Social participation and citizenship are at the forefront of care and support for disabled persons in France. The terms, however, are not clearly defined and as such don’t provide professional caregivers with useful guidelines. This paper explores an approach to the care and support of persons with intellectual disabilities in France based on the Capability approach and social and narrative identity.
Care and support for persons with intellectual disabilities has traditionally been structured around sheltered environments. Social inclusion represents a paradigm shift for most professional care-givers who have neither the models nor the experience to implement it. This paper proposes an approach to participation based on social identities, crucial to successful social inclusion.
Linking the capability approach to social identity makes the aim of care and support to help the disabled person identify and develop the social identities they require to lead the life they have reasons to value. An “anticipated” narrative identity serves to identify these social identities and the conditions required for successful alternation provide the bases for their construction. It also serves to extend the range of occupations the person can aspire to, beyond those traditionally “reserved” for persons with intellectual disabilities.
Professional care-givers thus have the opportunity of becoming de facto change agents and facilitating the transition between sheltered environments and social and professional inclusion. It lets them give a voice to those that have been traditionally denied it and the possibility to extend that voice to other dimensions of their lives. However, this transition is not easy as the paradigm shift towards social inclusion impacts care-givers as well, who need to rethink their roles within this new framework, develop new professional practises and manage the uncertainty that such situations entail.
However, succeeding in the above would contribute to making persons with intellectual disabilities fully-fledged citizens.
