Are safeguarding procedures effective in supporting people with learning disabilities who are involuntary users of services?

Safeguarding is a key role for social workers working with people with learning disabilities. This assignment will consider models of human development and critically analyse factors that impact upon the vulnerability of adults. It will further explore how adults with learning disabilities are oppressed and discriminated against at various levels. Using a practical example I demonstrate how I use theory to critically reflect on the consequences and dilemmas for practice with vulnerable adults and investigate issues that may affect safeguarding in the present day.

Theorists have long sought to define human
The factors that led to the murder to Stephen Lawrence and resulted in a failure to investigate and prosecute those responsible, were closely interlinked at Personal cultural and structural levels. Unless we are actively seeking to eliminate racist thoughts and actions from our day to day dealings, they will "filter through from the culture and structure into which we are socialised and which constantly seek to influence us through media, political propaganda and so on. (Thompson 2006).

The media is hugely influential in shaping our views about marginalised groups, and as one of the main mechanisms of oppression, social imagery feeds into the processes of stereotyping and labelling (Maclean and Harrison 2011). It is perhaps easy to see then why public opinion about people with learning disabilities, continues to focus on them being a group in need of protection, rather than on their ability to lead an ordinary life. There have been a number of high profile cases of abuse of people with learning disabilities reported in the media, and as Fyson, Kitson and Corbett 2004 argue, change within learning disability services in the UK has historically been driven by abuse, scandal and the ensuing enquiries. The decision to close long stay hospitals could be attributed to reports of abuse in the news of the world paper in 1967 that reported on abuse in institutions in Cardiff later following the scandal of