Disability and consent let's keep the conversation going.
This video I can see
I recorded a while back but it is still very relevant today as we do and don’t
talk about consent in disability. Some
people will never be capable of having a romantic relationship or being able to
hold down a normal job. But we don’t
talk about it as we don’t think it’s a needed conversation to have in some case
but in some it’s very needed so this is going to go into where we need to be having
conversations around consent and relationships, in disability as there if a
person receives care is going to be conversations that they need to have that
are difficult and challenging, and consent is one of them, and understanding
consent for able bodied and neurotypical people I have had conversations with
them and it’s tricky for them so we need to respect that for a person with a intellectual
disability or a neurodiversity this could be tricker and they want to respect
it but may not have the impulse control to be able to control what they are doing.
But others can and this is the demographic I see that does
need this education as we are now having a wider discussion as a society around
consent and what that means. I also see
that it is a very complex topic when we are talking about it in general, take
the media for example, we are seeing intimacy coordinators and sensitivity
readers becoming more common in the art’ s world to protect actors and crew post me
to I also need to point out a difficult
fact here that when we are talking about consent that women can be abusers too,
so having intimacy coordinators and sensitivity readers is a good thing.
Sensitivity readers are people who read scripts that feature
people with a disability and make sure
it is accurate and doesn’t use tropes or is offensive to people with disabilities
if the role due to the filming or staging of it is demanding and you need to be
able to handle the fatigue, that the pace would bring.
But let’s get back to basics and what is consent, very
simply put, it’s gaining permission to touch or use something that someone else
has is this a very simplistic version as then in disability and medical terms, we then have
informed consent, implied consent, and active consent. We also see some things that for safety are enforced
without question but choice and control are given to the best extent that they
can be.
So for things where it’s in the best interest to enforce it it’s
things like hygiene so regularly taking a shower or bath, giving control over clothing,
asking what they want for lunches but giving limited options.
The other really important one is touch so if you are
showering some one asking permission and if they have to acknowledging that it could
hurt and they are scared and doing it with dignity and respect.
The other one is letting people know and re enforcing what
consent looks like so a support worker can model this by asking permission to
come into a bedroom or to look in fridges or to enter what a person considers
to be there area’s.
But consent in relationship is around touch and intimacy is difficult
to deconstrut and it’s a very personal thing to talk about but there are some
really good books that can help as well, I have put some articles and links in
the foot notes for these books as well.
But a person may simply
not understand what good touch is and how to keep ones hands to themselves or
might be tempted by things that aren’t theirs.
The over all thing is teaching people to understand the consequences
of there actions, using something that isn’t yours might make people cranky, touching
someone might make them angry., a person who is touch avoidant might physically
defend themselves.
So this might be things like food refusal or drinking too
much caffeine, that could keep a person up at night, ( like it did for me).
But this doesn’t answer the very basic question of how to know
about consent and navigate safety issues or common sharing issues. So the simplest
answer is seeing what a person understands, Do Do they understand good touch
and bad touch, do they understand boundaries, do they understand the basics of
relationships ( even if they do have difficulties)? This is where it gets
complicated and tricky for both providers and support workers as we are seeing
massive changes around the NDIS with restrictive
practices, but sometimes it’s for the best.
It's things like sharing personal information on the internet
t do they understand the safety risks, if they have intimate relationships do
they understand their responsibility not to harm a person or to emotionally
take advantage of them or even take financial advantage of them due to having
to live on a budget.
One significant one for me is learning the very delicate balance
of talking about my life and protecting those that are in it, and I haven’t done
a great job of this, this year. But that is one thing I am working on.
The other issue is around gossip and this goes both ways so
we don’t want a support worker gossiping about a client or even posting details
of that person on the internet in places like Reddit, to see if a client is taking advantage of an
independent support worker and in this case the comment section was wild.
So lets start that conversation about disability and consent
as its one we need to have to protect support workers agencies and people with
a disability,
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