Background Social Workers in The Intellectual Disability

Running head: HEALTHCARE
Healthcare
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1. Background
Social workers in the intellectual disability (ID) has generated during the past few
decades. With this evolution, new challenges associated with field of social work have
evolved. The domain of ID in social work is complex and is regarded out of the realm
towards the common practice in healthcare. Taking into the complexcity of the situation and
the uniqueness of service in this domain of social work, the social care workers experience a
lot of challenges (Carr et al. 2016).
ID is defined as a mental condition that gives rise to poor cognitive skills and this
categorised by a significant reduction in critical reasoning, problem solving, learning and
adaptive behaviour. ID is a type o developmental disability and mainly appears before 22
years of age. Other categories of developmental disabilities include autism, cerebral palsy,
Down syndrome, brain injury and behavioural disorder (Thompson 2016). The social care in
ID is regarded as special care and is focused on the complex healthcare needs of this
population. Thus the social care worker requires a complex range of specified skills in order
to meet the needs of this population. The unmet needs of the population with ID include
health needs, societal needs, behavioural and advocacy needs. Understanding these varying
needs of the people with intellectual disability is difficult for a social care worker. The
inability of the ID population to express their thought process further creates a problem for
the social care worker and designing person-centred plan (Thompson 2016).
Apart from the inability of expressing their thoughts process, the individuals with ID
have other multifaceted healthcare complications that require a team of skilled social care
worker and nursing professionals for ensuring a comprehensive care and making appropriate

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referrals (Bowring et al. 2017). However, lack of proper co-ordination among the nursing
professionals and the social care workers create a gap in delivering comprehensive care
process. The people with ID are prone to suffer from chronic health condition like
dehydration, allergies, gastro-oesophageal reflux disease, diabetes, sleep disturbances, mental
complications, thyroid disorders, and vision and hearing impairments (Bowring et al. 2017).
However, ID population fail to receive proper healthcare service as they are unable to express
their thoughts and pain. Individuals with ID at times have alternative methods for
communication and this further inhibits identification of the actual health-related condition
by the social worker and the nursing professionals. Challenging behaviour, requirement for
the multiple-care settings, increased time in order to complete the assessment contribute
towards difficulty in delivering proper care (Bowring et al. 2017).
Taking into consideration of complexity of delivering care to the individuals with ID,
social care workers in this profession must ideally work as a part of a dedicated team member
in order to ensure that each and every ID individuals receives proper healthcare and that too
in too (Baldwin 2016). However, the social care workers are often require to deliver care
independently and are require to deliver independent decision (Baldwin 2016). The stress of
independent decision-making adds further stress to social worker creating burnout and
hampering the process of care. The emotional cost of delivering this type of care is also
cumbersome leading to workplace stress. Lack of proper training and other gap in critical
thinking and decision-making skills create problem for the healthcare work in delivering the
required care for the ID population (Bowring et al. 2017).
1.2 Significance of the research
Promoting the comprehensive health of the patients with intellectual development
disability (IDD) must be universal concern to the social care workers and nursing
professionals working in this field. People with ID have equal rights towards enjoying highest