Devoted protection
How parents of children with severe learning disabilities manage risks
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20511429 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Kate Oulton (0000-0002-5778-3849, Great Ormond Street Hospital, corresponding author), Bob Heyman (University of Huddersfield) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 303-319 |
| Publication date | 2009-08-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Health Risk & Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1369-8575 • E-ISSN: 1469-8331 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/13698570903013631 |
| OpenAlex | W2101125452 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 10 |
| References cited | 22 |
This paper aims to explore the risk perceptions of parents caring for children who have severe learning disabilities and complex medical needs. The paper draws upon a qualitative study involving 20 parents, mostly mothers. The findings document the demanding care requirements which these parents had to meet. Parents viewed their role in terms of devoted vocation rather than meeting a burdensome obligation. This dedication interacted with heightened risk consciousness to fuel a sense of undelimited responsibility. Parents tended not to place sectoral or temporal boundaries around their responsibility for the care of their child. Their approach was mediated by a prevailing but not universal mistrust of the caring capabilities of others. Although parents sometimes temporarily transferred caring duties to others, they usually retained a sense of anxious responsibility for such care, supervising or auditing the activities of other carers rather than delegating risk ownership. Trust was conferred on others only when they had demonstrated a good record of accomplishment of care for the child, and were seen to have acquired detailed idiographic understanding of their individual complex needs. The findings can be understood in relation to a broader societal context of individualisation of responsibility
Audit · Business · Developmental psychology · Nomothetic and idiographic · Obligation · Perception · Political science · Public relations · Trustworthiness · Disability Rights and Representation · Family and Disability Support Research · Family Support in Illness · Law · Psychology · Social Psychology
Assessing and managing risk with people with physical disabilities
Australian mothers’ notions of risk and uncertainty in relation to their pre-teen children
‘The sooner you can change their life course the better’
Why Can’t I Play?”
Designing Policy to Serve Children With Special Medical Needs in Child Welfare
Transforming positive risk-taking practices
Parents’ perspectives on managing risk in play for children with developmental disabilities
Uncertainty in the school playground
Risk and long-term conditions
Living with Autistic Spectrum Disorders
Risk Society
Purity and Danger
Organized Uncertainty
Maltreatment and disabilities
‘You can't wrap them up in cotton wool!’ Constructing risk in young people's access to outdoor play
Beyond the Risk Society
Environmental Risks and the Media
Risk Society
Powers of Freedom
Welfare agencies and risk
Children, parents and risk
Risk and Technological Culture
| Citations per year | 0.59 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2009 - 2021 (13) |
| Highly cited | No |