Happiness and empowerment as key concepts, as a philosophy and work model centered on the disabled person
They say money doesn't buy happiness but it helps. This maxim can also be applied to being able to choose, being able to choose what we do does not give happiness but it helps. Making mistakes in our choices does not bring happiness, but it is a learning process that will condition our future decision-making and, therefore, build us as people. Being the protagonists of our lives, self-management, having the possibility to choose the paths we want to travel empowers us. Empowerment is choosing and choosing is also choosing happiness.
It is this first reflection that allows us to develop the rest of the article. Happiness and empowerment as key concepts, as a philosophy and work model centered on the person.
The Aspace Catalunya Foundation has a long history experience -over 60 years- in highly specialized comprehensive care for adults with developmental disorders, cerebral palsy and significant support needs. Occupational Therapy Centers, where the Quality of Life model of Schalock, R and Verdugo, MA (2003) is implemented, are a necessary alternative in the field of social services. People who have finished their school stage, and who cannot join other types of training studies or the ordinary or protected work system, are its potential users.
According to this model, els Aspace day care centers, base their work on different axes, focusing on maturing aspects of the person, on their physical and emotional well-being, on occupational and social participation, on rehabilitative activities, therapeutic occupation activities and social and personal adjustment activities. Now, and this is a non-negotiable aspect of our model, always based on the demands and concerns of the users. The entire Aspace team of professionals will work to promote this autonomy, in a dynamic and flexible process, adapted to the different cognitive levels and degrees of affect of each one.
Our goal as professionals is to empower the user and guarantee their bio-psycho-social and cultural well-being (as key development dimensions). As a multidisciplinary team, we approach the intervention by putting the user, their "I", at the center of everything.
Professionals must know how to combine different concepts based on the commitment to carry out the best actions towards Person Centered Planning -PCP-, thus encouraging the results to be as expected. In this sense, Technique, Ethics and Empathy are indivisible concepts. On the one hand, effective and efficient actions, on the other, valuable actions, values and the ability to put ourselves in the place of the other.
In practice, we try to conjugate the five essential principles according to O'Brien:
- presence i Participation community,
- Improvement of competitions of people
- offer a range ofelections
- to respect people's decisions
And how do we do it? Through specific actions, such as assemblies, tutorials, individualized attention and self-management activities. Incorporating initiatives aimed at inclusion and access to opportunities with the necessary supports. Escaping, as professionals, the role of expert that imposes a criterion.
We are tasked with ensuring compliance with the principle of autonomy, which states the following: "People have the right to decide and realize freely our conception of the good, and our life projects. Those who relate to us have the duty to respect this, take this into account and enhance the capacity for autonomy".
If we guarantee this right to adult users of the Aspace Catalunya Foundation, we are contributing to their empowerment. This empowerment is, among other things, choosing. And as we said at the beginning of this article, choosing is also choosing happiness.
Bibliography:
- Mark O'Brien – Essay on life Independent "Co-Evolution Quarterly"
- Schalok and Verdugo (2000/2003) Quality of Life Model "Concept that reflects the living conditions desired by a person, relating to the 8 trunk dimensions of his life: Emotional well-being, Interpersonal relationships, Material well-being, Personal development, Physical well-being, Self-determination and Social Inclusion and Rights"
- Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Antecedents and their New Approaches, 16 of the United Nations, 16 International Law, Revista Colombiana de Derecho Internacional, 347-380 (2010)
