copie Articles 2 2003 Sagoo Con Theusand oatscA nd New Do Reviewing Literature wumsgrosnconccom Learning Disability Fiction and the Social Work Perspective Journal of Social Work. 3: 269-281 JILL MANTHORPE King’s College London, England Abstract * Summary: This article draws on six works of contemporary fiction to analyse some of the depictions of the lives of people with learning disabilities in the context of their contact with professionals and services. Tt explores and illustrates the discussion through the texts, + Findings: Fiction and its relevance to practice have been little commented on in the context of social work and learning disability. A close reading of the texts reveals a number of themes relevant to the practice of learning disability social work and beyond. The work considered highlights the importance of gender, of the activity and relationships of people with learning disabilities and of the many contexts of the lives of people with learning disabilities. * Applications: In a context of increased attention to the arts and humanities in health and social care, the use of fiction to encourage reflective practice in supporting people with learning disability has potential and should be evaluated. Keywords learning disability fiction social work care-giving gender People with learning disabilities evoke practitioners’, educators’ and researchers’ interest at a number of levels. This interest relates to individuals as well as groups or cohorts, and to specific times or transitions in their lives. Novelists too have a fundamental interest in people and stories: this article discusses five particular depictions of people with learning disabilities in contemporary English-language popular fiction. The use of fiction in learning disability social work is less well developed than in respect of other ‘client’ groups and has the potential to inform both education and practice. +468-0173120031219:3:269-281;030062 269 ‘owniaded tom ju. sagepb.com a PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 14,2015 @ opin dengan CarszsnnerJournal of Social Work 3(3) Introduction There is a variety of reasons, if they are needed, to justify the use of fiction as a means of thinking about people with learning disabilities. Professional writing has argued that a study of fiction can be a powerful method for learning and teaching (Kautzmann, 1992); with the medical and nursing professions provid- ing a steady stream of claims that: literature encourages idealism while deflat- ing medical pomposity (Baum, 1999: 45); enhances compassion among nurses (Moyle et al., 1995); and promotes a wider appreciation of others’ experiences (Darbyshire, 1994, 1995). Less commonly in social work, commentators have promoted fiction as a means of improving practice, particularly through encour- aging empathy (Smith, 1996) and additionally as a means of the development of skills - such as child observation (Wilson and Ridler, 1996). Furthermore, the potential of fiction to cast light on areas overshadowed in studies of social policy which impact on social work has been commented upon, such as, private residential care before its expansion in the 1980s (Manthorpe, 1995) and the employment discrimination encountered by migrant workers (Beattie and Randell, 1998). Finally, a series of writers have noted, in respect of ageing (Hepworth, 2000; Woodward, 1991) and physical disability (Davidson et al., 1994; Shakespeare, 2000) the importance of fiction in communicating and sustaining images, both positive and negative. The five writers discussed in this article have features in common, apart from their work, including a representation of learning disabilities (the term learning disabilities is being used in this article to provide some consistency). All are women, writing popular fiction at the end of the 20th century. Their work appears in paperback, indicating a general readership, through publishers who are popular rather than academic or professionally orientated. The analysis below takes the text as central but interprets it through the theme of learning disabi ity. This privileges the theme in what are complex stories, not written explicitly for the purpose of professional examination. From this analysis, four sub-themes are developed: community care, relationships, gender and prejudice. The Macabre and Murderous The first novels discussed are a pair: Every Day is Mother's Day (Mantel, 1985) and Vacant Possession (Mantel, 1986) are stories which are set apart by a period of 10 years but which include many of the same characters and to a limited extent cross-over aspects of plot development. From the outset, the main char- acter Muriel Axon is portrayed as ‘borderline normality’ and falling under the visiting provisions of a Trust dealing with ‘the welfare of the subnormal in the community’ (Mantel, 1985: 14). While this is the view of officialdom, in that it forms part of a report from the Trust visitor, Muriel’s mother Evelyn refers to her daughter as a ‘hopeless idiot’ (1985: 18) and their neighbour refers to her as a ‘bit backward’ (1985: 181). 