Re-situating professionals as the main tool of safeguarding adults with learning disabilities. What can this teach us about fairness and safeguarding?
This is a guest post by Dr Gavin Hutchison. An easy-read version of this post is available here.
“Fairness” is a contested term, and it is highly unlikely that any definitive definition of fairness will ever be settled upon.
The experience of fairness is subjective, context specific, and is dependent upon each person’s ‘stuff’ (childhood experiences, how they identify, education, core values, impairment, prejudices etc).
However, I suspect that we are all likely to agree that experiencing fair treatment when engaging with professionals is highly desirable. How do we reconcile the subjective personalised nature of what fair treatment is with the collective desirability for fairness in safeguarding practice? And whose concepts of fairness should we privilege?
To be fair
To reconcile the subjectivity and collective desirability of fairness, we must understand what fairness means to the people we support, challenge our own prejudices, and privilege practice that reduces harm to others.
The experience of fair treatment can provide hope, a sense of stability, and predictability in often chaotic situations. It can also reduce stress, increase well-being, and support people to feel worthy of care and consideration.
The following definition of fairness was conceptualised using the narratives of the participants heard during my PhD research. The research explored the experiences of fairness among adults with learning disabilities who have engaged with services responding to domestic violence and abuse. For them, fairness meant:
Treating everybody with the same dignity, respect, and common humanity while ensuring that the aid required to make choices, undertake day-to-day tasks, and pursue goals and ambitions is provided without discrimination (Hutchison 2024).
In practice, this means seeing people as deserving of your respect. It also means providing access to accessible support that enables people to make informed choices. To achieve this professional practice must be fairness informed.
Fairness Informed Practice
During the research, I asked people with learning disabilities how they know when they have been treated fairly. They told me that professionals treat them fairly when they:
- Want to get to know them.
- Understand how their past experiences have impacted their present circumstances.
- Value them as an individual with unique needs.
- Understand that if they don’t get it right, they can have a negative impact on their life.
Our conversations led to the creation of Fairness Informed Practice (FIP).
FIP puts the experience of fairness at the centre of professional practice with people with learning disabilities who have experience DVA.
For care and support to be ‘fair’, professionals should be able to demonstrate that they want to engage in relationships with the people they support.
It is important for relationships to go beyond a focus on safety and assessment criteria. There must be a particular focus on the interpersonal aspects of human connectiveness. This includes a commitment to anti-discriminatory practice and consideration towards the impact of experiences of trauma throughout the life course.
This involves treating people with learning disabilities who have experienced DVA with the same dignity, respect, and common humanity as those without learning disabilities. It also involves providing, without discrimination, the aid and support people need to make choices, undertake day to day tasks, and pursue goals and ambitions.
FIP in Action
To achieve FIP, those supporting people with learning disabilities who have experienced DVA must develop a reflexive awareness of how their own personal experiences and core values, and those of the organisations they work within, can reinforce unfairness experienced through the life course. Once you have developed this awareness, you can consider how you might challenge it.
We can only achieve this when we understand how our personal beliefs, our roles, and organisational norms and values might affect our relationships.
Want to know more about Fairness Informed Practice?
You can read the full thesis here.
About the Author
Dr Gavin Hutchison recently completed his PhD in Social Policy. His research focused on the experiences of fairness among people with learning disabilities engaged with services responding to domestic violence and abuse. Gavin holds an undergraduate degree in Sociology and a Master’s degree in Social Work.
With over a decade of experience, Gavin has been a steadfast ally to individuals who draw upon care and support. He has worked with displaced people and those entering recovery or detoxing. He has also worked with people with learning disabilities, autistic individuals, and those with care and support need in relation to their mental health. Currently, he facilitates the creation of strategy and policy at a local government level.
Gavin has also shared his expertise through lecturing on a range of topics, including the anthropology of disability.