Concepts of Disability, Illness, and Behavior in Health and Social Care

This report discusses the concepts of disability, illness, and behavior in relation to health and social care service users. It explores how perception of specific needs has changed over time and the impact of legislation, social policy, and culture on the availability of services for individuals with specific needs.

USN

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................3
Concepts of disability, illness and behaviour in relation to health and social care service users3
How perception of specific needs have changed over time.........................................................4
Impact of legislation, social policy and culture on ways that services are made available for
individual with specific needs.....................................................................................................5
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................5
Care needs of individual with specific needs..............................................................................5
Current system for supporting individuals with specific needs...................................................7
Evaluation of Services available in chosen locality for individuals with specific needs............7
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................8
Approaches and interventions available to support individual with specific needs....................8
Effectiveness of Intervention Needs for Individual with specific needs.....................................9
Potential Impact of Emerging development on support for individual with specific need.......10
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................11
Different Concepts of Challenging behaviour...........................................................................11
Potential impact of challenging behaviour on health and social care organisation...................11
Strategies for working with challenging behaviours.................................................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................13
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15

INTRODUCTION
Disability can be defined as a condition which restrict individual with the condition to do
certain activities and interact with their surroundings. These conditions and impairments are of
various types usually these are cognitive, developmental, mental, intellectual sensory and
physical or combination of these. Disabilities and impairment in individual can be from birth or
these can occur in lifetime of individual. An illness is a disease or period in which individual
remain sick affecting their mind and body. This report will discuss about illness, disability and
behaviour in relation to health and care service users. Discussion will also include the ways and
services of health and care system to support individuals with specific needs. Later report will
discuss about interventions and approaches that are available for support of people with specific
needs along with effectiveness of these intervention strategies for individuals with specific
needs. This will be followed by discussion about challenging behaviour and its concepts and
potential impact of challenging behaviour on health and care services.
TASK 1
Concepts of disability, illness and behaviour in relation to health and social care service users
Health: As per the (World Health Organization, 2016) Health can be defined as a state of
being free from illness and any other diseases. An individual who is free from illness and feel
healthy and find himself able to perform all activities in an effective manner without feeling tired
is known as fit person . On the other hand, illness refers an unhealthy condition and a state in
which people find difficulties in performing their daily routine functions, tired all the time
without doing anything. An individual with poor health and diseases is known as ill person. So,
overall it can be said that health and illness are opposite state because in illness, diseases and
poor health prevent an individual from performing function in a normal manner and in a healthy
condition, people find easier to perform any kind of function and also be happy.
As per the, behaviour refers a way of performing, reacting and acting by people. It
differs and varies person to person All people have different ways of reacting, performing
functions and acting and this way of behaving is known as their behaviour. In the context of
disability it can be said that it is a physical and mental condition of an individual which limits

their movements as well as senses. It is one of the common definition of disability but there are
several types of disability. It refers lack of ability of an individual as compare to a normal person
which reduces their capacity for social interaction, communication with others etc. For
understanding this condition it can be understood with its 2 standards which are primary and
secondary. In primary type of disability, people with disability or lack of physical continuing
conditions restrict them to perform their daily activities. Examples of this type is diabetes and
other disease (Davis, 2016). But in secondary type of disability, people face problems in
performing their daily activities due to constant health condition and it reduces their daily
activities. For example: motor neurone disease.
How perception of specific needs have changed over time
Perception of people towards disability have changed over time and it varies from
country to country, person to person. Some cultural factors affect perception of people towards
disability. There are some people of culture whose perception towards disabled people show that
their societal perception towards this is neither comparable nor static.
Changes in perception: There were a time of Victorian when disabled people were kept
in asylum and also isolated as they were being considered special and different people than
normal people ad they were not being treated in an effective and fair manner. This attitude
towards people with disabled affected their behaviors in a negative manner and this behaviour of
society made situations and their conditions worsened. But in 21st century, several changes
occurred and made which changed perception and behaviors of societies towards disabled
person. Some factors and changes in system and laws were implementation and creation of
equality act and education to people for making them aware about importance of treating all
people with fair and equal manner (Baena, 2017). Introduction of equality act protects disabled
people with unfair treatment and negative behaviors by societies which helped them out in
improving their condition as well.
But still it can be said that treatment for disabled people are not same around the world
and it is because of lack of resources and still having negative behaviors of people. So, for
eliminating this negative behaviour and providing fair and special treatment to disabled people.
Some other legislations were developed and introduced such as human rights act 1998, anti
discrimination act and others. So, overall it can be said that development and introduction of
laws changed perception and behaviors of people towards disability.

