Big Society? Disabled People with Learning Disabilities and Civil Society

“大社会”被誉为戴维·卡梅伦和联合政府的伟大构想。一些人将大社会描述为国家或经济之外遗留下来的社会碎片，另一些人则认为“大社会”使当地社区能够控制自己的生活质量。内阁府确定了大社会政策议程的三个核心层面：(1)赋予社区权力：赋予地方议会和社区更多权力，以作出决定并塑造其区域；(2)开放公共服务：使慈善机构、社会企业、私营公司和雇员所有的合作社能够竞争，为人们提供高质量的服务；(3)促进社会行动：鼓励和使各行各业的人能够更积极地参与社会，促进更多的志愿服务和慈善事业。大社会似乎正在呼吁民间社会支持他们所服务的社区。公民社会是指慈善机构、社会企业、宗教团体和志愿团体。显然，有学习障碍的残疾人严重依赖民间社会并为之作出贡献，尽管这一点往往被忽视。这项拟议的研究将与被贴上标签的人及其来自民间社会的主要合作伙伴合作，考虑他们在当前大社会背景下的地位，并特别关注英格兰的三个区域地点。我们提出了一些问题：1.今天学习障碍者在多大程度上参与了公民社会？2.削减公共资金和联合政府的新政策对与学习障碍者结盟的公民社会组织有什么持续和预期的影响？3.在当前的环境下，学习障碍者有哪些机会为大社会以及公民社会做出贡献并从中受益？4.大社会的三个层面(赋予社区权力、开放公共服务、促进社会行动)在多大程度上受到学习障碍者的三种民间社会实践(支持圈、实际就业、自我倡导)？5.从目前和正在出现的学习障碍者民间社会的例子中可以学到什么关于大社会实践的现实？6.学习障碍者如何获得(自我)倡导、就业和社区支持以及参与民间社会的机会？我们的研究将借鉴社会学、社会政策、社区心理学和残疾人的观点，帮助我们将这些问题联系起来。我们的研究将与三个公民社会研究伙伴合作--兰开夏的支持圈、布里斯托尔的真实就业、约克郡的自我倡导--以探索大社会的三个核心层面，看看它们是否(或如何)符合我们的研究伙伴和学习障碍人士的做法和抱负。首先，我们将采访主要利益相关者，包括政策制定者、律师和残疾人组织，以了解他们对大社会的看法。其次，我们将对政策文件进行纵向分析，并回顾有关大社会和公民社会的学术文献。第三，我们将与我们的三个研究伙伴合作，了解他们做了什么，以及这如何符合大社会议程。第四，我们将分析数据，第五，将这些数据反馈给我们的研究伙伴和其他人，以通过发现研讨会检查和修改我们的发现。第六，我们将在三个合作伙伴组织中安排一名‘常驻研究员’，以便为这些组织提供一些实质性的回馈。第七，我们将通过公众参与节和会议分享我们的发现。在整个项目中，我们将由一组影响专家指导和评估，他们将确保我们的研究解决关键问题，我们的调查结果和建议具有最佳实践。

'Big Society' has been hailed as David Cameron's and the Coalition Government's big idea. Some have described Big Society as the bits of society that are left over outside of the state or the economy and others see 'Big Society' as enabling local communities to take control of their own quality of lives. The Cabinet Office identified three core layers of the Big Society policy agenda: (i) Empowering communities: giving local councils and neighbourhoods more power to take decisions and shape their area; (ii) Opening up public services: enabling charities, social enterprises, private companies and employee-owned co-operatives to compete to offer people high quality services; (iii) Promoting social action: encouraging and enabling people from all walks of life to play a more active part in society, promoting more volunteering and philanthropy. Big Society appears to be calling upon civil society to support the communities they serve. Civil society refers to charities, social enterprises, faith communities and voluntary groups. Clearly, disabled people with learning disabilities rely heavily on and contribute to civil society, though this is often ignored. This proposed research will work with people so-labelled and their key partners from the civil society to consider their place in the current Big Society context, with a specific focus on three regional locations in England. We pose a number of questions: 1. To what extent are people with learning disabilities participating in civil society today? 2. What are the ongoing and anticipated impacts of the cuts in public funding and new policies of the coalition government on civil society organisations aligned to people with learning disabilities? 3. In the current climate what opportunities exist for people with learning disabilities to contribute to and benefit from the Big Society and, hence, civil society? 4. To what extent are the three layers of Big Society (empowering communities, opening up public services, promoting social action) illuminated by three civil societal practices of people with learning disabilities (circles of support, real employment, self-advocacy)? 5. What can be learnt about the realities of the Big Society in practice from current and emerging examples of civil society for people with learning disabilities? 6. How are people with learning disabilities experiencing opportunities for (self)advocacy, employment and community support and participation in civil society? Our research will draw on ideas from sociology, social policy, community psychology and disability to help us contextualise these questions. Our study will work with three civil society research partners - Circles of Support in Lancashire, Real Employment in Bristol, self-advocacy in Yorkshire - in order to explore the three core layers of the Big Society and to see if (or how) they fit with the practices and ambitions of our research partners and people with learning disabilities. First, we will interview key stakeholders including policy makers, lawyers and disabled people's organisations to access their views on Big Society. Second, we will carry out a longitudinal analysis of policy documents and review the academic literature on Big and Civil Society. Third, we will work with our three research partners to learn about what they do and how this fits with the Big Society agenda. Fourth, we will analyse the data and, fifth, feed this back to our research partners and others to check and revise our findings through findings workshops. Sixth, we will place a 'researcher in residence' into the three partner organisations in order to give something substantive back to the groups. Seventh, we will share our findings through public engagement festival and conferences. Throughout the entirety of the project we will be guided and evaluated by a group of Impact Experts who will ensure that our research tackles key issues and that our findings and recommendations have the best practice.