Named social workers ?:Better social work for learning disabled people?

In 2016, the Department of Health in England announced that it would pilot the role of a Named Social Worker, building on the current body of knowledge about the role of social work in improving the quality of life of learning disabled people. We have chosen to be a part of the pilot as we regularly witness too many people’s lives being defined by restrictions imposed by professionals. Erroneous associations between the concepts of risk and danger have become the norm in how learning disabled people’s decision making is perceived and managed. However, we believe social workers educated in the social model of disability and grounded more generally in disability studies offer an alternative perspective. The pilot is an opportunity to test our hypothesis that social work practice rooted in social model thinking can successfully challenge oppressive practice and disabling barriers, thus providing the opportunity for social workers to genuinely be ‘servants not masters’ in the lives of disabled people