Relationships and Recognition: Support Relationships between Young People with Cognitive Disability and Support Workers (ARC Linkage Project LP150100013)

This project seeks to better understand the working relationships between young people

with cognitive disability and their paid support workers. Using recognition theory, it is

focused on exploring what helps young people and support workers to feel cared for,

respected and valued in their relationships with each other. It is also investigating what

happens when they don’t feel these sense of recognition.

Research Design

The project has three key phases:

1: Review of policies about working relationship

2: Research with young people and their support workers about their experience of working

together. Using photo-research methods and pictorial mapping, young people and their

support workers have worked in pairs to relay their thoughts and experiences.

3. An online survey with young people and support workers to extend Phase 2 findings.

Young people with disability are embedded in every stage of the project, working as

community researchers, advising the project through a Young People’s Advisory Group, and

through the methods of the research.

Working with YP with disability video

Research team

Investigators: A/Prof Sally Robinson (CCYP, SCU), Prof Anne Graham (CCYP, SCU), Dr Kate Neale (CCYP,

SCU), Jaimsie Speeding (CCYP,SCU), Prof Karen Fisher (SPRC, UNSW), Prof Kelley Johnson

(SPRC, UNSW), Sandra Gendera (SPRC, UNSW), Dr Ed Hall (University of Dundee).

Research Partners: Gordon Duff (National Disability Services), NSW Family and Community Services, Suzanna

Poredos (Northcott), Alex Varley (Northcott).

Presentations and Academic Publications to date

Journal articles Fisher, K., Gendera, S., Graham, A., Robinson, S., Johnson,

K., Neale, K. (2018) Disability and support relationships:

What role does policy play? Australian Journal of Public

Administration https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8500.12351

Presentations Hall, E. (2017). Personalisation and the new landscape of

learning disability care and support: Possibilities for social

inclusion and belonging. Public Lecture, Southern Cross

University: Lismore. https://rcypd.edu.au/projects/r/

Outputs to Date

Project Reports & Summaries Policy Review Summary

Easy Read Policy Summary

Creative Outputs Photobook

Plain English Webpage

W orking together- what do policies say?

This paper is a part of a bigger project called ‘Relationships and Recognition’.

We want to know what helps young people and support workers work well

together. First we looked at what policies say. This is what we found.

By Suzanna Poredos

Policies

Policies are like rules.

They tell people who work in government and

organisations how to work well with people with

disability.

They tell people with disability what government

and organisations will do.

Policies are important in relationships between

young people with disability and their support

workers.

RELATIONSHIPS

AND

RECOGNITIONPOLICY

REVIEW

SUMMARY

What are policies and why do they matter?

Policies are like rules. They tell people who work

in government or organisat ions how they should

work with people with disability to do a good job.

They also let people with disability know what they

can expect from the government or from their

service provider if they have one.

There are many dif fe

r

ent pol ici es for wo r ki ng

with people with disability. Some are made

by organisat ions that support them, some

by governments, and some by international

organisations such as the United Nat ions.

What did we do?

We wanted to know if disability policy helps make

good relat ionships between people with disability

and their support workers. We read lots of policies

to see what they said about it .

What did we find

?

Many policies said things about how people with

disability should be supported, but few actually

talked about ‘relationships’.

‘Big’ policies like the United Nations Convention

on the Rights of Persons with Disability and the

National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) say

that it is important that people with disability are

respected, and that relationships work well. These

policies are about human rights.

Then the government, services and community

organisat ions make sure these ‘big’ policies happen

in people’s lives every day.

Most of the time policies talked about the rights

of the person with disability OR the job of the

worker. Few policies talked about young people

AND workers at the same time (their relationship

together). Policies about working together are

important, because we know that good relationships

are a way for people to feel respected.

Some policies are about making sure people with

disability get their rights (w

ith the help of their

support workers). An example is a policy that says a

worker’s job is to

help people to make choices and

decisions when they want that help.

Some policies are about what shouldn’t happen

in relationships between young people and their

support workers. These policies are about balancing

people’s rights to choice with their right to be safe.

Because the NDIS is making lots of changes to

disability support right now, this is a

n important

t ime to think about how young people and their

workers work.

QUICK SUMMARY

What policy says about young people with disability and their support

workers working together

This paper is explains how policy is im

portant in support ing good relationships

between young people with disability and their support workers. It has two

sect ions:

• If you want to get some quick information, you can read just this firs

t page.

• If you want more information, please read the complete summary.

PHOTOS ABOUT WORKING TOGETHER

R E L A T I O N S H I P S A N D R E C O G N I T I O N