Autonomy And Caregiving Essay

There are several characteristics or values associated with independence, autonomy, and caregiving that can be addressed when looking at care, families, the personal tragedy model, and professionals. An important aspect that must be accounted for is the amount of control and power professionals hold when working with impaired individuals. The amount of social authority professional’s hold over the lives of the individuals they work with is significant and often overlooked. Referring to the Brandon's Model of professionals (2014, p. 120), each profession can develop a hierarchy and the disabled person can be lost in these hierarchies. The hierarchies of professionals greatly impact the lives of impaired individuals and when looked at from an independent-focused perspective, can be constraining for the disabled individual.
If we were to address the issue of …show more content…
The misrecognition of disabled individuals and disabled families greatly impacts barriers to inclusion (Wilde and Hoskison-Clark, 2014, p. 57). The perpetuated false assumption of disabled families as a problem, incompetent, or dependent reflects the individual model of disability. The view of disability as a personal or family problem rather than a matter of social responsibility contributes to disability and works against social measures to increase ability (Wendell, p. 52, 1996).
In giving disabled families a voice it provides the opportunity to challenge common misattributed labels. The collective family experiences reflect the notion of interdependency and provide benefits for the disabled individual and their families. The notion of interdependency challenges these labels in providing both the individual and those around them the proper knowledge and resources to combat the negative effects of labels and