Empowerment through care: using dialogue between the social model of disability and an ethic of care to redraw boundaries of independence and partnership between disabled people and services

摘要

Our approach – empowerment through care – emerges from dialogue between social model understandings of empowerment and ethic of care based understandings of care. Whilst maintaining the principles underpinning empowerment as a challenge to disabling practice within health, social care and voluntary sector organisations, empowerment through care challenges a rejection of “care” as necessarily oppressive. We emphasise that relationships characterised by Tronto's (1993) elements of care can facilitate individual empowerment by redrawing boundaries of independence and partnership between people accessing support, professionals and the organisations within which they operate. Alongside a theoretical argument for our approach, we draw upon empirical evidence from two practice-based settings. Both settings demonstrate the importance of relational autonomy, based on Tronto's framework, in realising service imperatives rooted in empowerment. We also draw upon seminar discussion data, which demonstrates a pathway to empowerment: beginning with the individual, rooted in dialogue and embedded in whole organisations. Our approach establishes fresh ways for disabled people and services to work together in establishing innovative approaches to support and relationships at all levels of services.