Guest editorial

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/14668203200300019
Date01 September 2003
Published date01 September 2003
Pages4-5
AuthorHilary Brown
Subject MatterHealth & social care,Sociology
4© Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) Limited The Journal of Adult Protection Volume 5 Issue 3 • September 2003
Guest editorial
with the social model of disability and mental
ill-health, and which has the advantage of
naming things that can be changed. He argues
that the bias towards seeing vulnerability
solely in terms of a person’s impairment leads
to victim-blaming and plays into negative
portrayals of people with learning difficulties
based on ‘inabilities, limitations and deficits’.
It is very appropriate that an
organisational profile of Respond should
feature in this issue and that the work of Al
Corbett and his colleagues should be
acknowledged. Too much of the work of
‘adult protection’ has focused on case finding,
identification and investigation to the
detriment of providing experiences and
support geared to help people to recover and
regain their confidence. At present the system
is very ‘front loaded’ and there are many
barriers facing people with learning
difficulties who wish to access therapeutic
services when they have suffered abuse,
and/or services which respectfully help those
who are at risk of offending. Corbett’s vision
of leaving people in states of ‘lifelong
victimhood’ for want of these therapeutic
resources is a stark one and the case study he
presents speaks to the insight and skilled
patience required to create an effective and
genuine therapeutic alliance.
Michelle McCarthy has also made an
enormous contribution to this area of work
and specifically to the acknowledgment of the
many disadvantages experienced by women
with learning difculties as they seek to
establish sexual lives for themselves and of
It is a pleasure to write the editorial for this
issue on the sexual abuse of people with
learning difficulties. It is now 14 years since
Ann Craft and I organised the first UK
national conference on this subject at the old
King’s Fund in Camden, a conference which
marked the re-emergence of this issue into
what Guy Wishart has called the second wave
of public and professional awareness. The
issue is as salient now as it was then. Indeed
the importance of striking the right balance
between empowering people to lead the
sexual lives that they want while protecting
them from exploitation and abuse is key to
sections of the current legislation being
debated through parliament as this issue goes
to press.
The first paper, by Tarrant, provides a clear
account of the factors that can lead to
vulnerability and the barriers that stand in the
way of acknowledgment and appropriate
‘protection’ and/or sanctions. She provides a
very clear account of the shortcomings of the
current legislative framework and sets out the
rationale for Mencap’s campaigning proposals
for far-reaching change to the law and to
courtroom procedures.
Wishart follows with a thought-provoking
paper on the nature of this ‘vulnerability’ and
urges practitioners and researchers to be
cautious of simplistic assumptions that focus
on the person’s impairment instead of
examining important social barriers,
inequalities and environmental factors. He
sets out the argument for a more ‘social’
model of vulnerability, which has parallels

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