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A lack of tact by some professionals has a huge effect on the dignity of disabled people, says Clare Evans Well, how would you like to be described? "Needing assistance to eat" or a "feeder"? The lack of sensitivity by professionals in the ways they describe aspects of their work with disabled people like me not only affects our dignity but also how we feel about ourselves. The effect on our self-esteem is a big barrier to the empowerment of many disabled people caught in the care system and yet seldom is it picked up and checked by managers as inappropriate language.


For several years, I have needed assistance to transfer from my wheelchair to the toilet seat. Yet it had seemed just another way I had to accept assistance daily without it affecting how I felt about myself as a person. That was until, in my hearing, a care worker spoke to my staff as having come "to toilet" me, despite it being only one of several tasks she helped me with in my lunch hour at my work place.

It is difficult to feel and act like a senior manager when you and your colleagues hear you being referred to in such a passive way. Is it surprising that the only way many of us can break from the care culture and live independent lives in the community is by employing directly our own personal assistants?

Social planners and policy makers too use social care jargon carelessly even when consulting users collectively. So we had to point out it was insulting to describe users "at the heavy end" when they had higher support needs than others. It is encouraging at least that older people in hospital being failed by the social care system are no longer referred to routinely as "bed blockers" but as examples of "delayed discharge".

Language defines the way we think so it can affect our attitudes collectively. In general, society has moved beyond offensive language such as "cripple" and "spastic" but there is a tendency for the language of the tragedy model to creep into common usage - so "wheelchair user" becomes "wheelchair-bound" and we "suffer bravely" as "the victim" of our impairments.


So often attitudes of low expectations of disabled people are scarcely hidden when we, or rather our supporters, are spoken to - so, for example, "does he/she take sugar?" is a common occurrence. Questions addressed only to our supporters are frequent even when we shop using our own credit cards! My husband's usual reply, "why don't you ask her?" causes confusion.

As we enter 2003, the European Year of Disabled People, can we all be sensitive to the use of appropriate language and use terms by which we ourselves collectively as disabled people like to be described? We are people united by our own common experience of discrimination and oppression but have various impairments - physical, sensory, hearing and visual impairments, learning difficulties or are users of the mental health service.

Clare Evans is a disabled person in Wiltshire, active in the local organisation of disabled people and works full-time as a manager of a national project.