Sunday 28 October 2012

How so we safeguard the vulnerable people in our society?

As I'm plodding along with my dissertation on the deprivation of liberty safeguards I'm thinking about Winterbourne and the sentencing of the abusers.

I can't help thinking that there's something more that can be done for people like the victims of Winterbourne view. After all it seems that it is always the vulnerable people of our society that are targets for abuse from evil people who get there kicks from picking on the old, the disabled and the elderly.

I read an article that asked where the deprivation of liberty safeguards when you needed them? Unfortunately they're not automatic they can't just magically come into being.  They have to be applied for, the managing authority placing the authorisation is the place the person is living in. Obviously if there is a culture of abuse like there was at Winterbourne view it is highly unlikely that they will alert the authorities to it by applying for a DoLS.  And in any case DoLS can only be used if it is in a person's best interest to be deprived of their liberty not the Winterbourne view scenario!  It is the families of these people that my heart goes out to. Nobody wants to place their son, daughter, husband ,wife, mother or father in a residential home. Sometimes it gets to a point when they are unable to safely look after them at home and so they look for a residential home as a last resort . A lot of people before these cases came out would look at the CQC reports on the Internet to make sure the place they're sending their loved ones to will be suitable. How must these people have felt when they have taken all these precautions, looked at glowing CQC reports only to find out the person they love most in this world has been put through such sickening abuse?

Is it just me that thinks the Government should be doing more for these people?  How is it possible that there is just one Governing body that oversees all these places. A once a year visit is really not going to pick up an awful lot.  CQC are hardly likely to witness any abuse on their visit are they? It has been proven time and time again that places that have had glowing reports from the governing body because they have met the standards and outcomes set by CQC have being treating their residents, in some cases, like animals.  The worst thing is that residential placements that do care about their service users and have wonderful staff may be treated with distrust because of the number of reports of abuse highlighted in the media. We need to hear more about the positive aspects of care, about what good that can be done by people who have taken this work as a way of giving something back into society. There are plenty of people out there that work in this area to help people, I know because I work with lots of people who want to make a difference. I want to hear more about these people please.

How can it be changed? I don't know. What I do know is it makes me sick to think we have people out there taking jobs in this sector to just prey on these people. There will always be people like that.  More has to to be done to protect these  people!

What I do know is there are many more good people that need to be recognised for the work they do, and people that see anything happening in the places they work  that doesn't seem right must whistleblow or inform the authorities.

That's my thought for the week.





1 comment:

  1. Hi Claire,

    I'm a final year MSC Social Work student. I'm about to embark upon my dissertation proposal/research. I would like to look into how DoLS has been implemented since its introduction (though will need to refine topic). I wanted to ask whether in your opinion there is sufficient primary research into DoLS for me to complete a literature review (as I will not be undertaking any primary research)? Any thoughts or comments would be hugely appreciated.

    Best,

    Jon

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