ELPIDA Course - English

The process of detachment can also be understood as a process of “rebuilding relationships” among all participants.

When the child grows up the relation between one person looking up and one person looking down can slowly change into a relationship on an equal level between two adult persons. Contact between them will be on a voluntary basis and life is possible independently from each other. [18]

We can have more or less intensive contact to children moving out, and we can do the same with children with disabilities. Common activities, invitations for dinner, telephone conversations will keep up the bond with your child. There are many possibilities to have an ongoing family life with lower intensity. [19]

Pedagogical experts can offer close and important social support, a so-called resource during this reconstruction and detachment process.

When reconstructing relationships and transition it is important that living environment / and “systems” – (e.g. family and home) are connected to each other.

This means that experiences and behavioural structures that a person has learned in one system can be applied in other one. Furthermore, it is important that the person can see themselves as designers of different systems and can have impact. [20]

In order to give away your child into other hands, you need confidence in the people who will accompany the child. During the phase of confidence building it is important to give time to yourself and to others. [21]

It is helpful to consider the complex process of “detachment and arrival” especially when the child moves out. In this process participants have different interests and needs. The parents as “experts” on their child, the person with disability moving out as “expert” on his own needs and the staff as “experts” on methods and concepts. If different perspectives and working methods are well-known, they can be accepted and mutually supported. “Old” and “new” living environments can be harmonised on this basis.

Collaboration between parents and the circle of supporters is an important factor. Conflicts often occur if there is a non-acceptance of the respective competences. „(…) The parents often [feel] misunderstood and [see themselves] hindering the development of their children, and on the other hand professionals have the impression they can never be good enough for the parents." [22]

How can an active relationship design between the parents and supporters look like?

Considering the following can lead to a successful, fair and equal cooperation: [23]

• Be open in the cooperation, and then you can understand different positions.

• Plan time for a conversation. “Conversations and contacts should not only happen when there is an ‘issue’ but be understood as maintaining contact and a confidence building measure in working together". [24]

• Think about if and to what extent you want to actively collaborate with an institution.

• Ask for explanations of terms if too much expert language is used during the conversation.

• Avoid rivalry, it harms your child.

PWID are - depending on the grade of their need for support - dependent on special assistance and support throughout their lives. They live in a “tri-polar relationship net” in the triangle of dependence from professional and private contact persons. [26]

Difficulties can arise from education experts taking over parental tasks. Both feel responsible for the same tasks, e. g. for clothing, self-supply and future planning. Tasks overlap.

Besides all “overlaps”, it is important that both sides recognise that they have different competences and strengths that are very important for the children.

“Cooperation doesn’t only mean a good collaboration, harmony and communication, but also sharing responsibilities. Neither family nor education experts can exclusively give people everything they need".

There is a need for an agreement on division of work.

What does it mean?

• Parents are and remain parents. Their strength and their significance for their child consist of their reliability as relational person. They don’t change like the educational staff. They often give emotional support and they simply are there. Parents may favour their child and they may be the most important person for them and they can show this to them”. [27]

• Professional assistants can never offer this. They can never promise to have a reliable permanent relationship. (…) Experts have other strengths: They can support and demand, they can open up new worlds and abilities, they can trust more and require more. They can be much more consequent than parents, demand social behaviour and address people as adults”.

A successful collaboration between family and institution should be based on the following according to Klauss :

• Recognise the same targets in well-being, autonomy in everyday life, satisfying social relationships, interesting daily structure.

• Recognise the difference in tasks.

• Agreed division of work: concentrate on own strengths and implement them.

• In order to avoid conflicts, family and staff have the task to clear and manage the relation among themselves.

• When defining the division of work, it has to be specified which task should be done in the same way by both parties and what not. There may be differences. It will be possible to use different words for the same things as everybody, depending on their role, behaves differently. It may be helpful to make transition between worlds visible for example by changing the clothes when going home.

• For children living in a residential home, the division of work can provide enormous opportunities. If it is clear what rules must be obeyed at home and in the residential home, differences should not be difficult to manage. The child will be allowed to have different living worlds just like everybody behaving differently depending on their role.

• It may be helpful to make the changes of worlds visible. For example, to change the clothes when going home. Rituals like this create orientation.

And finally...

...an alternative conception of personhood (Eva Feder Kittay 2002):

"In a recent essay. I contrast the lives of those shattered by inappropriate institutions and social neglect with that of Sesha. I evoke a morning in my kitchen when Sesha, accompanied by her caregiver, is having breakfast, and I sneak in to give her a kiss:

Sesha, as always, is delighted to see me. Anxious to give me one of her distinctive kisses she tries to grab my hair to pull me to her mouth. Yet, at the same time my kisses tickle her and make her giggle too hard to concentrate on dropping the jam-covered toast before going after my hair. I can recall the sticky toast, the hair-pulling and the raspberry jam-covered mouth. In this charming dance, Sesha and I experience some of our most joyful moments - laughing, ducking, grabbing, kissing."