Impact of legislation, social policy and culture on ways that services are made available for
individual with specific needs
Before discussing different acts and legislation it is important to understand that what is
legislation along with their reasons of developing. So, in this context it can be said that it is an
act of parliament which is being developed for making changes in behaviors and perception of
people and make them positive. It is the one which has made several changes in health and social
care services and improved health of people. There are several legislations which have made
several changes include:
Equality act 2010: It is one of the main and effective act which protects people against unfair
treatment by people. Along with same kind of legislation like anti-discrimination act,
employment equality regulation, human rights and others it protects rights of disabled people and
by making use of it they can get equal and fair treatment by people. It has made effective
changes and improvement in health and social care services (Fell and Dyban, 2017.).
Social care act 2008: This act is being developed for improving health and social care services
and improving quality of health of people by providing inspection and registration of health care
services. It also makes sure safety for service users (Health and Social Care Act 2008, 2016). It
also Strengthens clinical governance as well as reforms the system of professional regulation in
order to make sure it earns and sustains the confidence of patients, professionals and Parliament.
Data protection act 2018: Advancement of technology has brought several changes but along
with positive changes it is creating some problems related to safety of data and informations. So,
for making people sure that their data and informations are safe and protected, this legislation is
being developed. It supports UK businesses through changes and makes sure that all businesses
are prepared for the future.
All legislations have make sure that Hannah was given all effective treatment and support
as she wanted to become free and enjoy liberty. In this regard, disability trust supported her by
encouraging her and boosting her confidence.
TASK 2
Care needs of individual with specific needs
Social and care needs is a not limited to one specific care as it is a combination or
mixture of some different care such as: emotional, financial, physical and practical needs to those

who require to manage their lives and becoming independent. Some people like older people,
people with disability, illness and others are required special needs and care. All types of needs
and care are being discussed such as:
As per the Maslow's hierarchy needs all needs can be discussed in an effective manner:
Physical: As per the Maslow's hierarchy of needs it is known as the most important and
level 1 needs which are required by people for living and surviving. Examples of such needs
include: food, air, water, oxygen and shelter. People with disability and illness do not seek for
socializing and others needs as for living and improving their health they only need physical
needs (Yung, Conejos and Chan, 2016).
Social and safety needs: After satisfying physical needs, when people get all physical
needs they seek for safety and social needs. It makes them feel that they are safe in this world
from personal threats and accidents as well. When they become fear free of such dangers then
they are more likely to live their life in an effective manner with freedom.
Emotional needs: There are several people who seek for belonging and emotional needs
as they feel that by interacting with people, friends and family members they can enjoy their
lives and they can share their feelings with them. Nowadays in this competition era, people
required a feeling of be alright and also knowing that societies accept them as they are.
Self-esteem needs: It is higher level of needs as all people do not have requirement of
this need. Some people who are at higher post and have satisfied all needs they have a need to
feel valuable and they seek respect from others. It can be gain and satisfied with confidence,
achievement of goals and independence.
In the context of Hannah case it is stated that she required special needs due to Cerebral
Palsy and she received help from SEN which make her able to get education. It is also identified
that she has an effective and positive mindset by which she had a desire of interacting with
people as well as becoming dependent. By satisfying all needs she met her safety needs and
improve health.
So, overall it can be said that by satisfying all needs, health of people can be improved and
quality of health also can be measured.

Current system for supporting individuals with specific needs
There are mainly 2 types of system which are providing their services to people such as: non-
governmental system, national health service, social care services. In the context of non-
governmental system it can be said that organizations in this system are funded by governments
and donations from different companies such as: SEN, Age UK etc.
SEN: It is one of the main and effective systems which is responsible for making sure that all
people are getting educational, health and care services. For this it provides advice to local
authorities, educational institutes for making them able to provide effective services to people.
One of the main purposes of this is to develop people by providing educational opportunity to all
children and also make sure that parents of children are aware about it. By providing advice and
suggestions to authorities and educational institutes it seeks a report that all people have access
to services (Sipilä, 2019).
Social care services: Police force is one of the best examples of social care services or
organization which is mainly responsible for protecting societies from danger and attacks. Social
workers in statutory system perform functions for protecting vulnerable adults and children. In
addition, in this context of social care organizations, it can be said that education system work
for improving skills of people and developing children and families by making them aware about
current problems and ways to solve them.
Evaluation of Services available in chosen locality for individuals with specific needs
Specific needs can be defined as needs which are required to individuals with disabilities,
these needs can cope them in dealing with situations. Autism is one of the situation in which
individuals have special needs (Lewis, Wheeler and Carter, 2017). People with this condition are
not able to interact in a social setting and some of them have learning disability ad this is the
reason that they have special needs. Services that are available for autistic individuals in London
borough are;
In context of London borough several societies are working to ensure that autistic people can live
a normal and happy life. They are helped to get normal life through education, employment and
all other required resources.

