Listen now (18 mins) | Beckett's recent death highlights what has changed and what remains the same in the four decades since the creation of Katie Beckett waivers
Very enlightening research... about what is going on in the medical system all this country. Specially regarding the way they believe what is taking care of a child.
“What I see — from the creation of institutions, to the rise of complex bureaucracies, all the way to the resistance to paying parents as caregivers — is a prejudice. Too many believe that parents are just too incompetent and society needs to create some sort of expensive third-party system to control the care of their disabled children.“
Absolutely agree. My theory is that the people who work in this sector, and their bosses, see their clients in broad terms as “the poor”, with all the prejudices and mistrust and helplessness that have traditionally been associated with this classification.
They tell themselves stories about their clients that become part of their work culture - everybody just “knows” that if you trust poor people with money, they will misuse it. They hear tragedies every day, and it is understandable that they would try to distance themselves from it somehow. (Maybe they need therapists to help them deal with second hand trauma instead, but that’s another conversation.)
What Ms. Beckett did, and what we parent providers in the temporary program have done, is prove that story wrong decisively. We took that money (we earned) and made our kids a better life, for a lot less money than the institutions could have done.
Maybe it feels like the ground is moving under their feet.
Julie Beckett’s legacy is honoring the role parents play in raising disabled children
Very enlightening research... about what is going on in the medical system all this country. Specially regarding the way they believe what is taking care of a child.
“What I see — from the creation of institutions, to the rise of complex bureaucracies, all the way to the resistance to paying parents as caregivers — is a prejudice. Too many believe that parents are just too incompetent and society needs to create some sort of expensive third-party system to control the care of their disabled children.“
Absolutely agree. My theory is that the people who work in this sector, and their bosses, see their clients in broad terms as “the poor”, with all the prejudices and mistrust and helplessness that have traditionally been associated with this classification.
They tell themselves stories about their clients that become part of their work culture - everybody just “knows” that if you trust poor people with money, they will misuse it. They hear tragedies every day, and it is understandable that they would try to distance themselves from it somehow. (Maybe they need therapists to help them deal with second hand trauma instead, but that’s another conversation.)
What Ms. Beckett did, and what we parent providers in the temporary program have done, is prove that story wrong decisively. We took that money (we earned) and made our kids a better life, for a lot less money than the institutions could have done.
Maybe it feels like the ground is moving under their feet.