^{The Effect of Interventions}

Introduction

Society must, of necessity, make some response to the results of devaluation, even if that response is only to ignore it.  Historically and trans-culturally, many responses have been noted to many different states of devaluation.

Roles and Interventions

Wolfensberger suggests that roles determine likely societal responses:

So that if a person or group is seen as subhuman, then the societal response will be appropriate for subhumans; if the person or group is seen as ‘sick’, then a medical and nursing approach will be mandated.

Responses to Need for Valued and Devalued Groups

Wolfensberger suggests that societal response to need is determined by the value groupings assigned to people or groups:

Cultural Considerations

Response to devalued groups will also be determined by the underlying shared cultural beliefs of the society or of the age.

If a devalued sub group is seen as being not able to benefit from high value activities, then many excuses will be found to ensure that this happens.

Examples include:

Nineteenth Century Women and education- seen as too much for the female mind- likely to cause the vapours or masculinisation.  Denied access to higher education to ‘protect’ them.

Pre-US-Civil War African Americans- seen as not fully human, and so denied many of the necessities of human life.

Current Asylum Seekers- denied basic support and food and shelter by the government as a matter of public policy.

These occurred because each of the above groups was seen as not worthy of higher level input.

Are any of these (or other examples) justified?

What we do know is that each of these examples concurred with the base desires of each society to avoid full and proper treatment to that group.  Each of these societies could have acted otherwise.

The Effect of Interventions

Societal interventions are not necessarily to the benefit of either the devalued groups, nor necessarily to the benefit of society as a whole.

For instance, previous attempts to ‘Intervene’ in the ‘problem’ of people who have not learned enough to survive easily in their society have included:

·         Killing them

·         Integrating them into the society

·         Confining them away from society

·         Educating them

·         Punishing them

·         Treating them as ill

·         Ignoring them

Not so coincidentally, the same list applies to:

·         People with Mental Health Problems

·         Criminals

·         Drug Users and Alcoholics

·         Lepers and Plague victims

·         Illegal immigrants

It could be argued that society has a limited set of responses to devalued groups of people and is likely to use some or all of them in a random manner to deal with what is seen as a social problem, whatever the real underlying cause is.

So societal response may be a matter of carrying out the old adage:

‘This is a problem

We must do something about it

‘This’ is ‘Something’

Therefore we must do ‘it’’

That is to say that any response will be appreciated by society, so long as something is being done, however inappropriate and ineffective it is at solving the original ‘problem’.

Covert and Overt Goals, Latent and Manifest Function

Organisations, societies, people may state that they are doing one thing (overt and manifest) whilst doing another (covert and latent).

For instance:

The operational policy of a semi-secure unit for people with mental health problems may talk of cure, care, meeting individuals’ needs, providing home or supporting people through crisis.  These would be overt and manifest.  However the covert goals and latent functions would be- protection of the public from this disreputable group of individuals, making people believe that society, through the Health Service, really cared, proving that politicians and worthies were doing their jobs, and providing well paid jobs for a proto-middle class group of semi-professionals.

The Effect of Recent and Current Societal Interventions

Only fifty years ago we had:

·         Large Mental Hospitals full of devalued people

·         Large Mental Handicap Hospitals and Colonies

·         Orphanages, Magdalene Houses, and a High rate of Single mothers giving up children for adoption

·         Small Prison population

·         Few Night Shelters or Homeless Hostels

·         Borstals and Special Schools

·         Capital and Corporal Punishment

·         Minimal societal problems with illegal drugs

·         No recognition of high levels of alcohol abuse

Currently we have:

·         Care in Community for those with Mental Health Problems and a massive shortage of secure hospital accommodation for those with mental health problems who present a threat to themselves or others.

·         Group Home and individual living projects for people with developmental disabilities.

·         Relatively few Childrens’ Homes

·         Minimal stigma on unmarried motherhood

·         High Prison population

·         Many Night Shelters and Homeless Hostels

·         Detention centres and secure units

·         No Capital or corporal punishment

·         Massive problems with illicit drugs

·         Medicalisation of alcoholism

All of this is now changed within two generations, although the underlying problem is still very similar- what do we do with those unvalued by society?

Whether any of these interventions were truly beneficial to the individual or society is open to debate.  Whether there has been any real improvement over the whole field of intervention with the devalued is also open to debate.

How Agencies and Individuals Cause or Collude with This

Funding

If money is provided, services will follow, whether they are effective or not. 

Political Necessity

If a problem is identified and is seen as a potential threat to those holding power, then action will be taken, however inappropriate.

Fashion

The latest ‘model’ of care/action/response will be followed despite the real needs of the people in the devalued groups.

Academia

Will maintain a hold on the current paradigm of response, defending it against all comers until the paradigm changes, whence they will support the new paradigm, forgetting their adherence to the old.

Job Maintenance

Jobs for the semi-professional ‘caring/curing/containing’ classes will be maintained, whether or not this is beneficial to the devalued groups.

Summary

Societal response is not particularly likely to be helpful to the lowly by accident and is unlikely to be helpful by design.  Societal response is very likely to be detrimental to the lowly unless full account is taken of the real human needs of the lowly.