Care homes and health and social care organisations are also working on providing required
support to autistic people in London borough (Mason and et.al., 2019). Types of support
provided to them are of different type including, residential home, one-to-one support, centres,
support in home and education. This allows autistic people to live normal happy life and also
ensures that people with severe condition can improve their health.
TASK 3
Approaches and interventions available to support individual with specific needs
Approaches refer to ways to deal with situations and conditions. In this context
approaches refer to ways that are available to deal with individual with specific needs (Schwartz,
and et.al., 2020).
Intervention refers to action that is taken to improve condition in this context, actions that
can be taken to improve conditions of individual with specific needs (Akhbari Ziegler, Dirks and
Hadders-Algra, 2019).
The specific condition selected for this purpose is Autism. This is a condition based on
the developmental disorder and is characterised by individuals having difficulty in social
interaction and communication this also includes restrictive and repetitive behaviour.
Approaches available to support for individuals with specific needs in London borough are;
Person- Centred Planning
Person centred planning is a way of helping individual with specific needs to plan their
life and support, this approach of supporting involves what is important for the person (Brady
and et.al., 2016). Key features of this approach are-
 The individual remains at the centre of the planning
 Family and friends of the person are part of the planning for individual
 This planning is based on what is important for the individual and in future and what
support they need

Clinical Approach
This is a strict approach and this is used in more critical condition of the autism.
Interventions available to support are;
Counselling
This is an intervention in which specialist help and support individual with specific need.
This supports in areas of coping strategies, relaxation techniques and relationship issues.
SPELL (Structure, positive, empathy, low arousal and links)
This intervention includes understanding and responding to needs of individuals with
specific needs. This focuses on above mentioned five principles and changes the environment so
that specific needs of the individual can be met.
These are approaches that are available at London borough and all the institutions and care
centre use these approaches and interventions to support people with autism (Akhbari Ziegler,
Dirks and Hadders-Algra, 2019).
Person-centred approach has also been used with Hannah and this is the result that she is part of
the community of her choice and her disabilities are not restraining her to do anything she wish
to do.
Effectiveness of Intervention Needs for Individual with specific needs
The interventions are effective as case of Hannah person centred approach proved to be a
success and she focused on what she wants to and achieve in her life. She lived a life that she
would have managed to live otherwise in absence of any disability. Among interventions
discussed above to treat and deal with autism one is counselling. This is an effective approach as
this enables individual with specific condition autism to share their feelings and thoughts with
counsellor which they are not able to share otherwise (Bellesi and et.al., 2016). Counsellors are
experts and know what they can do to develop confidence in the individuals with specific
condition this is one of the important reasons which make counselling an effective intervention
method that counsellors are able to develop confidence in individuals with specific needs. This is
important as most of the times such individuals are not able to socially interact and restrain

themselves from social interaction. In such case counsellor can ensure that individuals with
specific needs make interaction with them and share what they feel and what restrain them to
socially interact. This also help counsellors in making accurate judgement about the condition of
the individual with specific needs and what can be done to support the individual with specific
need to improve their condition.
Another intervention is SPELL framework which stands for structure, positive approach,
empathy, low arousal and links. This contains five elements for intervention to treat individual
with specific needs. Structure includes that for people with autism structured environment and
surroundings are created using visual information. This includes personal autonomy and
reducing dependence. Positive approach includes that self confidence and self esteem is
established and reinforced in the individual with specific needs and these are done through
natural strength, interest and abilities. Hannah is one of the best example for this as she took her
natural strength in positive way (Paynter and et.al., 2019). Empathy includes that carer stands at
the place of individual to understand what they think and feel. Low arousal ensures that
environment and surroundings reduces anxiety and aid concentration. Links involves that
parents, advocates and autistic people are seen as partners and are important to share information
with. This is an effective intervention because this covers several areas for the treatment of
autistic individual.
Potential Impact of Emerging development on support for individual with specific need
Development are ongoing activity in every field and in relation with support of individual
with specific needs development are being carried out (Callahan and et.al., 2017). Development
takes place in different aspect which includes technological development, medical field,
educational field and social development. Potential impact of the emerging development in this
area are;
Technological development and specially related to social media and digital media can be
effectively used to support individuals with autism. This is because such individual are not able
to make interaction in social setting and have difficulty in doing so and these individuals can
learn these skills through digital media. This is because this excludes real interaction but enables
individual to interact making possible that individual do not feel anxiety in interacting. Though
digital media is making negative impact on social interaction of individual but this is making