270 ‘owniaded tom ju. sagepb.com a PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 14,2015 ovpnis dengan CanseamerManthorpe: Reviewing Literature Muriel then is a character apparently under the control of her mother and this dynamic forms the key element of the first book. In a variety of efforts, professionals seek to assess Muriel’s condition and remove her from the malign influence of her mother. In the opinion of the social workers, Muriel requires separation, stimulation and activity. To the more cynical staff of the day centre, Muriel’s shoplifting is a ‘bit of thieving’ (1985: 27) rather than reflecting the ‘autonomy’ of her care plan. Instead of a heroic struggle with Evelyn to champion Muriel’s well-being, services provide an inconsistent and uncoordinated series of naive approaches. Muriel’s mother Evelyn, fearful for her daughter and over-protective in her early years, isolates the family and resists many of the approaches of the welfare. A report on a home visit sets out the difficulties: Mrs Axon is extremely uncommunicative in herself and this is seen as a problem in assessment. According to Mrs Axon client is able to understand everything that is said to her but often does not answer when she is spoken to, (1985: 15) Muriel (as well as Evelyn) avoids involvement but is more able to control events and, indeed, services begin to see her as borderline normality and ascribe her retardation to lack of environmental stimulation (1985: 21). Muriel, who can read and write a little, refuses to demonstrate these skills to her mother (1985: 22). In this way, Mantel points to the difficulty of classifying Muriel and draws out the growing transfer of power from mother to daughter. She offers some background to Muriel’s personality and behavioural problems by provid- ing the details of her childhood, a time not under-stimulating but deeply scarred by Evelyn’s growing paranoia and disturbed behaviour. In both novels, the lives of professionals working within welfare are explored and the interleaving of the lives of the Sidney family with the Axons is set on its grotesque and compelling tragic spiral. Isabel Field, the social worker for Evelyn and neighbour of Muriel, is the object of Muriel’s revenge. It had been Isabel who suspected that Evelyn's death had been caused by Muriel in a state of being ‘half mad or half-witted’ (1985: 120), At a broader level, Mantel offers a cynical view of community care that is offered suddenly to Muriel after a couple of years in a psychiatric hospital: How would you like a new life? they asked Muriel one day. How would you like a new life, with your needs met by the community instead of the institutions? (1985: 55) ‘The patients debate these moves and make a variety of responses, ranging from trepidation to feeling that once released they should avoid services. One commits suicide, another sleeps rough; Muriel is provided with a cleaning job, then packing work and finally becomes a domestic in a geriatric hospital. It is here that she engineers her encounters with the hapless former social worker, Isabel. Mantel’s twists and sharp observations, combined with a flair for the farcical, make these humorous books in spite of the subject matter centring on 271 ‘owniaded tom ju. sagepb.com a PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 14,2015 ovpnis dengan CanseamerJournal of Social Work 3(3) death, unhappiness and decline. Muriel’s learning disability blurs into a patho- logical or personality disorder and her wit or cunning compensates for her lack of formal education, As a service user in the day centre, Muriel is vulnerable, not surprisingly given her family life and childhood. Turning the tables on her mother, Muriel becomes a more complex persona. Services retreat, leaving the individual social worker isolated. In the end, Isabel and her family’s innocence mean they are in the more vulnerable and child-like position, Muriel is em- powered, but uses this to create havoc. It is thus impossible to see these two novels as providing a fixed picture of ‘learning disability’. This motif is too rigid and belies Muriel’s motivation and abilities. Hapless professionals also challenge the stereotype that it is they who are the experts and that it is possible to divide work and personal life. In a twist of story, Muriel moves from patient to employment within the hospital, illustrating as others have done from the use of autobiography (Andrews, 2000), the crossing of boundaries by many people with learning disability. Motherly Love It would be easy to imagine that in a novel the character of a mother, tempted by the possibility of an affair, might use her Down's syndrome daughter as a brake on her desires. However, Kate Charles, in her novel Unruly Passions (1998), weaves the theme of Daisy Finch’s learning disability in a variety of plot devices and also to communicate the strength of love and the destructiveness of prejudice. Charles conveys the enduring strength of love between Daisy and her mother Rosemary in contrast to the intoxication of the possible affair. Their love is reciprocal and Daisy is characterized as a deeply rewarding child, eliciting smiles and tenderness. Daisy is also emotionally intelligent, picking up on possible complications when her mother is talking: ‘Something in her voice penetrated through the layers of sleep, Daisy stirred and sat up. “What's the matter, mummy? Why do you look sad?” (Charles, 1998: 141) Towards the end of the novel, where the plot has led to Daisy being abducted