PSYCHOLOGISTS FOR SOCIAL CHANGE
  • Home
  • About
  • Groups
    • England >
      • North East >
        • Sheffield
        • Leeds
      • North West >
        • North East
        • A North West Just Recovery following coronavirus
        • Manchester- PSPO letter
      • Midlands >
        • Midlands
        • Leicester
      • South East >
        • East Anglia
        • Hertfordshire
        • London
        • Oxford
        • Suffolk
        • Surrey
        • Sussex
      • South West >
        • Bristol and Bath
        • South West
    • Ireland
    • Northern Ireland
    • Jersey
    • Scotland
    • Wales - Cymru >
      • Elections 2021
      • Building Resilience and Community Wellbeing
      • Social and Political Causes of Poor Mental Health
      • Responding to Austerity and Mental Health in Wales - Accessible Document
    • Start a New Group
  • Blog
  • Position statements
    • UK >
      • Response to Panorama: Undercover Hospital Abuse Scandal
      • Esther McVey: PSC and RITB response
    • Cymru / Wales >
      • Connecting the Dots Report
      • Chemical Imbalance Myth
      • Review of use of dx PD
      • UK Inhumane Removal Plans
      • WG LGBT+actionplan
      • Ty Coryton
      • Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities: The Report
      • ECT Review
      • Black Lives Matter
      • COVID 19 and Internet Access
      • Save the T4CYP Programme
      • Support the Mind over matter Report
      • UN Report on Extreme Poverty in the UK Letter
    • England >
      • Psychologists for Social Change support the moratorium on school exclusions in England
      • Racism is Not Entertainment
      • Letter to Jeremy Hunt
      • UK Government Green Paper, Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision
      • Exam Crisis
    • Ireland >
      • End Direct Provision
    • Northern Ireland
    • Scotland
  • Campaigns
    • Structural racism demands a structural response
    • Embed anti-racism in the NHS
    • COVID-19 >
      • Mutual Aid
      • COVID and mental health
    • PSC Manifesto 2019
    • Visioning a new education system
    • New Savoy Conference Statement
    • Formulating Policy >
      • Origins of Happiness? PSC response
      • Basic Income: Psychological Impact Assessment
    • Preaching to the Non-Converted
    • Psychologists Against Austerity >
      • Austerity Briefing Paper
      • Everyday Austerity
    • Private Health Watch
  • Join our mailing list

Blog

PSC response to abuse of people with learning difficulties uncovered by BBC Panorama

28/5/2019

0 Comments

 
How do we move beyond platitudes and empty words in our response as a society to the systematic and widespread abuse of people with learning difficulties?
Picture
​The BBC Panorama programme ‘Undercover Hospital Abuse Scandal’ shown on 22.05.19 shows devastating treatment of people with learning difficulties and a lack of respect for their human rights. The Position Statement below is PSC's response.
​

The issues documented in the programme in long-stay hospitals are recurring and therefore cannot only be attributed to an individual failure of care by a specific group of staff in a particular institution. They must be seen as reflecting a range of failures of health, education and social services throughout the lifespan of the person who needs support. Of course, those involved need to be held accountable for the horrific nature of their actions in accordance with the law. However, there is a pattern to the continued abuse of people with learning difficulties (*please scroll down for a discussion on language)  that silences, marginalises and excludes them from vast sections of society and makes abuse more likely.

More children are being admitted to long-stay hospitals. This increase coincides with the government’s austerity agenda, where there has been a reduction of funding in real terms for social care and education. This equates to cuts in services, with families being unable to access respite support such as short breaks or community activities which meet the needs of children and young people with learning difficulties or autism. In the education system, the focus on a narrow range of academic educational outcomes, alongside less money, has led to a curriculum environment that cannot tolerate diversity in children’s approaches to learning, and staff who do not have the training and support to make sense of the behaviour of children whose needs may be harder to understand. Children with learning difficulties are being off-rolled or excluded if they cannot meet the behavioural expectations of the classroom. Such actions do not always lead to the child being able to access a more suitable placement.

Read More
0 Comments

    Author

    PSC is a network of people interested in applying psychology to generate social and political action. You don't have to be a member of PSC to contribute to the blog

    Archives

    February 2022
    November 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    November 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018

    Categories

    All
    Abuse
    Behaviour Change
    Children And Young People
    Climate Change
    Crime
    Education
    Election
    Families
    From The Archives
    Housekeeping
    How We Got Started
    Loneliness
    Mental Health
    New Economy
    NHS
    Physical Health
    Policy
    Poverty
    Privatisation
    PSC
    Psychologically Healthy
    Public Health
    Socioeconomic Factors Of Distress
    Stigma
    World Mental Health Day

    RSS Feed


Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • About
  • Groups
    • England >
      • North East >
        • Sheffield
        • Leeds
      • North West >
        • North East
        • A North West Just Recovery following coronavirus
        • Manchester- PSPO letter
      • Midlands >
        • Midlands
        • Leicester
      • South East >
        • East Anglia
        • Hertfordshire
        • London
        • Oxford
        • Suffolk
        • Surrey
        • Sussex
      • South West >
        • Bristol and Bath
        • South West
    • Ireland
    • Northern Ireland
    • Jersey
    • Scotland
    • Wales - Cymru >
      • Elections 2021
      • Building Resilience and Community Wellbeing
      • Social and Political Causes of Poor Mental Health
      • Responding to Austerity and Mental Health in Wales - Accessible Document
    • Start a New Group
  • Blog
  • Position statements
    • UK >
      • Response to Panorama: Undercover Hospital Abuse Scandal
      • Esther McVey: PSC and RITB response
    • Cymru / Wales >
      • Connecting the Dots Report
      • Chemical Imbalance Myth
      • Review of use of dx PD
      • UK Inhumane Removal Plans
      • WG LGBT+actionplan
      • Ty Coryton
      • Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities: The Report
      • ECT Review
      • Black Lives Matter
      • COVID 19 and Internet Access
      • Save the T4CYP Programme
      • Support the Mind over matter Report
      • UN Report on Extreme Poverty in the UK Letter
    • England >
      • Psychologists for Social Change support the moratorium on school exclusions in England
      • Racism is Not Entertainment
      • Letter to Jeremy Hunt
      • UK Government Green Paper, Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision
      • Exam Crisis
    • Ireland >
      • End Direct Provision
    • Northern Ireland
    • Scotland
  • Campaigns
    • Structural racism demands a structural response
    • Embed anti-racism in the NHS
    • COVID-19 >
      • Mutual Aid
      • COVID and mental health
    • PSC Manifesto 2019
    • Visioning a new education system
    • New Savoy Conference Statement
    • Formulating Policy >
      • Origins of Happiness? PSC response
      • Basic Income: Psychological Impact Assessment
    • Preaching to the Non-Converted
    • Psychologists Against Austerity >
      • Austerity Briefing Paper
      • Everyday Austerity
    • Private Health Watch
  • Join our mailing list