positive and effective impact on individuals with autism (Begoli, DeFalco and Ogle, 2018).
Medical development will make impact on quality of diagnosis of autism and improve treatment
which is done through medication for the specific conditions as this mainly happens in severe
condition.
TASK 4
Different Concepts of Challenging behaviour
Challenging behaviour can be defined as behaviour of individual that is culturally
abnormal behaviour of intensity, frequency and duration. This behaviour might endanger
physical safety of themselves or others. This behaviour may also involve behaviour which is
likely to seriously limit the access to the use of community facilities (Brunero and Lamont,
2020). Though challenging behaviour can be displayed by anyone these are more often shown by
individuals with learning disabilities, with mental health needs and those with dementia.
Different type of concepts have been developed regarding challenging behaviour of individual.
Pre-scientific concept of challenging behaviours considers that soul of individual is driving force
behind behaviour of individual. This considered that challenging behaviour of individuals are
result of possession by spirit, and behaviour being an evitable part of person’s learning disability.
In this concepts treatment was done through acupuncture, herbal remedies and meditation.
Scientific concept of challenging behaviour considers that it is result of pain, medication and
need of sensory stimulation. Mentally challenged conditions can also lead to occurrence of
challenging behaviour.
Social construction concept of challenging behaviour considers that all behaviours happen in
social context (Rose and Nelson, 2018). And meaning of the behaviour depends on the
understanding and perception of others. Some of the areas that are covered in this includes
general cultural norms and values, understanding and expectation of situation etc.
Potential impact of challenging behaviour on health and social care organisation
Challenging behaviour has several impact on the health and social care organisation.
Challenging behaviour of individual comes with several types of threats that individual possess

to themselves and others (Marleau and et.al., 2019). This is harming physically is most
complicated impact that challenging behaviour of individuals. Health and social care
organisations gives service to several patients and users and in such case there are many users of
the service with similar symptoms and this becomes important that challenging behaviour of one
individual does not impact. This is many times important that patients’ and service users are
socialised with others in the facility in case their symptoms and condition is regular and static
and not severe. In such case immediate and unpredicted occurrence of challenging behaviour
possess serious threats for other patients and service users in the facility.
This is not limited to impact on other patients this has important impact on service providers as
well. This is because they are supposed to take care of service users and immediate and
unpredicted occurrence of challenging behaviour possesses threat for staff members of the health
and social care organisation. In case service providers and members of staff are aware about the
regular and periodic occurrence of challenging behaviour of patient and service users, in such
case they are required to be more careful. Service providers and members of the health and social
care organisation are required to treat such patients with more care and diligence. This also
requires adopting a different pattern of service so that members can deal with challenging
behaviour ensuring that patient does not harm them and other users in the organisation as well.
Followed by this one more impact that challenging behaviour can have on health and social care
organisation is that they are required to constantly monitor activities and behaviour of such
individuals (Bowring, Painter and Hastings, 2019). This is also required that any object through
which patients and users can harm themselves and others are kept out of their reach. Being extra
careful and aware all the time is also an important impact that users with challenging behaviour
can make on the organisation.
Strategies for working with challenging behaviours
Working with challenging behaviours requires adopting accurate strategies so that
challenging behaviour of one does not harm them and others. Few strategies for this are;
Teaching positive behaviour
This means that individual with challenging behaviour requires to teach positive
behaviour (Adams and et.al., 2017). This means that rather than trying for completely removing

unwanted behaviour it is important that positive behaviour should be facilitated for that
individual. This means identifying what is a good behaviour and reinforcing and facilitating good
and positive behaviour in the individual through positive means. Benefits of this strategy is that
once developed and taught positive behaviour to the individual can reduce the possibility of
further occurrence of challenging behaviour. Disadvantage of this is that this is not suitable for
individual having severe mental condition that causes challenging behaviour. This is also not
suitable for individuals with sudden and unpredicted occurrence of challenging behaviour. One
of the recommendation for this is that behaviour should be positively reinforced means fiving
individual what they want in exchange of positively behaving.
Shared decision making
This is another strategy for working with challenging behaviour. This involves that
individual with challenging behaviour is helped in choosing the strategy that will help them in
achieving their goals. This requires identifying and analysing capability of the individual in
making decision and participating in decision making (Osgood, 2019). This has benefits that
supporter will not require to convince and insist individual to stick to any particular behaviour
and bring changes in their behaviour. Disadvantage of this strategy is that this can be applied
only when individual is capable of making and participating in decision making.
CONCLUSION
On the basis of above discussion it can be concluded that special needs are needs of
people who are unable to cope with regular situations. This requires them extra assistance and
this is known as special needs. The report discussed about several aspects of special needs and
started with discussion of disability, illness and behaviour in context of health and social care
services. All these are different but in context of health and social care these are all situations in
which user of the service of health and social care facility requires special assistance. This report
discussed about care needs of individuals with special needs as they are treated and cared with
special attention and diligence. Presently several support systems are also available through
which individuals and people with special needs can be supported. Later interventions and
approaches were also discussed which can be used to treat and support individuals and people
with special needs this was followed by the concepts and discussion of challenging behaviour.

This is another situation that require individual to get special assistance in order to reduce its
negative impact on the individuals themselves and also on the health and social care where they
are cared.

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