by a spurned, love-obsessed female novelist, the child engages her captor and becomes a figure of tenderness, pleasure giving and responsiveness. Here, for example, is an extract from the scene where Daisy is being given a bath and put to bed: ‘The girl's hair was soft and silky: the rhythm of brushing it was hypnotic. Daisy seemed to enjoy having her hair brushed so the exercise continued for a while. Then Daisy climbed onto Valerie’s lap and put her soft cheek against hers. (1998: 354) Rather than only stressing her vulnerability as a result of her trust of strangers, Daisy's personal attractiveness in the end saves her from the abductor’s possible harm. This presentation of a child with Down’s syndrome as loveable and loving is 272 ‘owniaded tom ju. sagepb.com a PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 14,2015 ovpnis dengan CanseamerManthorpe: Reviewing Literature contrasted to the distaste and discrimination expressed by a former teacher and church supporter, Miss Croom. She voices her opinion to Daisy's parents that their daughter's damage is tragic and her life set for disappointment. Daisy, she states, would be best in an institution and her birth was undoubtedly linked to her parents’ unsuitability for each other. She is forceful in her views (1998: 8, 427). In contrast, Daisy’s mother is keen for her daughter to attend an integrated school and to draw on the advantages of mixing with local children. Daisy's experience at one primary school, however, has not been positive and the family chooses to move to find a more appropriate school. Daisy can make friends there and become involved in their social activities after school. Her parents, particularly her mother, are described as still wary of the greater exposure to possible difficulties and barriers Daisy might encounter in less protected social settings. ‘This book therefore portrays a world where families manage and cope with disability in the context of a range of competing pressures, echoing a literature of managing and parental resourcefulness (see, for example, Beresford, 1994). There is no specialist professional to be seen as ‘expert’; it is family members who make decisions, consider alternatives and adapt to work, personal needs and long-standing tensions. Internal and Intimate Worlds Bender's novel (2000) Like Normal People, suggests by its title that learning disability and its relationship to the normal or ordinary world will be central themes. Set in California in the main, this novel follows a fairly typical ‘women’s story’ line of generations linked by their female blood relatives. Darting back, forward and across the 20th century, the three main characters, Ella, her daughter Lena and granddaughter Shelley, respond to each other and their inner lives unfold. The shifting time zones make events ‘present’ and close. Lena is diagnosed in infancy as ‘mildly mentally retarded’ in 1934. Sixty-five pages into the novel this has already been made evident by depictions of Ella organizing Lena's accommodation and routines, accompanied by her anxiety, unspecified, over Lena’s residence at Panorama Village (a residential home/group home). Ella’s maternal preoccupation with her elder daughter Lena is a central theme of the novel. In this mother-daughter relationship. expectations and normality form part of the story-lines. Ella is heartened and moved by her daughter's developing physical and emotional characteristics but, as a mother, she feels continually responsible. picking up the pieces after accidents or disintegration. At the level of parents living with a growing child, Bender's novel repeat- edly emphasizes Ella's comparisons of her daughter to other children, to her sister and neighbourhood contacts. Lena is seen in relation to her social context, whether it is in the attitudes of local children or at school and then, as time passes, in relation to her boyfriend/husband and the fellow residents of their 273 ‘owniaded tom ju. sagepb.com a PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 14,2015 ovpnis dengan CanseamerJournal of Social Work 3(3) congregate home. It is a world sparsely populated by professionals, a useful reminder to those working in services or undergoing professional training. The voice of Lena herself is linked into the accounts of Ella and her other daughter's child, Shelley. Ella moves from her own childhood and courtship, to migration and motherhood and then to grandmotherhood, widowhood and old age. The evolution of her maternal role and the ways in which she ‘lets go’ of, Lena and also her other daughter are central developments in the story. But Lena too has a voice in the novel and we see the world, at times, from her eyes. This provides explanation for the apparently inexplicable and is illustrated by Lena’s wish to celebrate her wedding anniversary and her uncertainty about the death of her husband Bob. Lena appears to believe that this accident was her husband’s fault; that he should have been more careful. He needed to ‘apologise’ and make it up to her by being ‘very nice’ (2000: 103). Whether Bob is alive or dead in Lena’s mind and what Lena understands by death are matters that the author leaves as indeterminate. The critic Jessica Olin (2000) reminds us that Like Normal People is a ‘very funny novel’ and that Bender