To increase the effectiveness of his actions, a person seeks to enter a network of relations that unites the efforts of people and makes them able to act as a single unit. Such a stable, clearly established predictable actor unity is achieved in social groups – regular, self-renewing complexes of solidarity interactions. The diversity of social groups is conditioned, foremost, by the variety of tasks for the solution of which society formed these groups. On this basis, it is possible to distinguish three types of groups:
- social groups, which are formed based on kinship, including racial, ethnic, territorial, kinship groups, and socio-demographic groups;
- status (and professional) groups formed as a result of the social division of labor, institutionalization of social relations (groups that emerged based on similarity of social position, position in society: working class, peasantry, engineering, and technical workers, teaching, officialdom, entrepreneurs);
- target groups (organizations), (groups organized to solve certain problems – economic, research, political, and educational). The purposefulness of the creation of these groups defines, as a rule, the presence of a formalized system of mutual rights and duties of participants of the group, control over the performance, presence of formal structure, division of functions, statuses, and roles of employees of the organization. Interactions in target groups are highly standardized, which increases the reliability of receiving group effects.
Identify the Diverse Group of Focus
The group I will be writing about is people with disabilities, which have existed since the beginning of human development. This social group differs from the others in that people belonging to it cannot be considered fully able-bodied. People with disabilities feel different from others not only because of physical or mental problems but also because of how society treats them. Although many people with disabilities are successfully employed and fully integrated into society, they face poverty and unemployment disproportionately.
This group includes people with congenital or acquired disabilities that interfere with normal social functioning (these disabilities can be either mental or physical). People with disabilities are considered the largest minority in the world. Still, unlike most other minority groups, this group always has an open membership: any of us can become a member at any time due to an accident, illness, or aging.
The main problem is the limited connection of these people with the world, poverty of contact with children and adults, limited communication with nature, and access to cultural values. Sometimes access to elementary education is difficult, as well as the problem of negative attitudes toward some of the people around them and the presence of physical and mental barriers to improving the quality of life.
Therefore, the formation of a tolerant attitude of society toward people with disabilities in recent years is becoming an increasingly acute problem that requires serious attention. It is known that the level of development of a community can be determined by its attitude toward people with disabilities.
Only in the 21st century has the approach to people who, by the will of fate, were born or became disabled changed significantly. Assistance to people with disabilities, which had long been implemented with varying degrees of success, was replaced by progressive ideas of the socio-psychological adaptation of disabled persons by including them in society as full-fledged members. Even though the essence of disability at the level of a declaration was defined by legal, economic, production, and psychological features as early as December 20, 1993, at the 48th session of the UN General Assembly (“Standard rules on the equalization of opportunities for persons with disabilities: basic principles of interaction between society and people with disabilities”, 1993), a serious aspect of this problem is associated with the occurrence of real difficulties of objective and subjective nature that do not allow disabled people to be included in society actively. First, these should consist of social and psychological barriers to integrating people with disabilities into all spheres of social activity. The basis of the social obstacles is issues of state social policy, the content of which is largely focused on and expresses the interests of the “healthy” part of the population. As a result, production, everyday life, culture, leisure, and social services have not been updated to meet the needs of people with disabilities.
Types of Social Work Practices
People with disabilities, like everyone else, need community because humans are social creatures. Children who belong to this group need to spend as much time as possible with their peers to adapt to the culture. To realize this idea, people have developed special educational programs that allow children with disabilities to feel like everyone else. It is worth mentioning that adults are also beginning to gain acceptance in society. In the 21st century, a person with a disability can find a job, even if they can only do one thing. Children with disabilities face many barriers: negative attitudes, inadequate policies, inaccessible environments and transportation, and unequal access to health care, social services, and education (Woodgate, Gonzalez, Demczuk, Snow, Barriage & Kirk, 2020). Nevertheless, humanity still has a long way to go to ensure that people with different types of disabilities do not feel that they are and are an integral part of society.
