Between the convention and conventional practice: Israeli social workers' recommendations regarding the legal capacity of people with disabilities

Abstract

Background: Following the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities (CRPD), various countries have recently amended their legal capacity laws with the aim of restricting the use of guardianship and increasing the use of other, less restrictive practices, mainly supported decision making. As social workers have a key role in carrying out these reforms, this study examines how Israeli social workers make legal capacity-related decisions.Method: Semi-structured interviews with 27 Israeli social workers.Results: Thematic analysis identified three factors driving social workers' recommendations regarding guardianship and supported decision-making: the person's diagnosis and functioning level, and the presence of a supportive family. A fourth factor, the person's preferences, played a complex and more limited role.Conclusions: Many changes have yet to be made to fully apply the support paradigm in Israel, since social workers still tend to base their recommendations on factors not fully aligned with the CRPD.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and Social Work: Evidence for Impact?

“…Despite the fact that workers recognised the problematic nature of such cultural views and their own duty to advocate for individuals within such a context, they expressed uncertainty about how to do so effectively and a feeling of powerlessness within the process. Finally, similar to the findings of Holler and Werner [37,38], the social workers demonstrated a general ambivalence about disabilities and a lack of awareness about the rights of such people, including the protection of legal capacity as stipulated by the CRPD.…”

“…The work by Holler and Werner [37,38] in Israel also looks specifically at social work practice in light of the CRPD. The authors conducted research to assess the attitudes of social work students and current social work practitioners towards supported decision-making.…”

“…In their second piece, Holler and Werner [38] utilised the same body of data collected through interviews to look at how the practitioners make capacity-related decisions. Similar to the above, the authors found that practitioners still link intellectual disability with guardianship by default, despite this being contrary to the CRPD.…”

“…Another possibility is that social workers themselves are resistant to changing their practice and approach, despite the legislative context they work within. Based on their research in Israel, Holler and Werner [37,38] conclude that social workers are largely maintaining their modes of practice, despite the legislative changes that have occurred. As indicated, the authors found that practitioners in their studies were largely accepting of guardianship measures and sceptical of supported decision-making, raising questions about their underlying attitudes regarding the rights of persons with disabilities.…”