has succeeded in avoiding presenting an awful tale of ‘eccentricities and wacky foibles’ — or worse, a ‘message driven melo- drama’. Bender particularly makes Ella’s ideals and aspirations ~ for elegance, consumer items and the symbols of the American dream ~ amusing yet tinged with pathos, The realization of Lena’s disability brings her maternal dreams crashing down, and yet it is Lena who provides a companionship that her other, more socially mobile daughter Vivien does not approach. Vivien, however, despite her distance, moves to take on some of her mother’s responsibilities for Lena as Ella begins to feel older, more tired and less able to face the authority of the congregate living home’s director. Bender has an eye for observation not only in respect for changing aspir- ations and the kaleidoscope of relationships ~ mothers, daughters, wives and sisters ~ but also in respect of intimacy and sexuality. While these are fairly central to many novels, they are less celebrated among characters who have a learning disability. Lena’s relationship with her husband Bob is sexual and their enjoyment in each other conveyed as fun, companionable, tactile and pleasur- able. Bender sets this in a context of a mother's efforts to make her daughter eligible through efforts at charm school, matchmaking and domestic and house- work practice. Lena’s efforts here are heroic but her difficulties are not glossed over and compromises have to be made. Much professional education can convey the issues of sexuality and learning disability as matters for concern; the perspectives reported in novels however, allow us to see them as part of a relationship and possibly life-affirming. These processes of accommodation and negotiation make Lena central to the story and dispel any notion that she is a passive object of concern. In novels, character or personality can develop, providing a sense of the subjectivities experienced by many characters. Bender’s novel, like Charles’s work, conveys a picture of family life and maternal feelings in particular. Like Hinxman 274 ‘owniaded tom ju. sagepb.com a PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 14,2015 ovpnis dengan CanseamerManthorpe: Reviewing Literature (below) she also depicts the sibling relationship and its complex feelings of guilt, obligation and history. Simply referring to people as carers or families can skate over the depth of such relationships. Wise but Simple ‘The concept or metaphor of a mask has been used by writers such as Feather- stone and Hepworth (1993) to convey the experiences referred to by a number of older people, that what they feel inside and how they think of themselves is at variance from their ageing faces or bodies, seen in the mirror or on view to a public world. The ‘wisdom’ or innate emotional intelligence of a person with learning disabilities is a parallel metaphor, recognized in fiction. As Charles identified in the case of the child, such a character can be perceptive and resilient. Hinxman (1993) presents in her novel After the Show an account of a young man, Toby May, whose paintings are fantastical but who swings from such gifts of expression to behavioural distress. Hinxman refers to Toby in a variety of ways: he is ‘simple’, ‘mental’ and ‘malfunctioning’. Part of the story involves this difficulty of classification and its impact on the growing boy: ‘Since he was a kiddie, he had been tested, examined, prodded and probed by experts’ (Hinxman, 1993: 64). His sister Emmy is determined that her brother should not have to undergo such tests again and she resists pressure to have Toby ‘put away .. ‘for his own good’ (1993: 3). Loved for his gifts, kindness and protectiveness by his sister, Toby is looked after but his sister also recognizes his autonomy and eventually his feeling that he wishes to take his own life, His sister explains Can't you get it through your head, Ollie, that I can’t grieve for Toby because he chose his own death and it was a happy death. It wasn’t a happy life. (1993: 35) In Toby’s memory his sister decides to establish the Toby May School for Mentally Handicapped Children in the former family home, with the support of MENCAP. This novel is family centred, with Toby able to ‘see’ behind the mask of other characters and to realize they represent a danger to or a potential under- mining of the family’s way of life in the entertainment business. Toby has intel- ligence behind his disability and it is his family, particularly his sister, who is able to see behind the symptoms and difficulties of being ‘slow and backward’ (1993: 64). Rose, his sister’s friend, talking to Emmy, sums this up after Toby's death: ‘I’m sure he was wiser than anyone knew. Sometimes mental . .. mean, simple people are. It’s God's way of compensating them’ (1993: 126). Such depictions relate to the enduring theme of ‘eternal children’ or ‘infant- ilization’ developed in research and critical commentaries about perceptions of learning disability (see Alaszewski, 1986). However, they place these abstractions in a social context and network of relationships. Emmy, Toby's sister, relates to him as a sister but has also assumed responsibilities for him on 275 ‘owniaded tom ju. sagepb.com a PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 14,2015 ovpnis dengan CanseamerJournal