Booklet 3: Getting Support
The approach in this booklet has been to focus on the deafblind persons’ narratives about their experiences of the counselling and aid they have received due to their disability.
We focused on the informants’ experiences of:
- Need for counselling and aid
- Desires for counselling and aid
- Experiences with counselling and aid
The concept “action competence” appears throughout the booklet. This concept focuses on how counselling and aid contribute to develop or maintain the deafblind person’s possibilities of being competent following his own goals. Action competence and the ability to cope with challenges is not something that some people have and others do not. Everybody has the potential to act in a competent manner and cope with the situations they find themselves in.
Some have more experience than others, but experience is something that builds up. That means that if you have had experience in taking the initiative, it is easier to do it again next time you are faced with a problem. Likewise, if you are used to others doing things for you, then that is the attitude you have when problems arise.
The informants’ narratives about practical aid to handle everyday issues and emotional support to achieve coherence and meaningfulness show how different they are as people and how diverse their needs of aid are.
We point out that we must distinguish what needs, desires and experiences the informants mention are due to their personal experience and their experience of coherence and meaningfulness in the surrounding world. These diverse experiences are related both to their individual experiences and to the social resources they have had at their disposal.
We can observe that the degree of the informants’ hearing disability is closely related to what individual experiences they have and to what social resources they come receive. Typically, many of the informants that are deaf from birth have difficulties creating and developing a social network. This means that the dependence on professional aid organisations is high and that this group manifests fewer experiences of expressing their needs and making demands.
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