Health and Social Care Provisions for People with Disabilities in Schools

Running head: HEALTH CARE
Health care
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

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People with disabilities are confronted with many frequent barriers and challenges that
have a great impact on their life. Apart from physical barriers, normal functioning of people with
disability is affected because of attitudinal, social, communication and policy related barriers
(Barton 2016). The main advantage of health and social care provisions for people with disability
is that they help such people identify their needs and remove barriers that act as a roadblock in
their success. Recent disability studies give insight into care models that are necessary to
empower these people. This essay mainly aims to analyze disability studies and apply health and
social care provisions for people with disabilities particularly in schools. The essay also gives an
insight into the implementation of alternative and augmentative communication (AAC) in school
setting and how it aids in supporting people with disability.
In UK, around 13.3 million people are living with disability. However, only 17% of them
were born with disabilities. The rest of them have acquired disability later on in life. The review
regarding families with disable children has revealed that there are about 8 00, 000 children
under 16 living with disability. Common disabilities found in these children include social and
behavioural issues, learning problem, physical issues and fatigue (Disabled Living Foundation
2017). Some of the relevant health and social care providers that look to examine the difficulties
in the life of these people include home services, vocational rehabilitation services, educational
services, client assistance program and many other specialized programs. The common goal of
all of these services is assisting people with disabilities to achieve their maximum level of
independence and equally participate in society (Jackson et al. 2018). However, their action and
strategies to achieve the goal differs.
The review of reports and research on related providers have revealed that that many
issues affects delivery of these services and realization of empowering goals. For example, a

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systematic review on barriers and facilitators of rehabilitation service for people with physical
disability has revealed about challenges in realizing their goals. The most common barriers were
lack of application of identification of needs of disable people, lack of resource for providing
support and lack of community awareness. Communication barriers were also identified thus
indicating lack of appropriate skills for empowerment. The analysis of the cause revealed that
lack of client-centered approach was the main reason behind challenges (Mlenzana et al. 2013).
Clients were dissatisfied when health professionals focussed only on their disabilities and not
health. The research gave implications for the development of patient-centered service provision
models for people with disability.
In the area of educational services for people with disability, another disability study has
revealed that young people with developmental disabilities have received support services like
counselling, supervised social activities and support group services to help them overcome
learning difficulties. The challenges confronted for this type of service providers included lack of
recognition of learning disabilities and lack of training to understand complexities of disability
disorders (Barnhill, 2016). Review of these disability studies reveals that lack of preparation and
up-gradation of skills related to disability service is the major reason for challenges in delivery of
empowering services. Due to the diversity of empowering services, focussing on one single
service would help to understand this is applied for people with disability. The essay further
proceeds with the discussion on application of health and social care service provision for people
with disabilities in schools.
For children and young people with disability, school is an important service area for
application of health and social care provisions. Schools offering supporting to children with
different forms of disability mainly focus on optimal development of these children. Student

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support groups mainly work in these schools to support children with additional learning needs.
They play a critical role in identify child’s need, adjusting to the curriculum, evaluating child’s
need and develop individual learning plan. Other than support groups, these schools are
focussing on empowerment of people with disability by engaging in education support funding.
These funds are brought to effective use by recruiting specialist staffs and providing specialist
equipment for people with disability (Better Health 2015). Critical evaluation of disability
studies in this area would help to understand the utility of health and social care provisions for
disabled children in schools and how theory is applied in this area.
Disability studies done in the area of children with learning difficulties gives an insight
into the utility and weakness of health and social provisions for the group. Autism is one of the
common disability that affects health and developmental needs of children and young people.
The review of provisions of educational support for these children main shows that many schools
rely on funding model that focus on early intervention, respecting parental choice, taking account
of disadvantage and applying existing education and support resources to care (O’Connor et al.
2015). This type of funding model is relevant with the theoretical principles of the social model
of disability. Application of the social model is considered advantageous for people with
disability as it view disability as an interaction between the people living with impairment and
their environment along with different social, physical, communication and attitudinal barriers
(Owens, 2015). Hence, by considering these factors, the model increases the likelihood of
fulfilling needs of disable people and supports them to equally participate in society. To ensure
that support group team in schools of UK apply the social model in their service, it is essential to
bring certain change to the care provisions in schools in UK. These includes building skills of
teachers in relation to application of social model, promoting accountability and developing