Stories from the frontline: Policy, practice and the experiences of disability support workers

This research explored the experiences of Disability Support Workers (DSWs) supporting people with intellectual disability in supported accommodation in Queensland, Australia. The research also looked at how the experiences and practice of DSWs are influenced by contemporary philosophies and policy. The research was underpinned by social constructivist grounded theory and utilised semi-structured in-depth interviews with ten DSWs. Using constant comparison, three key categories emerged from the data: ‘Self’, ‘Clients’ and ‘Organisations’. ‘Self’ refers to how DSWs feel about the work they do and how their role impacts them in personal ways. The codes associated with ‘Self’ are ‘No better job’, ‘Trapped’, ‘Shift work, Work stress, Burnout’ and ‘Self-care’. The category of ‘Clients’ represents the DSWs experience with the people they support and includes ‘Perceptions of clients’, ‘Supporting clients’ and ‘Challenging behaviour’. The final code, ‘Organisations’, described the DSW experiences from an organisational perspective and includes the codes ‘Administration’, ‘Training’, ‘Management’, ‘Casualisation’ and ‘Colleagues’. The findings show that while every DSW participant was working in similar roles with the same overarching legislation and current disability policy and philosophies, their experiences were all very different. In addition to this, DSWs spoke of their employers coming from a different reality; for example, the need for DSWs to attend compulsory training when the DSWs do not find it relevant to their role or the dichotomy of needing to provide duty of care and client choice and control. Two realities was established as a substantive theory to describe the DSW experience working with people with intellectual disability in supported accommodation in Queensland, Australia. The substantive theory of two realities encapsulates the observation that while every DSW participant was working in similar roles with the same overarching legislation and current disability policy and philosophies, their experiences were all very different. The finding of two realities has significant implications on practice as this finding provides evidence that the experiences of DSWs are remarkably different, which means that DSWs provide varying levels of support to people with intellectual disability. Two realities highlights the issue that what is written as process and procedure is not always what happens in practice