Persevering professionals: dilemmas of relationships and self-determination in work with people with intellectual disability – a multi-method study based on interpersonal process recall

Abstract

The article focuses on social educators’ reflections on their own professional practice in encounters with people with intellectual disability receiving services. Drawing on Interpersonal Process Recall, a video-assisted method, together with a focus group interview, the study explores the experiences from in-situ encounters of five social educators employed in a Norwegian municipality. The key findings are that they view relationship-building as integral to their work, they grant primacy to the ideal of autonomy and they strive towards realizing this in their daily work. The study however displays how these emphases might lead to dilemmas, especially between the wish to support the service users’ self-determination and the urge to protect them from harm. Of special note was how the service users’ increasing use of social media was perceived as a particular challenge for social educators, who were left with an experience of being unable to protect.

Care needs of chronically ill patients with intellectual disabilities in Dutch general practice: patients’ and providers’ perspectives

“…For patients with both diagnosesa chronic disease and an ID -continuity of care is thus even more essential. As people with ID often have previous care experiences of miscommunication, unclarities regarding treatment, and feelings of not being taken seriously [39], building trust requires continuity of care and time investment [40][41][42][43].…”