Search results

In Italy, policies and services devoted to persons with disabilities, particularly those with cognitive disabilities, are still characterised by institutional segmentation and are focused on the medical model and therefore on rehabilitation, rather than on social participation, despite the formal ratification of the UNCRPD in 2009. This chapter analyses the pandemic impact by focusing on daily services, as a central service of welfare disability policy, and investigating if the pandemic has strengthened the dominant medical view, or if it has been an opportunity for a more integrated (social and health services) provision of services for people with disabilities, particularly with cognitive disabilities, and their families. Data on two regional case studies show severe differences in implementing national regulation to manage the pandemic at regional level. The difficulties experienced by both families and healthcare and social professionals are similar in the two regions, but the different organisational system concerning social and health care services outlines contexts with different rights.

Welfare policies for persons with disabilities have been strongly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and this introductory chapter provides the theoretical background to the book. Definition, data and main European policies about disabilities are outlined. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) is the key pillar of disability policies in European countries. In line with a Disability Studies perspective, COVID-19 health surveillance regime has been a challenge in the implementation process of the UNCRPD, highlighting the role of lay knowledge and community of practices in managing everyday challenges for persons with disabilities and their families, and therefore their potential role in becoming part of epistemic communities to support the policy making and implementation process of the UNCRPD.

The chapter presents the similarities and the differences between the different case studies reported in the book and suggests some conclusion on the impact of COVID-19 on policies and practices devoted to persons with cognitive disabilities from a macro, meso and micro point of view. The COVID-19 surveillance regime has made people with disabilities, and particularly with intellectual ones, even more invisible, since their rights have been consistently under-represented in the different national contexts. Persons with intellectual disabilities have been considered objects of protection and this overprotective stance turns into an increasing process of institutionalisation, segregation and familiarisation of care. The COVID-19 surveillance regime has brought into light the limits of the implementation of the UN Convention and of the EU Strategy, but the book and the emerging epistemic community, in the framework of public sociology, contribute to support the rights of all persons, with or without disabilities, in public welfare policies in Europe.

The introduction presents the pandemic context as the new sanitary surveillance regime that has even more affected persons with disabilities. This book focuses on welfare disability policy, services and practices for and with people with disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic time, examining the period between Winter 2020 and Spring 2022. A pandemic is a time when changes are accelerated, forcing the emergence of new solutions. The pandemic has called for innovation and reform in all disability welfare policies to overcome increasing and changing social needs. Despite the UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the European Strategy 2021–2030, the impact of the pandemic has been different in each country according to the features of each national policy framework and local responses. Nevertheless, the European policy framework is the context and the benchmarking reference for the analysis carried out in this work. This book develops a sociological analysis of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on policies, services and practices in several European contexts adopting a public sociology perspective. Moreover, the book looks at supportive and self-help activities implemented during the pandemic to answer the needs of the persons with disabilities. By collecting these data, the book outlines and develops the concept of a community of practices as a group of people that share a concern for something they do and learn how to do it better by interacting with each other on a regular basis. Then the structure and the methodological choices of the book are presented.

This chapter presents the findings of a participatory research project on the impact of COVID-19 and the lockdown on the lives of people with intellectual disabilities in Madrid, Spain. It provides a brief overview of the social policy framework with regards to people with disabilities, and how the government responded to the needs of people with disabilities during the pandemic. The research was conducted by seven co-researchers with intellectual disabilities, who explored how people with intellectual disabilities in Madrid had experienced the lockdown and sanitary restrictions from March 2020 to November 2021. Participants included people living at home with their families, in group homes and in residential care. The findings are contrasted with other studies on the impact of the pandemic in Spain. The pandemic revealed the precariousness of the care system, and the urgent need to shift towards a human rights compliant service provision. Our study shows that people with intellectual disabilities experienced restrictions in different aspects of their lives during a longer period, that people living in residential care were more isolated and that there is a general concern with the future. People living in congregated settings were subject to higher restrictions. Some people had become care providers to their parents, and digital skills had been essential to keep in touch with partners, friends and family. Furthermore, people expressed a desire to regain their freedom, meet new people and a concern with lack of employment.

The aim of this chapter is to discuss the complexities and ambiguities of health-related citizenship in the neoliberal era. The scholarly discussions investigating the impact of neoliberalism on health and health care have primarily focused on the power of the neoliberal system. At the same time, the capacity of patients and citizens to act against neoliberal principles has been rarely discussed. Against this backdrop, we explore the ways in which civically engaged patients and citizens cope with neoliberal governance. To do so, we focus on the Czech context, as one that is not narrowly dominated by market-driven neoliberal logic but that blurs the distinction between marketisation and social protection. More specifically, we address the following two questions: What are the reactions of citizens and patients to the imperatives of neoliberalism? What are the implications for our understanding of health-related citizenship in the neoliberal era? Our analysis is underpinned by interviews and observations of public and patient involvement in the Czech Republic. Furthermore, the data gathered from interviews were enriched through a review of available documents, including media articles, policy briefs, political statements and websites. We conclude that the neoliberal era is not only connected with the emergence of individualised, conscious citizens whose health is governed at a distance, but also with the occurrence of collectively organised, health-care conscious citizens who problematise the nature of contemporary health-care governance. We thus explain and illustrate how neoliberal ideology is imprinted on the behaviour of patients and citizens, as well as how they resist and strategically appropriate neoliberal imperatives.