Education
For decades, special schools for people with disabilities have been criticized as a tool of segregation because the level of education there has often been lower than in mainstream schools. There has been much discussion regarding the advantages and disadvantages of the separate education system and special schools compared to mainstream special education within general education systems. Whatever the outcome of these discussions, young people with disabilities and their families should have the right to choose between special and mainstream schools based on the child’s specific needs. One of the main advantages of inclusive education is that integrating students with and without disabilities in the early years of schooling can help prevent prejudice and promote the overall inclusion of people with disabilities in society.
The term LRE was introduced for children with disabilities to allow them to develop in the community. The least restrictive environment (LRE) is the legal right for students with disabilities to be included and educated with their non-disabled peers. Non-formal education and its active learning can be more inclusive for people with disabilities than the formal education system. Given the limited opportunities within the special education system or social isolation, lack of social, communication, or foreign language skills is more common among people with disabilities than among those who are not. These factors make non-formal education especially important for people with disabilities because it can help them acquire necessary life skills that may not be nurtured in formal education. There is also a need to integrate the dimension of disability into mainstream education courses by including activities that allow participants to make contact with dimensions they may never have encountered before or to encourage the participation of young people with disabilities in mainstream education courses.
Employment
Ensuring decent work for all, including people with disabilities, is a significant human challenge at this stage. “People with disabilities are overcoming barriers, striving to work, and often successfully overcoming obstacles in their paths” (Sundar, O’Neill, Houtenville, Phillips, Keirns, Smith, & Katz, 2018, p. 95). I believe people with disabilities should be allowed to work where they want and be paid the same as other employees.
Many organizations are working to improve the skills and employment of people with disabilities on the principles of equal opportunity of equal treatment with an emphasis on vocational rehabilitation and employment services programs. Much attention is given to the direction of non-discrimination, as the issue of disability has come to be seen as a human rights issue. “An analysis of data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that people with disabilities can perform a large share of new jobs over the next ten years” (Sundar et al., 2018). Organizations contribute to this goal by promoting international labor standards, advocating for and building knowledge about vocational training and employment for people with disabilities, and technical cooperation.
Conclusion
In thinking about this category of people, I realized that many of my assertions were wrong. People with disabilities have the same rights as other people. They have the right to work, study, develop, to be in society. My previous assumption about this group of people was that people with disabilities are better off going to special schools because there are people like them. I was wrong since any person’s social participation is one of the main developmental factors.
At the moment, many people face disabilities at different ages, and no one is immune from this. Everyone can face this problem, so it is necessary to show respect to such people. Human rights are meaningless if a person is isolated or segregated from the society that surrounds them. Therefore, it is included in the community, a precondition for everyone to enjoy their rights. However, people with disabilities have long been removed from society and forced to live in isolation, in huge social institutions, or in the back rooms of their family’s homes.
States must reconsider the very nature and purpose of services provided to persons with disabilities so that persons with disabilities themselves can lead the kind of life they prefer. The goal here must be to ensure that services are provided individually, with as much choice and control as possible on the part of the users of support services. At the same time, services should not be bundled into a single complex, which excludes the choice of individual components, and they should not be imposed on consumers for want of a better one. On the contrary, persons with disabilities must be able to purchase these services themselves as much as possible and have access to housing in the regular housing market. The level of support below which a person’s dignity and ability to be included in the community is compromised must also be determined. Anyone should be able to pursue their right to this level of support.
References
Bolourian, Y., Tipton-Fisler, L.A. & Yassine, J. (2020). Special education placement trends: least restrictive environment across five years in California. Contemp School Psychol 24, 164–173.
Sundar, V., O’Neill, J., Houtenville, A. J., Phillips, K. G., Keirns, T., Smith, A., & Katz, E. E. (2018). Striving to work and overcoming barriers: Employment strategies and successes of people with disabilities. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, 48(1), 93-109.
Woodgate, R. L., Gonzalez, M., Demczuk, L., Snow, W. M., Barriage, S., & Kirk, S. (2020). How do peers promote social inclusion of children with disabilities? A mixed-methods systematic review. Disability and Rehabilitation, 42(18), 2553-2579.