I am a community support worker who supports people with intellectual disabilities to live full lives with dignity in the community. This is a role that can trace its heritage to the 1980s when large institutions in BC closed in favour of community group homes. Current scholarship suggests that the requisite full lives promised at the time the institutions closed have not materialized in the years since. Further, this scholarship suggests that it is the community support worker who has failed to deliver on important social goals. As a worker I can attest that I do at times feel unsettled in my work, like my mere presence is problematic, as if I fail by showing up. Based on the premise that I can learn about the worker of present by looking at how she was first imagined, in this genealogical study I explore how the community support worker of the 1980s was produced in archival documents of groups involved in the development of community group homes after the closure of Woodlands in New Westminster, BC. My findings suggest that the community support worker role served many interests, and that her purpose was not solely trained to the social needs of the people she supported. A confluence of economic rationalities, family concerns, and regulatory demands shaped her as an invisible domestic idealized as a temporary solution to a problem that was expected to dissipate through the increased independence of people with disabilities, and the participation of a welcoming community that steps up to help when needed. The ongoing presence of the worker calls into question her original mandate. / Graduate / 0630 / 0452 / pcambiazo@telus.net

Aims: The UK policy documents ‘Valuing people’ (DOH, 2001) and ‘Valuing people now’ (DOH, 2009) presaged a new direction in learning disability services: towards a human-rights model of care with the underlying principles of rights, choice, inclusion, freedom and independence. However, despite such legislative changes, a recent review (DOH, 2008a) candidly described that people with learning disabilities have greater need for healthcare than other people, yet have worse access to the care that they actually need and poorer health outcomes. Whilst some research has explored this from the perspective of people with learning disability (Jones & Donati, 2009; Jones & Parry, 2008) there is significantly less from the perspective of support workers. This research seeks to examine the emotional and psychological experience of support workers in learning disability services. Although research has explored the experience of support workers from the perspectives of ‘stress’ and ‘burnout’, there is a dearth of research in areas such as emotions, sense-making, their constructing of systems, relationships and their underlying motivations. Method: Semi-structured interviews were carried out with seven support workers from three learning disability care homes. Verbatim transcripts of interviews were then analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Results: The analysis produced two superordinate themes, both with two main themes. The superordinate theme ‘Emotional Motivation’ had the main themes ‘Personal Fulfilment and motivation’ and ‘The Emotional Struggle’. The superordinate theme ‘Demands and Coping’ had the main themes ‘Safety and Conflict within Coping’ and ‘Persecution and Protective Positions’. Implications: This research suggests that the support worker role may evoke strong feelings of pleasure but also powerlessness, blame, deficit, injustice, responsibility and anger. Support workers seem to manage these emotions in various ways: such as compensating by striving to be the ‘ideal’ carer, protecting themselves by avoiding and not elaborating on difficulties, and also projecting their difficulties onto others. Problematically, this may reinforce a work culture in which no individual actually takes responsibility for the ongoing difficulties, conflict and struggles. Thus, political and legislative changes may be negated or ineffective unless addressed within the context of this dynamic; namely, the value, emotional and meaning systems within services, i.e. the nature of the relationship between the support worker and resident. Indeed, paid staff are often the only meaningful relationship that people with learning disability have in their lives. Such findings are discussed in light of existing theory, research and practice.

In home support is now being provided to not only people with disabilities but also to those who are ageing or have a psychological impairment. It is preferred by both government and support recipients as a viable alternative to the more costly and disruptive institutional support. This study looks at the various parties that are involved in managing the boundaries when providing support in unconventional workplaces; workplaces that are also homes; homes that are controlled and managed by the person receiving the support, not the person supervising the worker. The distance the home is from the organisation, the place from which the employee is supervised becomes a physical boundary. Boundaries are also psychological; a home is a space that forms a safe refuge from the world, a home is comforting and secure; a space that contains precious possessions. The workers are working within someone's intimate space. This creates difficulties for both the workers and their supervisors. The study takes a psychodynamic approach. What is happening at an unconscious level influences the behaviour of the various parties and can change and distort the desired outcomes for the client. The material for the study was gathered from interviews, Murray's Thematic Apperception Techniques (TAT) (Teglasi 2001) style exercises and drawings from eight clients, five coordinators and five support workers. Two workplaces were observed and seven case studies collected. A survey of 389 support workers was conducted and analysed. The results highlight the preoccupation of organisations and through them service coordinators, with controlling risk in the workplace. This puts them at odds with clients who feel they have control over their own homes. Both clients and coordinators vigorously defend what they see as their territory. The coordinators are left feeling envious of the support workers who have a close relationship with their clients, a relationship about which, they as former support workers have personal knowledge. The support worker's role is to support. They are only able to do this by defending and smothering their own emotional responses through a veil of niceness. They are unable to express many of their own feelings, which might not only be regarded as shameful but also condemned by their employer. Most staff, both support workers and coordinators lack the skills to manage and understand their own emotional responses. Although there is no easy answer to the dilemma raised within this context. I hope by identifying what is happening organisations might be able to at least understand the origins of individual carers', clients' and coordinators' behaviours and take steps to provide a safe container in which these feelings can be explored and discussed. The in-home care industry has difficulty in recruiting and retaining staff. Organisations therefore need to invest in supporting staff who work in these situations.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att utforska vad rollen som resurspedagog i en inkluderande förskoleverksamhet innebär. Denna roll ser olika ut beroende på vilket behov av särskilt stöd barnet i fråga är i. Därför utgår uppsatsen från författarens roll i sitt dagliga arbete med Molly, ett barn med diagnos inom autismspektrumet. Essän börjar med två självupplevda berättelser där resurspedagogen hamnar i situationer där agerandet inte är självklart. Utifrån dessa berättelser följer en reflektion över varför resurspedagogen agerade som den gjorde, vilka alternativ till agerande var möjliga och vad de olika scenarierna hade kunnat betyda för Molly. Frågeställningarna som besvaras i essän är först vad inkludering innebär och vad det har inneburit för Molly och hennes resurspedagog. Därefter besvaras frågan om hurresurspedagogens roll i en inkluderande verksamhet kan se ut och vilka krav som kommer med rollen. Slutligen besvaras frågan om vilka pedagogiska utmaningar som kan uppstå för en resurspedagog till ett barn med diagnos inom autismspektrumet i en inkluderande verksamhet. Uppsatsen är skriven i vetenskaplig essäform vilket betyder att reflektioner över resurspedagogens egen erfarenhet blandas med en diskussion av vetenskaplig litteratur. Reflektionsdelen inleds med en redogörelse för diagnosen autism och vad den praktiskt innebär för rollen som resurspedagog. Detta för att samarbetet med habiliteringen och den föreskrivna träningen utgör sådan stor del av rollen. Därefter fortsätter texten med att besvara ovan nämnda frågeställningar.

