/nds.pdf
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