Coping with special needs and disability in the British forces community in Germany : an exploration of context and parents' experiences
Year: 2010
Type: dissertation
Abstract: References and Bibliography 166'The capability of an Army unit to perform the mission for which it is organized.'(Campbell, et al. 1991, p. 23).The ability of the Army welfare and medical services to promise optimum support for family members overseas is constrained by the facilities available to them in a particular command area, e.g.Germany, Cyprus or Brunei.Where a family member has special needs, the army requires that a soldier register those needs with the chain of command in order that an assessment might be made of the suitability of the posting.'To become aware of the mechanisms which make life painful, even unliveable, does not mean to neutralize them; to bring to light the contradictions does not mean to resolve them.' (Bourdieu, cited in Baumann 2005: 1097).With this caveat in mind, whilst I did not promise any of the participants that my research could change anything in their lives, I did promise that their stories would be collected together with those of others and that common concerns would be passed on.Recommendations arising out of those concerns are made in Chapter 10 and form part of the executive summary. SummaryUsing narrative research methods, themes were identified in data from a small pilot study with two mothers of young children with Down syndrome, which suggested that a larger study would be a useful undertaking.The second, larger study was widened to take in the parents of children with a range of special needs.In all, for the second study, data were collected from a group of fifteen mothers and two fathers.The analytical process involved gaining familiarity with the data during transcription, coding the transcripts, developing conceptual categories by looking for commonality of ideas and concerns across transcripts and identifying themes.My liminal position as a researcher, support professional and fellow mother of a child with special needs in the Forces community posed some personal methodological issues.The concerns I had are discussed more fully in the following chapter.
Author: Christine Hainsworth
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1784873371