of Social Work 3(3) the death of their parents. She resists the calls made by neighbours such as Mrs Richmond: *, .. you ought to have him put away. For his own good” (1993: 3). This protection is acknowledged as a factor enabling Toby to have a degree of autonomy and ordinary life: “He could have spent those years in a mental insti- tution for the criminally insane’ (1993: 36). However, Toby, while having childlike simplicity, is also seen as potentially dangerous even though Emmy reiterates ‘he does no harm’ (1993: 3) to a scep- tical and anxious circle of acquaintances. Her protectiveness in the end proves liberating for Toby, and Emmy refuses to grieve for him after his death. Hinxman’s novel, like Charles's work discussed above, is set outside a professional and service context. Family-oriented and indeterminate in its diag- nosis and classification of Toby, it projects a fairly typical series of dilemmas for his sister — love, going out into the world, leaving the family and losing parents. These accompany a further set of challenges, responsibility and moral ques- tionings that research has identified as important to the siblings of disabled children (Dyson, 1996). Toby’s disability is presented as a challenge for Emmy but Hinxman, uncompromisingly, presents more than a simple tale of care and family functioning through the dramatic device of suicide. Mystery and Murder The final novel discussed here is firmly set within the tradition of the detective story. Written by a social worker, Alison Taylor, the setting is more specific in respect of the welfare world. A residential home, the Willows, is home to people with learning disability. Julie Broadbent is employed as a residential care assistant, living on the premises. Debbie, a resident, is instrumental in bringing the plot to its violent resolution. Taylor’s novel Unsafe Convictions (2000) displays further accuracy in respect of police procedures and the corrup- tion of care. Little is resolved by police detection or investigations, events are resolved as past deceptions and degradations unfold. Taylor presents the residential home as alien within the village. From the outset its residents, grouped together, are a strange lurking presence. They are separate from the village and for some they are reduced to objects. Asked who lives in the distant house, separated from the village houses by its size, trees lining its perimeter and a forecourt full of staff cars, a villager replies: “The retards’, the woman responded, without even turning. Like an overfed rodent, she sniffed the air, wrinkling her nose “The mental defectives’, the man beside her said. (Taylor, 2000: 355) Taylor describes her informants, ‘a small fat woman in a padded jacket’ and the man dressed in ‘an old great coat, with a flat cap rammed on his head’ in a manner designed to extinguish any sympathy for such villagers. However, the home’s practices of taking groups of residents for walks ~ Julie herds ‘the idiots’ and her ‘charges’ out for a mid-morning walk (2000: 108) ~ make them objects of suspicion 276 ‘owniaded tom ju. sagepb.com a PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 14,2015 ovpnis dengan CanseamerManthorpe: Reviewing Literature and fear. The local café ‘tolerates custom from the Willows because it stocked up the takings’ (2000: 109) but its owner's eyes were always ‘on the watch’, From the police there is more sympathy as they recognize the Dickensian fagade of the Willows and the general re-use of Victorian mansions as present-day insti- tutions (2000: 182). The police also observe the ‘outlandish’ dress of the resi- dents’ (2000: 185) set to work on gardening and collecting firewood. In another scene the residents are described as looking like a ‘gang of gnomes’ (2000: 276). This depiction of residents as a distinctive group is tempered by the focus on Debbie. Disturbed and disturbing, Debbie is described as having a sulky mouth, as breathing heavily and noisily, as smelling of talcum powder and glaring (2000: 276). A ‘gingery down around her slack mouth’ later is described as a “grotesque gingery fuzz on her upper lip’ which, while Debbie re-enacts a violent confrontation, twitches and stretches ‘like a caterpillar as she mouthed her rage’ (2000: 367). Debbie’s eyes are glaring, staring from their sockets. In reliving the scene where the priest dies, she blunders, lunges and punches at thin air in the re-creation of her behaviour. Taylor therefore presents an unsentimental portrayal of physicality and behaviour. Debbie's distress is evident but her appearance and behaviour elicit fear as well as understanding. Staff other than Debbie are quick to medicalize Debbie’s rage as indicating she appears close to an epileptic fit or overtired (2000: 294). Her bruises are said to be the result of falling due to her fits and her expressed anger at the local priest, Father Fauvel, is argued as not worth logging in the home’s incident book. A member of staff tears out the record of Debbie’s attack on the priest and refuses to report it. Later, the home’s manager sacks her for this breach of procedures. Unsafe Convictions provides a picture of the enclosed world of the insti- tution and its unwilling corruption by the secrecy of the church and sexual abuses. Julie is victimized and her vulnerability