Staff training and challenging behaviour: an analysis of social relations in services to people within intellectual disabilities

Timms, Kenneth Philip (2016). Staff training and challenging behaviour: an analysis of social relations in services to people within intellectual disabilities. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

This treatise is an extended case study in the failure of applied psychologists to encourage care- workers in services to people with intellectual disabilities in the United Kingdom to use well- established, evidence-based behavioural approaches to reduce the behavioural challenges presented to services. Even when extensively taught and coached, they were rarely applied by care-workers in their everyday work, and had little or no impact on service practices. This failure had been attributed to care-workers being unwilling and unable to use these methods.
An Institutional Ethnography discovered that 'challenging behaviour' is a phenomenon nested within a complex of relationships involving private and statutory service providers, service users, and commissioners. A range of ruling texts were in use, some coordinated, some apparently used competitively. The main coordinating ruling relations were the statutory obligations placed on local authorities, despite the presentation of other discourses promoting a person-centred, human-rights focused agenda. The role of applied psychology in these ruling relations is explicated using research literatures, field-work vignettes, and auto-biographical reports of professional practice.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

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