STR - Support Time Recovery - Activity 1.1 - Equal Opportunities

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STR / Support Time Recovery Training course

VRQ Level 2 Certificate in Mental Health

Answer to Question 1

All employees, all volunteers, all applicants for employment and anybody wanting to use the services, basically everybody.

Answer to Question 2

1. Age

A support group could be set up for all working age adults (18-65), but if the group currently contained 12 members and they were all over 55, then a person of 20 joining may experience discrimination in many ways:

The other members may discriminate against him, as they may not accept somebody so different into their group.

The service providers may discriminate against him when it comes to planning anything, they would probably choose activities more suitable to the older members as they are the majority, but that would mean that his needs were not being met.

He may self socially exclude himself from the group and discriminate against the other members due to the age difference.

2. Appearance

It is very hard for anybody to not discriminate against people due to their appearance, its human nature to make judgements of others. We all hope we do not treat people differently, but its not always easy:

A 5 foot tall, skinny white woman comes in asking for help due to having a violent partner, would you help? Of course virtually everybody would. Now what if the person said the same thing, but was a 6'8" man, black, lots of muscles, shaved head and covered in tattoos, would everybody treat that person in the same way? Their need may be the same, but that does not mean people would act the same way towards them.

3. Sex

Some women prefer to go to women only groups, some men prefer men only groups. The problem is that there may be men that would find the women's group more interesting and vice versa, then they would feel discriminated against. Its not just sex, its also sexuality. Some people are homophobic and would discriminate against an openly gay, lesbian or bisexual person in the group. Would a transsexual person be welcomed in the men's or women's group? I think that at a lot of places they would face discrimination in either group.

Answer to Question 3

1. Awareness of your members

Be careful when planning things not to use places that some people would not be able or not want to go to. A church hall could seem to be a good place for group meetings or charity events, but that would be discriminating against people with different beliefs. Pubs can be nice relaxed places for meetings, but what if somebody needs the support of the group and is a recovering alcoholic? Positive risk taking can be fine though sometimes, a person who used to have a drink problem may actually feel a real boost that they have been trusted to meet in a pub.

2. Disability awareness

Always make sure that places are as disabled friendly as possible. Not just for physical disabilities, but also for people who are deaf or blind. Sometimes its not possible to be 100% perfect, but its important to try i.e. not every drop in centre can have a full time sign language interpreter on the off chance that a deaf person may come one day. Its about trying to help, maybe getting some employees to learn some basic sign language just in case etc. Running any groups in upstairs rooms where there is no lift is going to discriminate against people with mobility problems.

3. Inclusion

Try to include everybody in as many meetings as possible. If you wanted to close down a service, then it would be easy to just invite people that support the cutbacks. It would be like having an election and only letting Conservative supporters vote! Somebody might be going through some mental distress at the time, but still invite them, as not inviting them may make them feel worse and also they may have useful input they can make. Its also worth offering to ask questions for people that feel they cannot attend, service users understand the services better than almost anybody that works in the services.

Next: STR Activity 1.2 - The Importance of Language

Please note: The contents of the Level 2 Certificate in Mental Health Students workbook are copyrighted, so I have not included any of the questions, purely my answers which are only copyrighted to me! If you have access to the workbook it will make a lot more sense to you. Please do NOT copy my answers and use them as your own, I have just put them here to give you ideas for any parts you may be stuck on.