the more evident. Debbie is able to stop the abuse, violently, although the extent of her understanding of what has happened remains ambiguous. However, there are references to residents’ sensitivity to Julie’s moods (2000: 218) and Debbie overhearing what has been happening (2000: 298). Julie, who returns to the Willows at the end of the story, is seen to be as reliant on its support as much as the residents are for a home and for some sense of belonging. In this way people with learning disability are again shown to be active in story-lines and not just passive objects. Discussion Hepworth (2000: 1) has argued that fiction provides ‘an imaginative resource for understanding variations in the meaning of the experience of ageing in society’. It has been argued above that it also opens up terrains of the imagin- ation in respect of learning disability. In this discussion, four main themes are developed to sum up some of the potential for stories to unpick aspects of meaning, perspective and context. 277 ‘owniaded tom ju. sagepb.com a PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 14,2015 ovpnis dengan CanseamerJournal of Social Work 3(3) One major linking theme of these novels is that of community care: the backcloth against which the shadow of the institution still exerts a powerful influence. They depict the decisions made by families in a world where services are complex and individuals relate to varying aspects of provision. And because learning disability is not central to the novels discussed, it fits within other worlds and relationships, particularly those of families, work and communities. Such portrayals are not confined to the recent past; Dickens, although perhaps better remembered for his sentimental evocations of sickness and physical disability, typified by Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol, also depicted Smike in Nicholas Nickleby, a man ‘half witted’ with an ‘addled brain’. Community care for people with learning disabilities has evolved into a range of services and the characters with learning disabilities in the novels discussed here all live in a range of ‘community’ settings. As the novels confirm, the lived experience of community care can be very much more complicated than the ideal and it may be helpful to consider different perspectives from individual and family sources, imagined but grounded in some reality. With the demise of long- stay hospitals for people with learning disabilities (Malin et al., 1999), community care is central to professional practice and, as these novels illustrate, the learning disability industry is a matter of employment and enterprise for social workers and residential care staff amongst others (Parry and Renouf, 2003). As noted above, the six novels discussed in this article do not make learning disability the central focus of the story. This makes them the more appropriate to consider because, as practitioners in this area of work often argue, learning disability is part of the person and not their sole characteristic. Take this aspect of a character away, then other elements of the story remain. Rosemary’s marriage could still be tested, the dynamics of mother-daughter relationships could remain and even the difference or ‘otherness’ of Toby or Muriel could be reconstructed. These are not novels focused on learning disability as a ‘tragedy’ or ‘drama’. Nonetheless, learning disability is important in being chosen by the authors as a theme to form part of the persona of a character and affecting their interaction with others. In Unruly Passions Daisy is particularly alert to the needs of her mother, in Unsafe Convictions Debbie is wrongly ignored by staff because of her disability and behaviour, and in Like Normal People Lena relates to her family in different patterns to that of her ‘normal!’ sister. For those working with people with learning disability, this will be familiar territory. People exist within a web of relationships, past and present, and while learning disability may be a focus it can only be seen in its social context. As most of the novels show, many families have little contact with services and even amongst those who do, the contact may be centred on accommodation (as with Lena), around residential care (as with Debbie) or a series of assessments and half-hearted interventions (as with Muriel). The third theme derived from this exploration is that of gender. All the authors discussed are women and all, except for in the case of Toby, are focused on women with learning disabilities and their female circle. Rosemary's 278 ‘owniaded tom ju. sagepb.com a PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 14,2015 ovpnis dengan CanseamerManthorpe: Reviewing Literature husband, Lena’s father and her husband Bob, Muriel’s father and Toby's father, are not as central as female kin. This is a world of women in which mothers and then sisters take on responsibilities, or ‘family’ care is mimicked in care settings such as the residential home where the female care workers have a male head of home, reflecting perhaps domestic patriarchal hierarchies and certainly the low status of the work (Garner, 1997). Despite some learning disability texts that focus on gender (see Andrews, 2000 and Traustadottor and Johnson, 2000) there remain many areas