What's in a label?

A facebook friend got me thinking.

He's doing an amazingly important piece of work, as chair of Cardiff People First, systematically checking out the feel and accessibility of pubs to help other people with learning difficulties to feel more confident to go out for a pint. But for some reason, he has been made to feel that this isn't "work" because it involves drinking a pint in a pub.

As a good qualitative researcher, how else is he supposed to check out the feel of a pub? He can't exactly go in with a questionnaire or check list - but if he had gone for that approach, then I'm sure no-one would have queried whether what  he was doing was work.

It's a bit like a certain person who is pretty unimpressed that I get paid to "drink coffee and gossip", so I have great sympathy with my facebook friend.

Now I don't know if my facebook friend has even heard the phrase "qualitative research", but he's doing a bloody good job at it as far as I can see.

I could rant a bit more about social attitudes towards qualitative and quantitative. But my facebook friend has to face another challenge to the value and validity of his work on top of the one faced by all of us qualitative researchers.

Because he has a learning difficulty, the definition of "work" becomes even more complicated. He's not just caught in the "qualitative is just playing around; quantitative is the real work". He's also caught in a Kafkaesque world where labels for things done in the daytime take on strange new meanings.

Common words used for what people with learning difficulties do in the daytime are:

• work 
• volunteering
• day placement
• student/trainee

If I use those terms of someone who doesn't have a learning difficulty, I make certain assumptions.

• If someone says they "work", I assume they get paid at least the minimum wage or perhaps they are self-employed.
• If someone says they "volunteer", I assume they choose whether to do it, and can choose to go and volunteer somewhere else.
• If someone says they have a "day placement", I'm not sure what I'd assume - I'd have to ask them a bit more about what they meant and what  they did.
• If someone says they are a student or trainee, I assume they are on a time-limited course with a qualification at the end.

Now enter the world of people with a learning difficulty. A few people, against the odds, can use these words with their everyday meaning.

The majority? Well, they get special meanings, along with their special "learning difficulty" label. And no-one seems to notice.

• If someone with a learning difficulty says they "work", chances are they get £20 a week and the organisation is paid to provide the "work" placement.
• If someone with a learning difficulty says they "volunteer", chances are they have no control over where they volunteer because there is a contract between two organisations that locks the person into "volunteering" in a fixed role in a fixed organisation.
• If someone with a learning difficulty says they have a "day placement", well that means they go to some kind of day service - maybe a day centre for leisure activities or more likely a social enterprise where they do something productive. Actually, most people with a learning difficulty who have a day placement with a social enterprise will tell you they have a job or go to work - and if they are lucky they get their £20 "pay packet" each week. 
• If someone with a learning difficulty says they are a student or trainee, it's a fair bet that they will be there for years, with no clear career path, qualifications or job at the end.

I'm very glad to say there are exceptions to this.

Yesterday the Guardian wrote about a shining example of TESS in Coventry. Cynically, from the article's title, I had assumed it was about yet another scheme to get people into paid work that only ever got people unpaid work experience or volunteering. I was so pleasantly surprised to be proved wrong. Sadly, it's threatened with closure.

In Wales, our NHS has been calling a spade a spade. Project Enable (check out 10:44 of the video and Joe Powell's comment) does not pretend to provide work. What it says it provides is internships - and they use the same meaning for internship as everyone else.

And Barod itself doesn't muck about with labels. When we say we are equal directors - we are. Doesn't matter if you do/don't have a learning difficulty label - the buck stops with you if you are a director.

So, back to my Facebook friend. He has to contend with the learning difficulty label and all the meanings that brings to the word "work",  On top of that, he has to contend with the common social assumption that quantitative research is real work - whereas us qualitative researchers are slackers who just "drink coffee and gossip".

And he still keeps going. Respect!