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Description
This programme is a sequel to P853/07. It uses detailed interviews with Vicki Churcher to obtain her reflections and comments upon a month's residential placement as a care assistant in a home for ...the physically handicapped.
Metadata describing this Open University video programme
Module code and title: P853, The handicapped person in the community
Item code: P853; 09
First transmission date: 14-08-1975
Published: 1975
Rights Statement:
Restrictions on use:
Duration: 00:23:37
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Producer: Caroline Pick
Contributors: Vicki Churcher; Eric Miller
Publisher: BBC Open University
Keyword(s): Care-assistant; Local Authority; Physically handicapped; Professional training; Residential care; Residential home; Social relationships; Social worker; Tavistock Institute of Human Relations
Footage description: The opening sequence shows Vicki Churcher helping a handicapped patient out of bed and then washing her. In voice over Vicki explains how she has become more adept at handling the patients over the past month. Lunchtime scene at the home, with staff serving residents. Vicki interviewed at length by Dr. Eric Miller. They discuss the kinds of relationship formed by staff and patients. Vicki gives examples of problems of a personal nature that arise out of the residents' competition for attention. Vicki goes on to describe ways in which both the staff and the residents come to terms with the latter's severe physical handicaps. Shot of patients moving in wheelchairs and using walking frames. The discussion broadens out to consider the whole internal culture of the home. Vicki details the pressures placed upon both staff and patients to conform to certain norms. She provides detailed examples of the pressures and describes the way in which a routine for all becomes established. She also tells how she herself has conformed to this routine. Shots of Vicki serving hot drinks and chatting to residents. Eric Miller and Vicki then discuss further the process by which she is reduced by the monotonous and rigid routine of the work. She describes some personal effects of this that she has detected within herself. They also talk about the means adopted by care assistants in order to protect themselves from too great a degree of emotional involvement in their work. In interview Eric Miller asks Vicki for her general impressions after a month's work as a care assistant. She expresses understanding of the practical problems facing the staff, but at the same time admits to disappointment in the way the patients are governed. She talks of possible reforms in generalized terms. She expresses dissatisfaction with the work, being a trained social worker herself. Finally, she envisages expanding the role of the social worker to include contact with the patients of residential homes.
Master spool number: 6HT/71660
Production number: 00525_6080
Videofinder number: 3055
Available to public: no