of learning disability practice where a gendered analysis is underdeveloped. One final theme is that of prejudice. In a variety of ways, all the authors discussed here expose elements of prejudice among members of the public. Such prejudice is voiced to their relatives, as in the example of Emmy (Toby's sister) or Rosemary (Daisy’s mother). The villagers in Unsafe Convictions are suspicious and resentful. Such prejudice impacts on families who generally, as Lena’s mother and niece illustrate, take up certain issues but leave others alone. Families are shown as buffers between some hostile elements of the outside world and the person with disability. This is an area that social workers may wish to consider in providing their own support to families and in contributing to public education to challenge discrimination. As Myers et al. (1998) observe, there is still much ambivalence about people with learning disabilities in the general population and this may account for their lack of community inte- gration, despite being physically present in community settings. A number of the autobiographical accounts by people with learning disabilities in Gray and Ridden (1999) reveal the experience of feeling isolated, different and unhappy. This may seem a matter that is intractable and yet it may be an area where social work may have some role in supporting people with learning disabilities through interpersonal and sensitive exchanges. In the enthusiasm for new models of service working and partnership that have been encouraged in England by the White Paper Valuing People (Department of Health, 2001), social work may have more of a role in interpersonal support than hereto. Conclusion Lastly, a caution is necessary. It would be wrong to see novels as presenting some form of ‘truth’. Authors have varied knowledge of the world and may choose to be selective and creative: this is a valuable perspective for policy and practice alike. Taylor and Mantel, former social work practitioners, present more procedurally correct portrayals of the service world. Taylor makes refer- ence to the residential care sector with some accuracy and she indicates know- ledge of its paperwork and daily routines. Mantel, while establishing a more fantastical world, still evokes the hapless bureaucracy of services with their memos, reports and procedures. Magic realism is no place to be searching for accurate presentations of services or structures. Mantel, however, is able to build a picture of Muriel Axon’s abilities in the face of objective disability by 279 ‘owniaded tom ju. sagepb.com a PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 14,2015 ovpnis dengan CanseamerJournal of Social Work 3(3) setting this in the context of services that can be manipulated. Muriel’s intelli- gence and skill undermine services’ more usual control, and these are charac- teristics that are generally denied to those with a classification as ‘mentally handicapped’. The work of five authors has been selected here to illustrate the potential of fiction to address themes relevant to the world of those social workers supporting people with a learning disability. Contemporary and popular fiction offers an opportunity to consider how the subject of learning disability is conveyed to a wide public in forms other than media coverage that can focus on tragedy or ‘brave’ individuals overcoming ‘handicap’. It would be unwise to make claims for fiction to sensitize or raise the consciousness of professionals or the public without firm, and probably imposs- ible to obtain, evidence. Some attempts to develop research in this field have been developed in respect of mental health nursing (McKie and Gass, 2001) and might be replicated in social work. Currently, popular novels such as those discussed here permit us to consider how learning disability is properly part of humanistic and artistic debates as much as those of science, politics and professionalism, References Alaszewski, A. (1986) Institutional Care and the Mentally Handicapped: The Mental Handicap Hospital. London: Croom Helm Andrews, J. (2000) ‘Scrub, Scrub, Scrub... Bad Times and Good Times: Some of the Jobs T've had in my Life’, in D. Atkinson, M. McCarthy, J. Walmsley, M. Cooper, S. Rolph, P. Barette, M. Coventry and G. Ferris Good Times, Bad Times: Women with Learning Difficulties Telling their Stories, pp. 31-42. Kidderminster: BILD. Baum, M. (1999) ‘Arts and Humanities for Medical Students’, in R. Philipp, M. Baum, ‘A. Mawson and K. Calman (eds) Humanities in Medicine: Beyond the Millennium, pp. 25-38. London: The Nuffield Trust. Beattie, M. and Randell, J. 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Bloomington: Indiana University Press. : Open University Press. JILL MANTHORPE is Professor of Social Work at King’s College London in the Social Care Workforce Research Unit. She has published widely in the area of ‘community care. Current research projects include studies of intermediate care, adult protection and student suicide. Address: Social Care Workforce Research. Unit, King’s College London, Franklin Wilkins Building, 150 Stamford Street, London SE1 9NN, UK. {email: jill. manthorpe@kel.ac.uk] 281 ‘owniaded tom ju. sagepb.com a PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIV on March 14,2015 @ opin dengan Carszsnner