Housing support is a service offered by municipalities in Sweden which aim to help people with psychiatric and/or neuropsychiatric disabilities to manage their daily lives, often in their own home. Housing support workers therefore have an important role in supporting people with psychiatric and/or neuropsychiatric disabilities. In certain municipalities in Sweden, housing support with a family-oriented approach has been implemented to help parents with parenthood and to structure their everyday lives with the family as a whole. This study aims to examine the possibilities and challenges that housing support workers face in their work with parents and families receiving family-oriented housing support. A further aim with this study is to understand the conditions that are created during interaction and in relations between the housing support workers and the parents, utilizing an analytical framework derived from concepts within the theory of social responsiveness. The method used in this study is based on semi-structured qualitative interviews with housing support workers working with a family-oriented approach. The empirical data has been analyzed through a thematic analysis, resulting in three main themes to present the result and analysis. The findings of this study show that there are both possibilities and challenges with their work taking place in the family's home environment, such as being where the everyday problems are being manifested, but also handling other family members. Results also show that housing support workers within a family-oriented approach deal with a bigger network as they have to manage the family as a whole. Other challenges were about keeping boundaries between their professional role and being seen as a friend or family member. The main result of this study is that social interaction and relation between the housing support worker and the parent that receives housing support is substantial and inevitable.

The factors associated with employees' work related attitudes and cognitions were examined. A sample of employees from Community Living Trust (CLT), an organisation within the disability support worker industry, completed a questionnaire that included several measures: supervisor and colleague support, role conflict, role ambiguity and role overload, time-based, strain-based and behaviour-based work-to-family/family-to-work conflict, organisational commitment, job satisfaction and turnover intentions. The purpose of this study was to explore the extent to which supervisor and colleague support contributed to a reduction in role conflict, role ambiguity and role overload. In addition, the relationship between support and work-to-family/family-to-work conflict were also explored. Finally, the organisational outcomes, in particular organisational commitment, job satisfaction and turnover intentions, were examined. It was found that supervisor and colleague support did, in some cases, moderated the relationship between role stressors, conflict and job satisfaction / organisational commitment. It was also found that job satisfaction and affective commitment mediated the relationship between the role stressors, WF strain-based conflict and turnover intentions. The major implications from this research are that human resource initiatives should be developed that aims to identify the support needs employees may have, in order to increase levels of job satisfaction and organisational commitment and decrease levels of turnover intentions. The final chapter of this research explored the practical implications to the organisation, employees and the need for future research.

Due to declining employment in the last few years, employee motivation has become a very real issue in social services. The subject of the diploma's thesis is the analysis of the motivation of workers in social services (personal support workers) in three organizations providing community living for disabled people in the Karlovy Vary region. The theoretical portion of the thesis contains information about motivation, some theories of work motivation and selected theories of human resource management regarding work motivation, plus a section on social services about community living for disabled people and the role of the manager in social services. Within the empirical part of the thesis two goals are met through the methods of mixed research. One goal is to analyze the motivation of workers in social services, which resolved using a questionnaire survey. That research identified factors causing employee satisfaction and factors that motivate employees. The second goal of the thesis is met in form of structured interview to determine how managers in the researched organisations motivated employees. The result of both methods were analyzed and compared. Lastly, recommendations for increasing employee motivation were handed to the participating organizations in the research. The main result of the...

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